Monday, December 14, 2015 by Nayeli Selkis
Poetry Out Loud is a national contest in which students compete against each other by reciting poems from memory. According to its website, Poetry Out Loud launched in 2006 and has now grown to involve millions of students. The contest is set up like a spelling bee where the winner from each school-wide competition moves on to the next round and could eventually make it to the finals in Washington, D.C.
This will be Saratoga Springs High School’s fifth year in the contest, with one student, Liam McKenna, now a senior, having made it to the finals in 2013 as a freshman. Liam recounts his time in the nation’s capital and the intimidating but friendly atmosphere as a truly amazing experience. An impromptu poetry reading after the competition was finished was when he realized that this really was “a wonderful group of people.”
Each teacher whose classroom is participating sends one winner to compete in the school-wide competition.
“This contest promotes the idea of poetry as a spoken art… it’s not meant to be read its meant to be listened to and that memorizing something of worth can stick with you and somehow on a subconscious level change something within you,” said English teacher Damian Ubriaco. He said the competition is a great way to experience poetry in a whole new way, revive a fading art form and support students in our school.
Students can come to Café Lena on December 14th at 7:00 p.m. to see our school-wide Poetry Out Loud competition.