Emma Jaworski was poised and confident when she took the stage on February 4 at the Regional Poetrty Out Loud Competition. She recited her poem “Eating Poetry” by Mark Strand beautifully and artfully, and put on an amazing performance. “Eating Poetry” is a surreal humorous poem about a person devouring poetry so intensely it is like he becomes a dog with a voracious appetite for words, “Ink runs from the corners of my mouth/ there is no happiness like mine/ I have been eating poetry.” This poem was performed in the presence of other school competitors as well as a theater full of teachers, parents, other students from the selected schools and judges.
A student representative from one of twenty North Jersey schools stood on stage to recite his or her first poem. Poems are selected by the competitors themselves from an approved list on the Poetry Out Loud website. After scores were tallied and contestants took a break, the judges revealed the names of the final ten students who would move forward to the second and final rounds. In each of these rounds, the ten students had to deliver a performance of another memorized poem. Thus, students who moved on recited three poems each in total. Though Jaworski was prepared to recite her additional poems, unfortunately, she was not one of the ten students to move on to the final round. Jaworski’s English teacher Ms. Giroux, and the two other teachers who were responsible for organizing this event for the first time ever in the high school, Mrs. Petrosillo and Mrs. Guenter, were rather surprised that Emma did not move on. “I thought she did a great job; I think she deserved to proceed to the next round,” said Ms. Giroux. Mrs. Petrosillo said, “For some reason, it was not meant to be for this year, but now that we know what to expect for the future, we can better assist our students in their poem selections and recitation preparation.” The West Milford High School community is extremely proud of our first Poetry Out Loud representative ever!
The winners of the competition were Aaleah Oliver from High Tech High School, Hudson County Schools of Technology and Sara Zaat, from Mahwah High School.
The teachers have high hopes for expanding the competition for next year. They would love to tap into the theater student population here or other English students who just love poetry to drum up some more interest. They are also taking what they have learned and are preparing for a spin-off of Poetry Out Loud, our very own coffee house sometime this spring in which students can recite their own poems or famous poems, play guitar, sing, dance, or perform in any way they see fit (and school acceptable). Please join and ask Mrs. Giroux, Mrs. Petrosillo, or Mrs. Guenter for more details!