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Written by Judy Chicoine|

As high school students, we tend to find old – and even new – pieces of poetry boring and uninteresting, depending on the topic. However, a select number of Morgan students will be adding some zest to these decrepit pieces of poetry in this year’s Poetry Out Loud competition.

Similar to studying for a test, reciting an entire piece of poetry isn’t always easy. I spoke to Morgan’s returning champion, Ethan Rhode, and a new-comer to the competition, Cameron Engle. “I prepared for the competition by constantly reading the poem and reciting it in front of different audiences,” Cameron said. There is a lot of hard work that goes into preparing for any type of performance, so getting feedback from others like Cameron is a great idea! “I’m weird…I tend not to recite my poem in front of anyone because it feels more organic when nobody has heard it before,” Ethan said.

Whether you prefer to perform rehearsed or naturally, you’ll definitely need some practice. If you’re participating for the first time, our returning champion has some advice for you: “…to get up there and recite a poem is hard enough…you should just use the poem to say what you want to say.” Poetry is not simply a sentence after a sentence, but a story; a journey. If you ever get lost on your ‘journey’, (in other words, if you ever lose your place) there will be a prompter to aid you. “If you’re forgetting a word or a line, you can make eye contact with the prompter, and they’ll give it to you,” said Ethan. You can ‘use’ the prompter as many times as you’d like, but when you forget those lines, you lose points.

So, if you attend the Morgan school, or you’re simply a lover of fine poetry, come and show your support to the competitors on February first at Morgan from 8:30 am to 11:30 am!

Let us know who you thought had the best performance by emailing us at: [email protected]  or leave a comment below!