Poetic Hearts held on for the delayed Woodstock Poetry Out Loud contest, originally scheduled for Valentine’s Day. With tectonic efforts, fifteen of the initially scheduled eighteen competitors were able to recite their self-selected poems if not live, in person, than via Zoom from The Boston Public Library. Luca Morris kicked matters off from Boston with Rosin Kelly’s “Oranges,” noting the ways in which the selection of such a fruit, its peeling and eating, is akin to understanding love -- self love, or otherwise. Poems often contain such truths, and Maggie Knox’s recitation of “Dust” (Dorianne Laux) was one such reminder that when someone (“Someone”?) sheds some light on truth, that truth is something to wake up for and to get up for.
In an uncanny way, junior Finn Farrell’s recitation of “What Kind of Times Are These” (Adrienne Rich) with “our country moving closer to its own truth and dread,/its own ways of making people disappear” held resonance with several other students’ selections of contemporary poems for our time. From Boston,and capturing 5th place overall, sophomore Mimi Kanda-Olmstead recited Palestinian poet Rafaat Alareer’s (1979-2023) “If I Must Die,” concluding, “If I must die/ Let it bring hope/Let it be a tale”. Freshman Lylah Zeitlin came away with third place overall with her recitation of “the world is about to end and my grandparents are in love” (Kara Jackson), sending out the haunting question, mid-way through the poem, “will i go taking somebody’s hand, my skin becoming their skin?” To be sure, getting to a truth is hard to do without questions, and sometimes the truth hangs in the air, known but unsaid, unwrit, just after the question. Sophomore Quinn Eckler’s recitation (4th overall) of Kai Conradi’s poem “son/daughter” was one such example, concluding: “Will I be allowed to come back to earth/ and be your son?” In some ways, this 2024 recitation contest came together as a conversation between students via poets’ voices and truths. “If’s” and “questions” mark our 21st century time, so equally interesting was the question sophomore Priscilla Richardson (6th place overall) brought to Robert Frost’s mid-twentieth seeming declarative: “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -- I took the one less traveled by…” The way Priscilla delivered Frost’s poem suggested the buried question is in the stutter’s uncertainty, as well as in the way the final stanza begins, “with a sigh”.
Ultimately, the hotly contested top two recitations went to sophomore Agnes Kardashian with Edward Hirsch’s “Poor Angels” (151 points) and senior William Obbard with Weldon Kees’ “The Coming of the Plague” (149 points). William held his audience, baited, with his dramatic recitation about “strange worms crawling… Queer fungi sprouting… the swarms of frogs swollen and hideous,/ Hundreds upon hundreds, sitting on each other,/ Huddled together, silent, ominous” -- nature’s response to all of the humans’ and countries’ “miscarriages,” “quarrels,” and “jealousies” -- a plague on all of us. With “Poor Angels,” Agnes took her audience to experience the dichotomy of a “strange, unlikely tethering” between a soul, “ecstatic,” “married” to a body, “glum” and sunken. One was reminded of Whitman’s point about the flesh and the soul -- “lack one, lack both” (these two must stick together in order to live)-- yet “Poor Angels” explores that “quarreling” within the self that happens when the soul “dreams of a small fire of stars” while simultaneously, in the same experience, “the body stares into an empty night sheen, a hollow-eyed darkness.” Building to a tangible compassion, Agnes led her audience to Hirsch’s final plea for those souls and bodies: “don’t separate yet. Let what rises live with what descends.” Agnes will represent Woodstock Vermont’s regional Poetry Out Loud competition on March 7th at The Barre Opera House, reciting a pre-twentieth century poem “Early Affection” by George Moses Horton and her signature piece, “Poor Angels'' by Edward Hirsch. In addition to “The Coming of the Plague,” first alternate William Obbard will prepare Dennis O’Driscoll’s “Tomorrow”. Our school champion. Agnes Kardashion, will compete with region two schools: Sharon Academy, Bellows Free Academy, Fairfax, Arlington Memorial High School, Brattleboro Union High School, Williamstown High School, Stratton Mountain School, Bellows Free Academy, St. Albans, Harwood Union High School, Burr and Burton Academy, Lyndon Institute. The top five recitations of two poems in region two will move on to compete with the top five recitations from region one, on March 14th, at The Flynn in Burlington. Good Luck, Agnes!
An extra special round of thanks go out to our 2024 Poetry Out Loud judges -- Garon Smail, Beth Hayslett, Kat Robbins and Tim Brennan, along with accuracy judge, Erin Hanrahan, prompter, Sarah Hagge, and the dynamic scoring team, Heather Vonada and Andy Smith.
Complete contest results are available at the library circulation desk.
