For more than a decade and a half, Poetry Out Loud has offered high school students a forum to improve public speaking. This year, like most other things, the competition was held online.
The top 20 high school poets in the state gathered on Zoom Mar. 11 to recite three poems they’ve been practicing for months.
Katie Wittenauer, Director of Programs at Michigan Humanities, said the foundations of the competition were still present in the unique format.
“Even though they were reciting in a virtual format, you could still see the results of all of their hard work; the ways that they had memorized and really analyzed the poems that they were working with and you could still see their passion for poetry,” she said.
Elaiyna Schwartzkopf, a senior at Calvary Baptist Academy in Midland, competed her fourth and final time among her high school in February. She advanced to the local finals and won, earning the chance to represent her school at the statewide competition called Poetry Out Loud.
She said she utilized every chance she had to work on her poetry.
“I will usually work on it heading to and from things like my basketball games cause I’m also in the middle of my basketball season,” Schwartzkopf said. “So while my dad’s driving, I’ll often work on it during that and just in any free moment that I have I always have it pulled up and ready to look at.”
On top of reciting poetry and shooting hoops, Elaiyna also does singing, dancing, theatre, and band. She said she plans to continue many of these hobbies in college while majoring in Communications.
“The fine arts have really become a part of my soul much more than they have become a hobby so giving those up, it would mess with me so I’m going to be looking for every opportunity,” she said.
This year’s winner, Madison Ganzak from Wyandotte, will advance to the national competition which is normally held in DC, but will be online this year due to the coronavirus.
