An annual youth poetry contest is underway, and a couple of Rockford students are gearing up for the state competition.
Poetry Out Loud is a nationwide competition that starts at the local level.
Sara Carter is a senior at Jefferson high school in Rockford. She said she’s loved poetry since elementary school, but performance poetry is new for her. Another artform served as a portal for her entrance into the spoken word arena.
“I've been involved in acting, and theatre in the last couple of years, especially,” Carter explained. “And between my speech coach and my theater teacher, I didn't have much of a choice. So, I had a lot of strong encouragement, let's say, by them.”
The students must memorize certain poems from a database and perform them. Carter explained her process for memorization.
“I go stanza by stanza,” she said. “So, I recite it out loud while I read it. And as soon as I feel like I mostly know it and have it down, then I'll add like the next line. And I keep doing that until I'm through the whole thing, which takes a long time, but it's really effective for me.”
Carter won first place at the school. Mikira Rogers took second place. Both will compete in the state competition on March 13. The national competition takes place May 8 to the10 in Washington D.C.
- 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.
