04 May 2009
Poetry as Oral Art Form Builds on Popularity of Slam Poetry, Rap
Poetry Out Loud state champions compete for top prize
Washington — There’s no such thing as too much practice, William Farley told his congressman at a recent luncheon on Capitol Hill.
Farley, 18, of Arlington, Virginia, was not talking about playing a musical instrument or honing skills on a football field, but about reciting poetry. He was among the 53 champions from the United States, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico who participated in the fourth Poetry Out Loud National Recitation Contest, which is sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation.
“I’m not a drama person,” said Farley, whose nontheatrical recitation of “Danse Russe” by William Carlos Williams led the secondary school senior to victory in the 2009 Poetry Out Loud national championship. Farley also recited “The Flea” by John Donne and “Theme for English B” by Langston Hughes.
Like many other state champions, Farley said his English teacher required students to memorize and recite poems and to enter the competition. For Farley, whose lifelong ambition is to host The Tonight Show, a popular U.S. entertainment-talk television show, the effort paid off — he received a $20,000 prize — but more than that, he said, he’s now a poetry convert and a big fan of poems by Langston Hughes.
The finals were hosted by Scott Simon of National Public Radio and were held on the campus of George Washington University. Over the course of two days, state champions competed for the 12 finalist spots by reciting two poems each; those with the highest scores would advance to a third round and get the opportunity to recite an additional poem. Judges for the finals were celebrities from the worlds of poetry, radio and show business.
“I’m a radio person so I don’t like a lot of drama,” said Garrison Keillor, author and host of the radio program A Prairie Home Companion and one of the competition judges. Judges evaluated student performances on physical presence, articulation, evidence of understanding, level of difficulty and accuracy. Although the three top finishers used nontheatrical methods to recite their poems, many of the state champions said they have a strong interest in the performing arts and used their drama skills to recite the poems.
PICKING POEMS
The competition involved more than 1,500 high schools and 300,000 students. Poetry Out Loud fosters the next generation of literary readers by building on the resurgence of poetry as an oral art form, as seen in the slam poetry movement and the popularity of rap music among youth, according to Poetry Out Loud spokesperson Anne Halsey.
“Just looking through the poems, I learned a lot, especially about 20th century poetry,” said Viviana Bonilla López, the champion from Puerto Rico, who recited “Phenomenal Woman” by Maya Angelou and “Beat! Beat! Drums!” by Walt Whitman. López is a member of her school’s monologue and debate teams.
Although the students are able to choose from more than 600 poems from the Poetry Foundation’s online anthology, John Barr, president of the Poetry Foundation, said the poems of choice tend to run in cycles. “Last year, the favorite was the 1872 poem ‘Jabberwocky’ by Lewis Carroll,” Barr said. This year, several of the state champions chose poems by contemporary poets Ai and Nikki Giovanni and the English Jacobean poet John Donne.
“It’s all about interpretation,” said Jasmine Lewis, the West Virginia state champion. “I like how two people can show a poem in completely different ways.” Lewis chose to recite her favorite poems: “Mother to Son” by Langston Hughes and a selection from “War Is Kind” by Stephen Crane. Kareem Sayegh of Illinois, who finished third, said he chooses to recite poems that fit his personality, including the comic “A Supermarket in California” by Allen Ginsberg and “The Man-Moth” by Elizabeth Bishop.
“Alabanza: In Praise of Local 100” by Martín Espada has been popular since the founding of the competition. Finalist Mido Aly of Ohio chose to recite the poem, which is about the restaurant workers who died in the September 11, 2001, terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, in the third round. “I prefer a poem that tells a story or is a compilation of stories,” Aly said. For rounds one and two, Aly recited “The Minefield” by Diane Thiel and “To His Coy Mistress” by Andrew Marvell, poems with strong visual images and descriptive language. Aly, a musician and section leader of his school’s drumline, said before reciting a poem out loud he reads it to himself to find the natural pause, or rhythm, and then uses the beat to help with memorization.
“I’m usually drawn to poems with dark themes,” said Wiyaka His Horse Is Thunder, the South Dakota state champion, whose dramatic reading of “Salomé” by Ai and “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird” by Wallace Stevens captivated the judges and advanced the junior at Little Wound School on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation to the final round. His Horse Is Thunder was encouraged to participate in the competition by her biology teacher, who runs the school’s drama club. “Reciting poetry is different from oral interpretation,” she said. “I don’t use a lot of theatrics — I feel it in my gut and convey that emotion to the audience through the words.”
The list of 600 poems available for download and more information on Poetry Out Loud are available on the Poetry Foundation Web site.
Listen to the 2008 winner recite “Frederick Douglass” by Robert E. Hayden on the National Public Radio Web site.
