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Okanogan High School Student Will Compete at "Poetry Out Loud" National Competition

KEELIN ELIZABETH PHOTOGRAPHY

The national finals of Poetry Out Loud, a poetry recitation contest for high school students, takes place April 30th and May 1st in Washington, DC. After competitions at both the regional and state levels, just one outstanding student is chosen to represent each state and US territory. For Washington, that student is junior Madeline Luther, from the small north central Washington town of Okanogan.

I last talked with Madeline after she was one of two finalists from the Eastern Washington regional competition in January, which took place here in Spokane, and I asked her to catch me up on what she’s been doing since.

"I think I actually got rid of one of the poems that I did at Regionals, so I had two new poems going into State." Luther said. "I just did a lot of practicing, I guess, after I found the poems. I did them every day over and over until I was happy with them. And then I did them for various town groups like City Coucil and Chamber of Commerce. I got feedback from them. And I then I just, yeah, went to State!"

Organized by The National endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation, Poetry Out Loud requires students to memorize poems selected from their online archive of classic and contemporary texts. From there, competitions are organized at participating high schools before sending competitors on to the regional, state and national finals. At the national championship, there is serious money on the line. At this year’s finals, $50,000 in prizes will be awarded, with the winner taking home $20,000. Scoring guidelines include multiple criteria.

"So the judge you on voice and articulation. How clearly your words are stated, how loud you are, how quiet you are," Luther said. "Dramatic appropriatness, too. So if you're acting out the poem on stage, you get marked down for that. They judge you on physical presence. How well you know the poem and how well you can communicate that with the audience."

Beyond those guidelines, I asked Washington’s state champion Madeline Luther to tell me what she thinks makes a good poetry reading.

"You have to know the poem really well. You have to understand what the author of the poem was trying to get across," Luther said. "And then you have to understand what it means to you on a personal level. And then you have to make sure your audience understands both sides of that. You have to let them know that even though someone else wrote them, they're your words now. That you're making it your own. And obviously you have to have all of the poem memorized. And if you don't,s then you have to make sure your audience doesn't know that."

 

With all this talk about the proper way to recite a poem, I couldn’t let Madeline go without asking her to recite one of the poems in her repertoire.

 

 

Madeline Luther will be representing the state of Washington at this year’s Poetry Out Loud national championships in Washington DC, April 30th and May 1.

Chris Maccini previously worked at SPR as Morning Edition host and producing arts and special programming such as The Bookshelf, Poetry Moment, Northwest Arts Review, special features and more.