Exciting Reciting

From Teacher Magazine, May 23, 2006:

The Spoken Word
The finals of a national poetry recitation contest bring students from every state to the nation's capital. By Craig Stone

Combine the versification of Emily Dickinson with the performance chops of Eminem and you’ll have something close to what was on offer at the finals of the Poetry Out Loud: National Recitation Contest in Washington, D.C., on May 16. Fifty-one high school students from the 50 states and the District of Columbia—all winners at the state level of the competition and recipients of all-expenses-paid trips to the nation’s capital—gathered in the city’s historic Lincoln Theatre for a marathon day of poetry recitation and performance.

Treading the boards on which the likes of Billie Holiday, Miles Davis, and Duke Ellington once performed, each student took to the open stage—occupied only by a single microphone on its stand—and delivered one of three poems they were asked to prepare to a crowd that packed the lower level of the 1,250 capacity theatre. The students, many dapperly dressed in keeping with the classic décor of the theatre, were judged on such criteria as volume, presence, evidence of understanding, and level of difficulty by a panel of judges that included essayist Michael Dirda, Caroline Kennedy, and author A.B. Spellman.

The Poetry Out Loud competition is the product of a partnership between the National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation. Each group dedicated $500,000 to fund the 2006 program, providing grants to state arts agencies to run the local contests. Participating schools also received free, standards-based curriculum materials including print and online poetry anthologies and teachers’ guides.

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