What national competition includes poetry, high school students, and more enthusiasm than e.e. cummings with an all-punctuation typewriter? Poetry Out Loud, of course! Poetry Out Loud is a national recitation contest in which high school students memorize and recite poems in front of an audience. The 2014 New Hampshire Poetry Out Loud Championship took place last month in Representatives Hall at the State House in Concord, and our very own Virginia Prescott was a gracious and impressed master of ceremonies.
Eden Suoth was one such enthusiastic high school student, and a wildly talented one at that. A twelfth grader at Spaulding High School, Suoth impressed the judges and became a top 4 finalist. We invited him into the studio to read one of the poems he recited at the contest, "Vigil Strange I Kept On The Field One Night" by Walt Whitman.
If you or your school is interested in getting involved in Poetry Out Loud, there's more information how to make that happen here.