A trio of Howard County high school seniors has pulled off a rare feat.
The three students made a clean sweep of the regional level of a national poetry recitation contest for high school students last month and are now in the throes of rehearsing for the state finals March 2 at the Baltimore Museum of Art.
Their school sponsors say they each have the skills, confidence and self-awareness to win the final.
The finalists from region two are Hanna Al-Kowsi, first-place winner from Marriotts Ridge High School; Jaylen Barrett, second-place winner from Reservoir High School; and Poushali Banerjee, third-place winner from Centennial High School.
Along with Howard County, region two encompasses Anne Arundel, Calvert, Montgomery and St. Maryās counties. Maryland is divided into three regions for the contest.
The students compete individually, not as a team, and recite at each level the same three poems they independently chose.
One Maryland student will be selected Saturday to advance to the national finals of Poetry Out Loud to be held April 30 and May 1 in Washington.
Christine Stewart, Poetry Out Loud program director for the Maryland State Arts Council, said having one county dominate at one of the stateās three regional contests is unusual, but āhas happened at least once in the past.ā
Corey OāBrien, an English teacher and contest sponsor at Centennial, was thrilled to learn about the studentsā uncommon achievement in the competition, which was created in 2005 by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation.
āWhen I realized all three of our regionās winners were from Howard County, I thought, āWow, thatās really cool,āā he said.
Since 2005, Poetry Out Loud has grown to reach more than 3.6 million students and 55,000 teachers from 14,000 schools in every state, the District of Columbia, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico, according to the competitionās website.
Across Maryland, 5,400 students participated in the contest this year before the field was narrowed to 27 at the regional level, then to nine state finalists, Stewart said.
In a new sister competition called Poetry Ourselves, in which competitors recite an original poem, Logan Hedgecoth of Severn High School in Anne Arundel County was named the region two winner.
At each level of Poetry Out Loud, students are judged in five categories: physical presence, voice and articulation, dramatic appropriateness, evidence of understanding and overall performance. A separate judge scores them for accuracy.
Al-Kowsi said competitors walk a narrow tightrope in deciding how to shape their performances.
āThereās a fine line between overdoing it and giving an appropriate performance,ā said the Marriotts Ridge student, whoās been practicing 15 to 30 minutes a day for months.
āIf you practice in isolation too much, you can get into your own head,ā she said. āYou can work it to death if you do it for too long.ā
Her poems include āThe Glories of Our Blood and Stateā by James Shirley, āAuthorās Prayerā by Ilya Kaminsky and āCodaā by Basil Bunting.
The West Friendship resident stressed the importance of poetry, and the arts in general, to sustaining an informed and well-rounded society.
āWe make poetry seem inaccessible and we devalue it because itās not a hard science,ā she said, ābut a lot is lost when you take away self-expression.ā
Al-Kowsi said her methodology is drawn in part from memorizing lines for plays.
āIāve had decent parts in theater, so I thought Iād do well,ā she said. āThe nerves are there, and it can be really nerve-racking, but Iām used to it.ā
Marriotts Ridge English teacher and Slam Poetry Club sponsor Meg Roberts noted that Al-Kowsi has the lead role of Maria next month in the schoolās presentation of āThe Sound of Music.ā
Playing the role made famous by Julie Andrews is āa pretty big deal,ā Roberts said, and Al-Kowsiās proven ability to thrive on stage serves her well.
āHanna is mild-mannered and unassuming,ā she said. āBut when she steps in front of an audience, sheās a natural performer who commands attention.ā
Jaylen Barrett, whoās called āMr. Poetā by his varsity basketball teammates at Reservoir, brings a unique perspective to the competition.
While the Laurel resident intends to declare an international business and economics double-major at Howard University this fall, he has also set a long-term goal of becoming United States poet laureate.
āI write poetry and Iām good at reciting,ā Barrett said, adding that poetry āhelps you understand yourself.ā
The poems he will recite are āBlade, Unpluggedā by Tim Seibles, āRondeauā by Leigh Hunt, and āOde to the Midwestā by Kevin Young.
āYou need to have a sense of rhythm and put your own cadence, emphasis and spin on your performance,ā he said.
Matty Valvano, who teaches English 10 and advanced composition at Reservoir, said Barrett was a school finalist in Poetry Out Loud as a sophomore and has sharpened his skill set since then.
āJay has matured in his writing and is crafting his own voice,ā Valvano said. āHe has an old soul vibe and heās a multi-faceted personality. He can really take this contest and run with it.ā
Centennial student Poushali Banerjee said she was āa little surprisedā to learn sheād been named a regional winner.
āBut I do have an aptitude for memorization and Iām good at taking the emotions [from a poem] and reciting them,ā she said.
Banerjee, who has written her three poems down over and over in notebooks āto get a feel for the words,ā said she worked to overcome a natural tendency to be āsuper shy.ā
āIt takes a lot of vulnerability to be able to interpret a poem for other people, but Iāve reached a place where Iām comfortable doing that,ā the Ellicott City resident said.
Centennial English teacher and Poetry Out Loud coordinator Corey OāBrien said that when Banerjee took the stage at the regional competition, āshe just became the poem,ā referring to her recitation of āThe Paradox,ā by Paul Laurence Dunbar.
āI asked her, āWhere did that come from?āā he recalled. āItās a complicated poem and she did really well with it.ā
Banerjeeās other selections are ābugās psalmā by Rodney Koeneke and āRespirationā by Jamaal May.
OāBrien said successful interpretation of a poem ācomes down to how a student and a poet interactā and that the healthy competition among students in Poetry Out Loud bears this out.
āSome of the schools really bring it,ā he said, āand these [Howard County] students are in it to win it.ā
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If you go
The state finals of Poetry Out Loud will take place from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday in the Meyerhoff Auditorium at the Baltimore Museum of Art, 10 Art Museum Drive, Baltimore. The event is open to the public and admission is free. Information: msac.org.