Poetry Out Load navigates COVID-19

This year’s Poetry Out Loud competition is moving virtual due to the COVID-19 outbreak. Poetry Out Loud is an annual competition where high school students all around read out selected poems.

Normally the Poetry Out Loud national competition is hosted in Washington D.C. but due to the quarantine, they have moved into doing video submissions based on the CDC guidelines. It has been requested by Poetry Out Loud that all the contests no matter at what level will be virtual this year.

The highschool’s Poetry Out Loud group met for the first time Friday, November 13th during the second power hour shift. As of now, they will be meeting every Wednesday at that time.

High School librarian Abigail Hendrickson is the one leading these students through the competition and led Peet students last year.

In order to be apart of Poetry Out Loud students have to talk to their teacher coordinator, which is Hendrickson, then go on the POL website to pick out two poems. The criteria for these poems is they have to be from the website, one has to be 25 lines or fewer, and one has to be written before the 20th century.

Then students will go on to memorize these poems and learn how to perform them for a group of judges. Last year now sophomore Hannah Batterson won the local level competition and got to move on to the next level before nationals with another CF student Amya Thornton, who ended up winning that contention. 

“I am excited to learn some new poems and try performing through an online base,” Batterson says.

The dates for the national competition has not been declared yet but it will be in the spring of 2021.