In The News.
Words that Sing
Monday, February 9, 2009
by Polly Summar • Journal Santa Fe
New Mexico Names Its Poetry Out Loud Champion
As a snowstorm hit Santa Fe on Sunday afternoon, St. Francis Auditorium was warm with poetry. Seven high school students from throughout New Mexico gathered for the state Poetry Out Loud Final, in the national poetry recitation contest. Poetry Out Loud is a partnership of the National Endowment for the Arts, the Poetry Foundation and state arts agencies like New Mexico Arts.
“The stranger, the listener, is where the poem lives,” said David Olson, artistic director of Theaterwork and one of three instructors who have been traveling throughout the state to work with participating high schools and poets. “I talk to the young performers a lot about making a gift of the work to the audience.”
Abiquiu resident and Navajo student Santana Shorty, 16, a sophomore at the Santa Fe Indian School, captured the New Mexico title, in what her teacher and coach Tim McLaughlin said is a “fourpeat” for the school. April Chavez, now a student at Stanford University, won the 2008 title. Fantasia Lonjose, a student at the University of New Mexico, won the 2006 and 2007 titles.
Shorty won $200 and an allexpense-paid trip for herself and a chaperone to Washington, D.C., to compete at the national finals April 26-28; her school will receive $500 to purchase poetry books. Danielle Turner, 17, a junior at the Southwest Learning Center in Albuquerque, was this year’s runner-up. Turner won $100, and her school will receive $200 for poetry books.
The state’s Poetry Out Loud coordinator, Jenice Gharib, told the audience that the contest winners came down to tenths and hundredths of points. Each of the contestants, who had won a contest at his/her own high school first, was judged on physical presence, voice and articulation, dramatic performance and accuracy.
Each student had to recite three poems from memory, chosen from a selection provided by the contest. One poem had to be written before the 20th century, another had to be fewer than 25 lines and the third could be the participant’s choice. The national program has grown from a small pilot project in Chicago and Washington, D.C. to last year’s nationwide participation of some 200,000 students. The national champion will receive $20,000.
Shorty, a poet herself, said reciting another poet’s work was difficult for her at first.
“Every writer has their own way of how they want their poetry to be read or performed,” she said. “You don’t disrespect the poet, but you have to do it in a fresh way.”
Turner said the most difficult part of the competition comes in the “in-between” times, hearing the words of the other participants while waiting to go on stage and trying to remember her “own intensity” for her performance,” she said.
Anne MacNaughton, also a workshop trainer for the statewide competition, said students are often reluctant to participate in the program initially. “Their attitude is, ‘Who are these dead white men?’ ” said MacNaughton, who teaches at the University of New Mexico-Taos. “But NEA has done a fairly good job of expanding the inclusiveness of the poetry.... And what I tell the students is, ‘These dead white guys really understood the language.’ ”
Poems chosen ranged from well-known favorites like Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken” and William Blake’s “The Tyger” to lesser-known verse like “Salomé” by Ai, who was born Florence Anthony in Texas in 1947.
In coaching the students, Olson said he works hard with them on their stage presence. “To move the tendency to want to put all the energy into the hands, into the chest cavity,” he said. “To make the poem sound real to the ear, to make it a clear story for the audience.
“Beautiful language is so at risk in our culture.”
Posted March 06, 2009