On Tuesday, December 20, 11 MWHS students gathered in the Black Box Theater on C floor to compete in the annual Poetry Out Loud competition, a national poetry recitation competition for high school students. The competition occurs in several stages: students first compete at the classroom level, move on to schoolwide, and then regional, state and national levels.
Diya Mangatt is the first place winner of the schoolwide competition and Yaheli Cruz placed second. They will represent M-W at the regional level at SUNY New Paltz in February for the chance to go to the state competition in New York City in March. Third place winner, Jules Johannemann, will serve as alternate.
This year, M-W was fortunate to host three online workshops led by a Poetry Out Loud teaching artist, where classroom-level winners were able to work on developing their voices as poets and performers as they prepared for the schoolwide competition.
Judges Kerri Marino, Kerry Baird and Rebecca Stewart scored performers based on physical presence, voice and articulation, dramatic appropriateness, evidence of understanding, and overall performance. In addition, Mark Filie served as accuracy judge in order to evaluate students' ability to memorize their poems and perform them exactly as they were written.
Each student was required to recite two poems from the Poetry Out Loud anthology (spanning from pre-20th century to contemporary) at the schoolwide competition. Students' scores from rounds one and two were combined with their accuracy scores in order to determine winners!
Poetry Out Loud is an amazing opportunity for students who love poetry and love performing. It offers them a chance to connect with all kinds of poetry and poets. It is an absolute joy watching M-W students support one another every year. Congratulations to our winners, and best of luck at New Paltz and beyond!
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