Judging a Poetry Competition

I have had a busy couple of weeks filled with poetry, and I’m not done yet. Last week, I spoke about poetry to an elementary school with another local poet. This week I had the great honor of acting as the accuracy judge for the state finals of the Poetry Out Loud Competition.

If you’re not familiar with it, Poetry Out Loud is a national recitation contest for high school students. For the finals, contestants selected three poems from the Poetry Out Loud anthology and participated in a three-round competition. As the accuracy judge, my role was to keep track of any errors in the student’s recitation of the poem such as skipping or replacing words.

One of the interesting things for me was that as the only judge with a copy of the poems, I knew if a student missed a word or made an error, but someone in the audience or even the other judges wouldn’t have been impacted by those errors because most of the time the poems still flowed well.

There were nine schools who competed in the state finals, and these students were enormously talented. I really wish that every school in the state would participate in this opportunity because it immerses students in poetry, builds confidence, and provides practice for public speaking.

It is thrilling to take part in these events that bring poetry into the lives of our youth. And I’m not done with poetry yet. Tonight I’ll be hosting Poetry Night at Dazbog, a coffee shop here in town, and on Sunday I’ll be hosting Poetry Night at the local Barnes & Noble.

On a more personal note, in between the rounds, each of the judges read some of their own poetry for the audience. I read last, and I’m a little surprised by myself. I know I talk about being an introvert and my fear of public speaking, but I’ve come so far in the last year, I hardly recognize myself. It’s foreign to me still to speak in public and share my work. I often feel underqualified to take on these opportunities. But since I’m asked, I say yes. How could I say no to an opportunity to spread the love of poetry? And in an odd way, sometimes I feel that I’m right where I’m supposed to be and maybe I’m more qualified than I give myself credit for.

I talk about being an introvert a lot at Poetry Night not in an attempt to make an excuse on why a reading might not go well, they’ve all gone better than expected, but to let other poets know that I know the feeling of fear and anxiety that comes with sharing their work in front of an audience. I talk about it to encourage others to try it, and I feel that if I’m asking others to be vulnerable, then I must perform the task as well.

I’m so happy that Poetry Out Loud offers the opportunity for students to get involved in poetry at a young age. And I really hope I get the opportunity to act as a judge again.

Here are a few pictures from the award’s ceremony. I was trying to stay out of the way of the official photographers so you’ll have to excuse the fact that they aren’t the best.