>> From the Library of
Congress in Washington DC.
>> Welcome to the 2015
National Book Festival
and the Poetry and Prose Pavilion.
This pavilion or room is sponsored
by the National Endowment
for the Arts.
So, on behalf of everybody at the
NEA and our Chairman, Jane Chu,
thank you for joining us.
My name is Eleanor Billington
and I manage the Poetry
Out Loud program at
the Arts Endowment.
So what is Poetry Out Loud?
You may know a little bit about it.
You may have heard from girl scouts
in the hall about this program
and that's why you're in
this space, which is great.
We welcome you.
Poetry Out Loud started in 2005
and it started as a partnership
between the National Endowment for
the Arts, the Poetry Foundation,
and 53 state and jurisdictional
arts agencies.
So that means that this program is
in every state all over the country.
It's also in the District of
Columbia right where we are today.
It's in Puerto Rico and we have a
program in the US Virgin Islands.
What Poetry Out Loud does is
it encourages young people
across the country, much like these
three sitting on stage with me,
to learn about classic
and contemporary poetry
through memorization
and public recitation.
Poetry Out Loud helps students
master public speaking skills,
it helps them build self-confidence,
and, most importantly,
it helps them learn about
their literary heritage.
Now, I know this may sound a
little dry to you and it's early
on Saturday morning -- so
thank you for being here --
but I promise that once these
students take the podium,
you'll see how lively
and transformative
poetry recitation can be.
It's truly incredible.
So a little bit more
about the program.
Poetry Out Loud uses a pyramid
structure, which means that,
like the spelling bee, we
start at the classroom level
and then winners advance
from the classroom level,
they go up to a school
competition, possibly,
and then maybe a regional
competition before they get
to the state finals, and
ultimately, the national finals,
which is held right
here in Washington DC
in late spring every year.
So, if you're an interested high
school student in the audience,
talk with your teachers about
Poetry Out Loud and let them know
that you want to be
involved in this program.
It is not too late to
get involved this year.
If you're an interested high school
teacher in the audience, thank you,
thank you for being here.
Please come and talk to us.
We have some POL swag in the
back table right where --
there are a couple of
NEA staff back there.
We'd be happy to talk to
you more about the program.
We also have a great website
dedicated to Poetry Out Loud.
It's poetryoutloud.org and it
includes more than 800 poems,
video recitations, and a
comprehensive teacher's guide
and a lot of other tips
for students for reciting
and some great interviews
with past students
who have participated
in the program.
So last year marked our 10th
anniversary for this program.
And since 2005, we've reached
nearly 3,000,000 students
across the country
and 45,000 teachers,
which is pretty incredible.
We're very proud of this.
Last year, alone, we had more
than 375,000 students participate.
And today you're actually going to
hear from three of those students.
So, not only did they make it to
the top nine at the national finals,
they are three out of 375,000.
So, again, it's truly
incredible that they're here.
These students are
eligible for prizes.
So if you participate in Poetry Out
Loud, you're eligible for prizes
at the state and national
level of competition.
This includes a $20,000 prize
for the national champion,
which is nothing to scoff at.
Every year, Poetry Out Loud awards
more than $100,000 in prizes
and school stipends for the
purchase of poetry materials.
Now, we believe that -- prizes are
great -- the most important reward,
though, the most important thing
about this program is the way
in which a student connects with
great writing and great stories
through the poems that
they memorize.
So the US Poet Laureate,
Juan Felipe Herrera,
who formally takes office next
week and he's actually here
at the festival this weekend, he was
being interviewed by the guardian --
and this was back in June
when he was first announced
as the next Poet Laureate -- and
in that interview he said this
about the power of the
written and spoken worked.
He says, "Poetry is one of
the largest, most beautiful,
most intimate, and
most effective ways
of participating in public life."
So, by reciting for you today,
these students are engaging
you in public discourse.
They're inviting you to
experience the beauty
of a poem taken off the page.
And it is a treat, it really
is, so please listen up to them.
All right.
We're going to get started with
introducing our first student.
Paris Stroud is the 2015 Poetry Out
Loud State Champion from Georgia.
And she was the first runner up
at the national finals last April.
She finished in second
place overall.
And she is a recent graduate
of Paulding County High School
and is attending Georgia
State University
where she studies international
economics and looks forward
to a career in public policy.
Paris enjoys classical and young
adult literature and has no plans
to abandon her two
passions, reading and writing.
Please join me in welcoming
Paris to the podium.
[ Applause ]
>> Hello, everyone.
So today I'll be reciting
two poems and the first
of which is called A Psalm of Life
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
What the heart of the young
man said to the psalmist.
Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
life is but an empty dream.
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
and things are not what they seem.
Life is real.
Life is earnest.
And the grave is not its goal.
Dust thou art.
To dust returnest.
Was not spoken of the soul.
Not enjoyment.
And not sorrow is our
destined end or way.
But to act.
That each tomorrow find
us farther than today.
Art is long and time is fleeting.
And our hearts, though
stout and brave,
still like muffled drums are beating
funeral marches to the grave.
In the world's board
field of battle.
In the bivouac of life, be
not like dumb, driven cattle.
Be a hero in the strife.
Trust no future howe'er unpleasant.
Let the dead past bury its dead.
Act, act in the living present.
Heart within and god overhead.
Lives of great men all remind us
that we can make our lives
sublime and, departing,
leave behind us footprints
on the sands of time.
Footprints that, perhaps
another, sailing or life's main.
Seeing shall take heart again.
Let us, then, be on and going
with a heart for any fate.
Still achieving, still pursuing,
learn to labor and to wait.
[ Applause ]
The second poem I'll be
reciting is called Gitanjali 35
by Rabindranath Tagore.
Where the mind is without fear
and the head is held high.
Where knowledge is free.
Where the world has not been
broken up into fragments
by narrow domestic walls.
Where words come from
the depth of truth.
Where tireless striving stretches
its arms towards purification.
Where the clear stream of
reason has not been dried
up into the dreary
desert sand of dead habit.
Where the mind is led by thee into
ever-widening thought and action.
Into that heaven of freedom, my
father, let your country awake.
[ Applause ]
>> Thank you, Paris.
Next up is the 2015 Poetry Out Loud
Wisconsin State Champion, Ian Walls.
Ian was one of the top
nine national finalists
at this year's competition in DC.
He is a recent graduate of
Milwaukee High School of the Arts
and just began his freshman year
at the University of Vermont.
Ian has always enjoyed writing
and is the screen writer
of the award winning indie film The
Vampire Formerly Known as Dracula,
which follows Dracula's
desperate struggle to find love
in a Twilight besieged
modern America.
Ian fell in love with recitation
as soon as he was introduced
to the Poetry Out Loud
program in 9th grade.
Please welcome Ian Walls.
[ Applause ]
>> Hi, everybody.
I've got two poems to do today
and the first one is going
to be The Second Coming
by William Butler Yeats.
Turning and turning
in the widening gyre.
The falcon cannot hear the falconer.
Things fall apart.
The center cannot hold.
Mere anarchy is loosed
upon the world.
The blood-dimmed tied is loosed,
and everywhere the ceremony
of innocence is drowned.
The best lack all conviction
while the worst are full
of passionate intensity.
Surely some revolution is at hand.
Surely the second coming is at hand.
The Second Coming!
Hardly are those words
out when a vast image
out of Spiritus Mundi
troubles my sight.
Somewhere in sands of the desert a
shape with lion body and the head
of a man, a gaze blank
and pitiless as the sun,
is moving its slow thighs.
While all about it real shadows
of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again.
But now I know that 20 centuries
of stony sleep were vexed
to nightmare by a rocking cradle.
And what rough beast, its
hour come round at last,
slouches towards Bethlehem
to be born?
[ Applause ]
And on a lighter note
[laughter] this will be Hysteria
by Dionisio D. Martinez.
For Ana Menendez.
It only takes one night
with the wind on its knees
to imagine Carl Sandburg unfolding
a map of Chicago, puzzled,
then walking the wrong way.
The lines on his face
are hard to read.
I alternate between the TV, where
a plastic surgeon is claiming
that every facial expression
causes wrinkles, and the newspaper.
I picture the surgeon reading
the lines on Sandburg's face,
lines that would have made more
sense if the poet had been, say,
a tree growing in a wind orchard.
Maybe he simply smiled too much.
I'm reading about the All-Star game,
thinking that maybe Sandburg
saw the White Sox of 1919.
I love American newspapers the way
each section is folded independently
and believes it owns the world.
There's this brief item in
the international pages,
the Chinese government
has posted signs
in Tiananmen Square
forbidding laughter.
I'm sure the plastic
surgeon would approve.
He'd say the Chinese will
look young much longer.
Their faces are naturally smooth.
But what I see -- although no
photograph accompanies the story --
is laughter bursting inside them.
I go back to the sports section and
a close-up of a rookie in mid-swing.
His face keeping all the
wrong emotions in check.
When I read I bite my lower lip,
a habit the plastic surgeon would
probably call cosmetic heresy
because it accelerates
the aging process.
I think about Carl
Sandburg and the White Sox.
I think about wind in
Tiananmen Square, how a country,
deprived of laughter,
ages invisibly.
I think of the great walls of
North America, each of them a grip
on some outfield like a
rookie's hands around the bat
when the wind is against him.
I bit my lower lip again.
I want to learn to
think in American,
to believe that a headline is a
fact and all stories are suspect.
[ Applause ]
>> Ian, thank you.
Thank you, Ian.
That was great.
And finally we welcome the
2015 Alaska State Champion
who is also our Poetry
Out Loud National Champion
for this year, Maeva Ordaz.
Maeva is a recent graduate
of West Anchorage High School
in Anchorage Alaska and
just began her freshman year
at Columbia University
in New York City
where she is a Gates
Millennium Scholar.
Maeva enjoys hiking,
baking pies, writing poetry,
and visiting family in Mexico.
Her favorite writers include Jorge
Luis Borges, Wallace Stevens --
and Wallace Stevens, excuse me.
Maeva will be featured at the
International Storytelling Festival
in Jonesborough Tennessee
next month.
Please join me in welcoming Maeva.
[ Applause ]
>> Thank you, all, for
coming here this morning.
So I will be reciting two poems.
My first poem is Ode on a
Grecian Urn by John Keats.
Thou still unravished
bride of quietness.
Thou foster child of
silence and slow time.
Sylvan historian, who canst thus
express a flowery tale more sweetly
than our rhyme.
What leaf fringed legend haunts
about thy shape of deities
or mortals or of both, in
Tempe or the dales of Arcady?
What men are gods are these?
What maidens loth?
What mad pursuit?
What struggle to escape?
What pipes and timbrels?
What wild ecstasy?
Heard melodies are sweet, but
those unheard are sweeter.
Therefore, ye soft pipes, play on.
Not to the sensual ear,
but more endeared pipe
to the spirit ditties of no tone.
Fair youth beneath the trees,
how canst not leave thy song,
nor ever can those trees be bare?
Bold lover, never, never canst thou
kiss, though winning near the goal.
Yet, do not grieve.
She cannot fade though
thou hast not thy bliss.
Forever wilt thou love
and she be fair.
Ah, happy, happy boughs.
That cannot shed your leaves
no ever bid the spring adieu.
And happy melodist, unwearied,
forever piping songs forever new.
More happy love.
More happy, happy love.
Forever warm and still
to be enjoyed.
Forever panting and forever young.
All breathing human
passion far above.
That leaves a heart high
sorrowful and cloyed,
a burning forehead,
and a parching tongue.
Who are these coming
to the sacrifice?
To what green altar,
O mysterious pursuit,
leadest thou that heifer
lowing at the skies
and all her silken flanks
with garlands drest?
What little town by river or
sea shore, or mountain built
with peaceful citadel, is emptied
of this folk, this pious morn?
And, little town, thy streets
forever more will silent be
and not a soul to tell why thou
art desolate can e'er return.
O attic shape, fair attitude
with bread of marble men
and maidens overwrought,
with foresight branches
and the trodden weed.
Thou silent form dost tease us
out of thought as doth eternity.
Cold pastoral.
When old age shall this generation
waste thou shalt remain in midst
of other woe than ours, a friend
to man, to whom thou sayist,
"beauty is truth, truth beauty,
that is all ye know on earth,
and all ye need to know."
[ Applause ]
Thank you very much.
The next poem I will be reciting
is called Zacuanpapalotls
by Brenda Cardenas.
We are space between the black
orange blur of a million monarchs
on their two-generation migration
south to fir-crowned Michoacan
where tree trunks will
sprout feathers,
a forest of paper-thin wings.
Our Mexica cocooned in the membranes
de Los Angeles Madre Tierra say we
are reborn zacuanpapalotls,
mariposas negras y anaranjadas
in whose sweep the dead whisper.
We are between the flicker
of a chameleon's tail
that turns his desert-blue
backbone to jade or pink sand.
The snake-skinned fraternal
twins of solstice and equinox,
the ashen dawn, silvering
dusk, Los Angeles oracion
as it leaves the lips, the tug
from sleep, the glide into dreams
that husk out mestizo memory.
We are one life passing through the
prism of all others, gathering color
and song, cempazuchil and drum
to leave a rhythm scattered
on the wind, dust tinting
the tips of fingers
as we slip into our new light.
[ Applause ]
Thank you very much.
>> Think you all so much.
That was absolutely wonderful.
Thank you.
It's a beautiful way to
start a Saturday morning.
Let's give the students one
more round of applause please.
[ Applause ]
So right now we have a
little bit of time left
for Q and A with the students.
So we have some questions
we'd like to ask them.
If you all are interested in asking
them anything, please feel free
to come up to the microphones
on either side of the room.
If you have a question for anyone
on stage, it can be in general,
for all the students, and I'll
help facilitate that process.
We're getting them
mic-ed up right now so,
if you just joined us,
this is Poetry Out Loud.
This is a program that's
sponsored by the National Endowment
for the Arts and the
Poetry Foundation.
It's a student recitation
competition so all
through the school year from --
starting now in September
all the way to April,
students are learning poems by
heart and they're reciting them
in competition across the country.
So this is a program
that's available
to all high school students.
If you all are interested,
we have great information
in the back of the room.
So let's get started.
Paris, why don't we
talk to you first.
You can stay right there.
You don't have to go
anywhere [laughing].
So we talked a little bit, when
I was introducing the program,
about how to get involved with this
and I'm curious how
you got involved.
Did your teacher ask you
to do Poetry Out Loud?
Did you hear about the program
and want to participate?
You can be honest?
>> Actually, in my
school, for my senior year,
every senior was actually
told to participate
in our high school competition.
>> You were invited
to participate, maybe.
>> Yeah [laughing].
So naturally, of course, every
single senior in my school had to go
out and like look on the Poetry Out
Loud anthology and pick one poem.
And, of course, as I was
picking out poems and everything,
I originally picked Ode on a Grecian
Urn, which you heard Maeva recite.
And, of course, I recited
that at my school
and I was picked among the top
three in my language arts class.
And, from there, I performed in my
high school competition and I won.
So it was a very big turn of events
because I originally did not
even know this was considered a
national competition.
I just thought it was
something my school did
to make us learn about
poetry [laughter].
>> And now look at.
It's not so bad.
>> I'm here now.
>> Look at where poetry
can take you.
It's true.
A lot of students get involved
because their teacher says, "Hey,
we're doing this as a class.
It's going to be good."
And a lot of students are changed.
Their perception of
poetry changes a lot.
And I think, you know, these
students are honest about that.
Ian, how did you pick your poems?
You recited today two
very different poems.
What was the process like?
Paris talks about going through
800 poems in an online anthology.
That's got to be a lot of fun,
but also really challenging.
So, how did you choose?
>> I definitely have a
soft spot for light poems,
which is what I always
try to find first.
And then I feel like
I have to beat myself
up to find something that's deeper
and darker so I found Hysteria
and I fell in love with
it and it was just amazing
and all my teachers loved it.
They were like, "Go for it, Ian.
It's great."
And then my English teacher
who also runs Poetry Out Loud
at our school said, "But
maybe also something else."
So I found the Second Coming,
which is a poem that I really like,
but it's definitely darker,
not as light and, you know,
up-tone as Hysteria, but I
definitely do feel like I
like that contrast that I found.
>> Yeah. Thank you.
So, Maeva, you're going
to school now in Columbia.
Everybody up on stage is
a freshman in college.
Do you have plans for
poetry during college?
Are you going to --
what are you going
to study while you're
up in New York?
>> Well, right now, I'm planning
on studying computer science
and minoring in either applied
mathematics or economics.
But I certainly plan to
continue with poetry.
I do write my own poetry and I'm
looking forward to getting involved
in the slam poetry
scene in New York City.
And I've also been
invited by the Teachers
and Writers Collaborative
Organization and New York Poetry
Out Loud program to participate
in their different events.
And so I'm looking
forward to getting --
to continuing my involvement
with Poetry Out Loud program
and with poetry in high school
-- I mean in university.
>> Yeah. How did you get
involved at your school in Alaska?
>> So it's actually mandatory
in a lot of the English classes
at my high school, but there's also
some monetary prizes so a lot of --
even if like a lot of the -- there's
some students who aren't mandated
to participate in the program,
they still do because some
of them are motivated,
you know, by the prizes
or others are just interested
in having that new experience.
And so I was involved with it
my freshmen and sophomore years.
My sophomore year I nearly won
the school competition and so
that really motivated me the
next year to, you know, to do --
to practice more and, you know,
I was hoping to win the
school competition and go
on to the district competition.
And, to my surprise, I won that
one as well and then I went
to the state and I won that as well.
So I won -- I went to the
national level and so I had a year
of experience, like going to
the national competition prior
to winning Poetry Out Loud.
And I think that was
really important
because it helped me get
a feel for, you know,
what the judges are looking
for and what I could do
to improve my recitations.
>> Yeah. And so Ian and
Paris talked a little bit
about how they chose poems.
How did you come to the
Cardenas and the Keats poem?
What was that process like for you?
>> So, I'm like Paris.
I went through the entire anthology.
And I chose Zacuanpapalotls -- it
was actually one of the first poems
because I went from Z to A
instead of vice versa [laughter].
And that was a poem that really
spoke to me because it talks
about the blending of
cultures to create a new one.
In this case Chicano culture.
And as a Mexican American
who's had those experiences,
that's a poem that
really spoke to me.
And so that was the
first poem that I chose.
And that's a poem that I've been
reciting for the past three years.
The second poem I chose, which
was Ode on a Grecian Urn,
that was actually one we studied
in English class during
our poetry unit.
And so, for me, you know, the
conflict with the author --
that the poet was -- the speaker
is facing in the poem about --
while he examines this urn
that has this eternal image
but the urn itself is not
eternal, that was something that,
for me, it was confusing.
But after we went over
it together as a class,
I came to a better
understanding of the poem.
And so that's the second
one that I chose to recite.
>> That's great.
We had -- I think we have one
question from the audience.
Go ahead please.
>> Yes. Good morning.
These are wonderful,
wonderful recitations.
Really professional.
I'm wondering, since each
one of you did a poem
that I would consider
a difficult poem,
I'm wondering what process
you go through in order
to understand the deeper
meanings of the poem
and then what does the poem
actually begin to mean for you?
>> Paris, do you want to start?
>> OK.
>> Do you mind?
Sorry to put you on the spot.
>> Oh, no.
That's fine.
I was about to say how
are we going to do this.
But I know, for me,
because I'm drawn, I guess,
more to difficult styled poems.
For me, first and foremost,
I'll spend at least a
week just doing nothing
but just reciting the poem
over and over and over again
so I can know all the words and
so that way every single one
of the old English style
words don't confuse me.
But once I memorize a poem,
and I guess in the process
of me actually learning each
word -- which, by the way,
in that process a dictionary
is your best friend --
there is one part of you that begins
to understand the poem more
as you begin to say it.
And then, as you go online and
you research who that author was
and you might find other people
that have recited that same poem
and you listen to how
they interpreted it,
there's always this level of what
the poet themselves wanted you
to take out of their poem, but
also what each and every one
of us take out of a poem.
Because it can always be different.
For the poem I recited a minute
ago, A Psalm of Life, of course,
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, of
course, he meant for that poem
to naturally just be
a bit of an argument
against the modern day psalmist
who were depressing and sad
and there's no point in the world
and everything's depressing
all the time.
And, of course, he
chose to argue that.
He chose to say that, "No,
that's not what life is.
Life is far more exciting than
what we're giving credit for."
And, of course, that was
something that really spoke to me.
I thought, "Yeah.
I like the message that he
was trying to bring out."
And, at the same time, I also put my
own sort of interpretation onto it
because there's so many things in my
own life that might have gotten --
well, things that might not have
turned out the way I wanted to,
and yet there are things such
as Poetry Out Loud that turned
out so much greater than I expected.
And it's just that toss-up of how
life isn't what you're always going
to expect it to be,
but you're always going
to have fun along the way.
And I guess it's just poetry is
always what you make out of it.
And once you learn these types of
poems, that's when you really get
to understand the meaning of each
and every one of them as well
as getting to understand a
little bit more about yourself.
>> Thank you.
[ Applause ]
>> Ian, do you want
to talk a little bit
to the question about
how you prepare?
How do you tackle these hard poems?
>> I've got to give a lot of
credit to my English teacher
from high school, Katherine Kanter
[assumed spelling], she is amazing.
It's -- Poetry Out Loud is something
that everybody at our school has
to do, but if anybody has any
kind of real interest in it,
she will sit down with you and
she will work all of this out.
Memorization was the easy part for
me, but then finding the meaning
in these poems was more difficult.
And definitely having her
there was a major help for me.
I don't think I could
have done it without her.
And what really helps
me, specifically,
in gaining a deeper understand
to a poem, is actually getting up
and performing it,
doing it for people.
I feel like I find something new in
each poem every time I perform it.
I can be sitting at home in front
of the mirror just going over it day
after day, and that
doesn't do much for me.
But, as soon as I've got somebody
there, just even one person
as an audience that I can
leave them with something new,
that kind of also gives
me something new.
I would have to say, for the
Second Coming, especially,
that was something that really
helped me because I've always liked
that poem, but never really
understood much about it.
I knew it sounded kind of
almost apocalyptic a little bit,
but that was all I
really knew about the poem
until I actually started performing
it and feeling those words
and actually doing a
little bit of research
on William Butler Yeats helped
because he was writing this
in a time where this was around
the Great War, World War I.
Right after that.
And this was really world changing.
This was the time when people were
starting to really think about,
"Well, where is the end?"
because this was something
that had never happened before
and he was kind of musing on
that, taking his own ideas.
And I don't necessarily want
to say I look at it as --
I mean I clearly don't look at
it as something light, but I do,
after performing it, look at it
maybe not so dark a future because,
yes, it's a very dark poem and, yes,
it's talking about these things,
these kind of apocalyptic images.
But also it's kind of talking about
what's going to come after because
after the Second Coming,
what happens then?
I always think about that in
the last line of the poem.
And that's something that
really interests me to think
about every time I do this poem.
What happens next?
>> So the more you dig
into it, the more you find.
>> Yeah.
>> Maeva, do you want to
speak to it a little bit?
Or talk about how you prepared or
what the process is like for you?
>> I had a bit of similar
experiences as Paris and Ian.
Well, how I started out was I had
a group of poems I had picked out,
finally, six poems that I
was thinking about reciting
and I actually went through and
analyzed all of them first of all.
And, from there, that's
how I decided
which of the two really spoke to me
and which ones I was
going to recite.
And, from there, I had my
sister help me on a daily basis.
I would recite.
She sometimes would get really
annoyed because I'd be constantly
like coming to her, like, "hey,
can you listen to this part?
Can you listen to this part?"
But she was amazing.
She helped me every single
day with my recitation.
She would tell me, you know, "You
need to lower your voice here.
Or you need to add fluctuation.
You know, maybe not --
don't do this hand motion.
Or try this and see how it feels."
So she was essential when it came
to preparing for the competition.
And my friends helped me as
well and my teachers at school,
especially with Ode
on a Grecian Urn.
My English teacher and
other teachers from --
in the English department
at my school would help me
like analyze a poem and they
would help me with my recitations.
And they'd also give me
a lot of great advice.
I think, for me, for both Ode on a
Grecian Urn and for Zacuanpapalotls,
I -- it took me a while to finally
come up with like how my recitation
and style and how I was
going to present the poem.
Because I felt like
I had the obligation
to present what the author was
trying to say in the proper manner.
So I spent a lot of time practicing.
But, as I said, first, for
me, came the analyzation
of the different poems and
then, at the end, recitations.
I think that analyzation was really
important for me to be able to come
up with the correct gestures,
the correct fluctuation,
the correct tone that I would take
when it came to presenting
the poems.
>> Thank you.
I think we have time for one
more question from the audience.
Please go ahead.
And if you need --
speak up if you can.
It's the mic.
Sorry. Can you help her?
Thank you, Sir [laughing].
There we go.
>> What age did you guys
start doing your poems?
>> Well the competition starts
in high school so when you're
in high school you can -- as soon
as you enter your freshmen year,
you can start participating in
the Poetry Out Loud competition.
For me, I know the school
competition was in January
and I think for a lot schools
it takes place around that time.
But then there's the
school competition,
there's the regional competitions,
and state competitions.
So you have a lot of
opportunities in the future.
>> And you can start
learning now if you'd like to.
Everything is free and
available on our website.
So there are a lot of poems there.
All different kinds of poems.
So you heard six today.
There's, you know, 890 or
more, that you can look at.
And they're all free and online.
We also have a lot of free
swag in the back of the room.
That was all we have
time for actually.
So thank you, guys,
again for being here.
Thank you to these students.
[ Applause ]
>> This has been a presentation
of the Library of Congress.
Visit us at loc.gov.