Two Jefferson High School students in Rockford have advanced in a virtual nationwide spoken word competition.
Raeanna Tremethick and Emma Carmona have moved on to the Poetry Out Loud virtual state competition.
The contest showcases the talents of high school performance poets across the nation. The students present poems from established poets.
Tremethick won first place. One of her performances included “A Boat Beneath a Sunny Sky” by Lewis Carroll.
Long has paled that sunny sky: Echoes fade and memories die:
Autumn frosts have slain July. Still she haunts me, phantomwise, Alice moving under skies
She also presented a poem by Margarita Engle.
Carmona came in second place. She performed “England in 1819” by Percy Bysshe Shelley and “Time does not bring relief; you all have lied” by Edna St. Vincent Millay.
The state winner will be announced March 8. That person will progress to the semifinals that takes place May 2. The competition concludes May 27th. Prizes include $50,000 in awards and school stipends.
Poetry Out Loud is presented by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation in partnership with the Illinois Arts Council Agency.
- Yvonne Boose is a current corps member for Report for America, an initiative of the GroundTruth Project. It's a national service program that places talented journalists in local newsrooms like WNIJ. You can learn more about Report for America at wnij.org