Poetry Club will hold the Poetry Out Loud competition after school on Jan. 31.

In this competition, contestants will not write their own poetry. Instead, contestants search for poems from the Poetry Out Loud website and perform them in front of judges. Each student who wants to compete and advance to the county level will perform two poems.

Senior Nirav Adunuthula, vice president of Poetry Club, said he was excited to participate in the competition.

“The fact that you don’t write the poem means that the value you bring to the poem is how you perform it,” Adunuthula said.

The club also hosted the competition last year, but only one contestant participated, so Adunuthula hopes for higher successes this year. This year, at least nine contestants will be in the competition.

“The point of this competition is to get three people who are pretty good so we can send them to the county competition,” Adunuthula said. “Hopefully we also get some people to get to state or even nationals.”

The judges of the competition are English teachers Amy Keys, Ken Nguyen, Suzanne Herzman and assistant principal Kerry Mohnike.

“We just hope this inspires more people to participate in the event,” club president Elaine Fan said, “and that this allows more people to feel comfortable performing poetry.”