Senior Maggie Crowe has been named as Trinity Hall's school champion and representative to the Poetry Out Loud national competition for high school students. Dayra Mejia-Reyes '22 joined Maggie in competing at the school level, with both sharing their performances with students and faculty at a recent virtual Community Meeting.
Poetry Out Loud (POL) is a national arts education program that encourages the study of great poetry by offering free educational materials and a dynamic recitation competition to high school students across the country. The program helps students master public speaking skills, build self confidence, and learn about literary history and contemporary life. POL provides a database of widely diverse poems, classic and contemporary, which the students use to make their selections for the competition.
"Dayra and Maggie are both seasoned competitors, and have an innate artistic sense that guides them to make their subjective choices in which poems to perform," said Mariana Sierra, English teacher, who put the call out for entries.
The students' performances were judged by faculty who evaluated them on accuracy, physical presence, voice and articulation, dramatic appropriateness and evidence of understanding. Maggie and Dayra practiced on their own and reached out to faculty members for tips on how to improve their delivery and overall performance.
Maggie will move on to the regional competition later this month, with the goal of competing at the state level in March. This will be her second year representing Trinity Hall at the regional level.
"There is nothing I love more than getting to be on stage and share poetry that resonates with me so deeply," shared Maggie. "It was incredible to finish in the top five of last year's regional competition, and I am even more honored to represent Trinity Hall for a second time. It will be different competing through video, but I am excited for this new experience in my last year of Poetry Out Loud!"