On Feb. 2, senior Timothy Leung performed in the Poetry Out Loud county competition, reciting “Ways of Talking” by Ha Jin and “The Gift” by Li-Young Lee at Starting Arts Practice Center in Santa Clara.
Alongside Leung, junior Elli Kline had also qualified for the contest, hosted by SVCreates, after being selected as the two winners by a panel of judges in the school competition on Jan. 17. After coming with thirteen other students, Leung and Kline were unable to qualify for the state competition.
Poetry Out Loud, a poetry organization, gives students across all grades the opportunity to compete with three poetry readings — chosen from the Poetry Out Loud anthology — and advance from the school competition to the regional, state and, ultimately, the national level. Any school can partake in the competition once a teacher is identified as a leader of the competition. Students are judged on physical presence, voice and articulation, interpretation, evidence of understanding and overall performance.
To prepare for the county competition, Leung reviewed his rubric from the school competition and strived to gain further mastery of the poem.
“I wanted to understand more what the poem was saying and make sure that the poem was the center of my performance,” he said.
As an added effect, Leung added a heartbeat sound throughout his performance of “The Gift,” creating an audible motif. Leung also noted how his experience in speech and debate influenced his readings.
“My [main event], Program Oral Interpretation, involves poetry performance, but I also think it’s different, and that’s probably why I didn’t advance to the next competition,” Leung said. “I feel like I was a little naive and approached the tournament as a speech tournament. I think for Poetry Out Loud, it’s important to make the poem the center of the performance.”
On the other hand, Kline, who read “Ozymandias” by Percy Bysshe Shelley and “At the Equinox” by Arthur Sze, focused on making her performance more dramatic for the county competition. She turned to her mother, who has experience in theater, for advice on how to think of different ways to tell the story of “Ozymandias.” For “At the Equinox,” Kline chose the poem due to its focus on the beauty of nature; she particularly focused on the last line.
“I think it definitely helped me gain speaking skills,” Kline said. “It was good practice to see the deeper meaning in poems, but mostly, it was just a lot of fun.”
