Students had the opportunity to compete in the annual Poetry Out Loud Competition on Thursday, January 17 during 2nd period. This competition is a nationwide event in which students choose a poem from the official website to memorize and read aloud, telling each story using compelling annunciation and intense emotions. Each contestant worked very hard, practicing and memorizing, and during the competition everyone showed immense skill and talent.

However, only one school winner can advance to the next round, the regional competition in St. Charles. The school champion was Amelia Truong, Sharayu Shrinivas coming in second place as Amelia’s runner-up.

Amelia will go on to compete in regionals during February. If she wins there she will then continue onto state, competing at Jefferson city. Last year’s champion, Maggie Poronto, went onto state but did not get any further.

Speakers have a database from over 900 poems from which to choose, from which they will pick one to three poems depending on the level of competition. At school level speakers only need one poem. After that point however, they will need three different poems.

“I was on youtube watching other performances and then I saw this lady perform this one that was also about math called undivided attention,” Truong decided that what she read had to be about math. That led to finding NUMBERS by Mary Cornish.

“Funny store, I waited until last minute.” Truong laughed. “When I first got it I was like, I’m gonna read it a ton, and then I just, didn’t.” Truong started off reading it to herself or her desk, and then as she ran into friends she would ask, “Can I recite this poem to you real quick?”

Truong was “pretty confident in [herself] that [she] was going to win the school competition.” “I was sitting there like, yeah, okay, I’ve got this. I’ve gone over it plenty, recited it a ton. I got this.”

To keep up to date with Truongs place in the competition, visit the links below.

Poetry Phenome