The annual Poetry Out Loud (POL) contest took place during I Block on Jan. 14 at Lexington High School. This year’s contest marks the second year of the event’s revival at LHS since the pandemic, offering an outlet for students to express themselves through poetry.
The POL contest is a national poetry recitation competition that gives students an avenue to creatively interpret and express a poem of their choice. The contest begins at local schools such as LHS, where it is run by the Celebrating English Committee—a small group of English teachers who organize several English-related extracurricular events throughout the school year. This year, 15 students participated in the contest and performed before a panel of seven judges.
“The events we organize are meant to be fun, it’s meant to be an extension of something that [students] were trying in class. Maybe there’s something that they touched upon in class that really excites them and that’s why they’re at that I Block event,” Jane Day, the English Department Head at LHS and organizer of the contest, said.
The POL contest is a chance for students to explore their interest in the language arts outside the rigidity of the school curriculum. For some STEM students, it also provided a unique challenge.
“As someone who comes from a STEM-focused background, I certainly gained a new appreciation for language itself over the past few years… We always get caught up in these trues and falses, and the yes or no’s, and we don’t really navigate the in-betweens of these two extremes… So when I saw the sign-up for the Poetry Out Loud contest, I thought it seemed interesting,” Vivek Mehta, a senior and POL participant, said.
Participants in the contest were also assigned the task of imbuing their unique interpretations into plain recitations.
“If you’re trying to memorize something, it has to be done over a longer period of time, not just one night. You also have to step out of your comfort space, project, and put emotion into it. There has to be thought behind how you deliver the poem,” Melanie Woo, a sophomore and POL participant, said.
Jason Yang, a sophomore, placed first at the POL contest this year, allowing him to compete at the regional level.
“The way [Jason] talked about his lines and stanzas were really powerful. He turned into a narrator of some sort in this poem. He talked about these huge deep ideas with history and meaning, and he was able to tie it all together while remaining really calm and add[ing] the variation [in tone and cadence] as needed,” Mehta said. “I was speechless.”
Overall, the POL contest allows students to express themselves through poetry in a unique and challenging way.
“There’s a nice saying that the chance to memorize a poem is the chance to make a friend for life. That sounds very cheesy, but you form a relationship with a different part of yourself when you have chosen a poem that resonates with you…You learn more about the poem and yourself,” Ian McWilliams, an English teacher and organizer of the event, said.
