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 Feb.
2, 2009
- Approximately 16 Duanesburg High School students brought
their love of poetry and performance to life during the
school's annual Poetry Out Loud Contest in late January.
"As always,
it's exciting to see such a diverse group of students
assemble to recite poetry," said English teacher Donna
Prescott.
Each student
recited—by heart—classic and contemporary poems in front of
a group of their peers and a panel of judges, who scored the
contestants based on the complexity of the poems chosen and
the ease and naturalness in reciting.
Duanesburg
music teacher Mira Ordon, liberty partnership tutor Tom
Elliot and peer leader advisor Judy Prest, narrowed down the
contestants to six semi-finalists, followed by two
finalists.
Junior Mitch
Martin and sophomore Ashley Weatherwax were chosen to
represent the Duanesburg Central School District at the
regional competition on February 12 at the Arts Center of
the Capital Region in Troy. Caitlin McKinely was selected as
a runner-up.
Mitch recited
"Barbara Frietchie" by John Greenleaf Whittier and "A Farmer
Remembers Lincoln" by Witter Bynner, while Ashley recited
"Phenomenal Woman" by Maya Angelou and "Domestic Violence"
by Eavan Boland.
The winner of
the state competition will advance to the state finals in
March with the opportunity to advance to the national finals
in Washington, D.C. in April.
This is the
fourth year that Duanesburg students have
participated in the national poetry contest where students
select two poems to
memorize and recite from the extensive Poetry Out Loud
anthology and Web site. They compete by classrooms with the classroom winners moving on to the school-wide
competition.
The Poetry Out Loud contest was created by
the National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry
Foundation. It is administered in New York State by the New
York State Council on the Arts and the New York State
Alliance for Arts Education. The program provides a new and
exciting channel for learning in high school
English classrooms by inviting the dynamic aspects of world
literature and charismatic public speaking.
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