As the lights dimmed in the auditorium so did the voices of the students there to watch AHS’s first Poetry Out Loud competition. Poetry Out Loud is a national recitation competition that has recently come to AHS. On Dec. 15, many students saw the final product: five students reciting two poems each to an almost full room. Participating students were senior Eyob Ayalew, junior Yesenia Blount, sophomore Laura Hackfeld, senior Allie Norris and senior Lucy Webb.

“Overall I think it was really well put together. The readers really demonstrated bravery considering the length of the poems and the audience they were presenting to,” sophomore Madeline de Mello said.

English teachers Stefanie Guffey and Kathleen Dion helped to bring the competition to AHS and help the students throughout their journey.

The five students had just a few weeks to choose, memorize and interpret their poems. Their goal was to win the school competition and to help motivate them, there was cash prize of $100 for the winner.

“[I participated because] I’m an actress and I thought that would make interpreting poems pretty easy,” Hackfeld said.

“I believe it is important to read poetry out loud,” Webb said.

The performers were judged by three well-known AHS teachers; English teachers Samantha Spinney and Julia Hanneman and social studies teacher John Hawes. According to the Poetry Out Loud website, the participants were being judged on physical presence, voice and articulation, dramatic appropriateness, level of difficulty, evidence of understanding and overall performance. The evaluation sheet gave judges the ability to award up to six points for each category.

The students presented their poems during both flexes to their peers. Because it was the first competition, the performance during R1 flex was cut short because of time issues. However, the next flex the performances went smoothly and ended with a minute to spare. Most classes that came to watch were English classes whose teachers “wanted us to understand that poetry is important” de Mello said.

Ayalew was the first performer in both rounds and also recited the longest poems. Although he stumbled a little during the second round he was able to recover graciously and continue with his performance. On the contrary, Blount had much shorter poems but used her soft voice to bring power to her performance. Hackfeld was one of the loudest, as she smoothly transitioned from a tone of happiness to sadness in both of her poems. Norris used not only her voice, but also her arms. Her lines were delivered with hand gestures that added finesse to her performance. Finally, Webb, the eventual winner, used her high soft voice and her whole body to enhance her performance and even used an accent to recite her second poem.

Webb was announced as the winner by Principal John Ponton during his afternoon announcements. She will be the recipient of the prize of 100 dollars and will move on to the next level of competition.

“We are very proud of the students that memorized the poems and put forth the effort to show today. We hope next years interest is higher and we have more participants,” Guffey said. At the end of the second flex all the performers were given an award for participating.

The Poetry Out Loud competition was a great way for students to enjoy a performance by their peers.The contestants worked hard on their performances and it showed. In addition, at the end of the competition the AHS Coffee House was mentioned. If students enjoyed watching the competition or want to do something like it, attending or participating in the Coffee House is a great place to start.