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by Adelheide Johansen
Graphic Design Assistant Editor
This year’s NS Poetry Out Loud contest was held Feb. 8, where Bradley Power took first against the eight other students that participated and is now moving on to region.
“I competed last year and it was kind of a spur of the moment thing, but it was definitely a fun experience this year,” said senior Bradley Power.
With the win, Power is now working on a video submission for the region competition on Feb. 26, in which he will compete against around nine other students.
“Even before Poetry Out Loud started I was getting into poetry, and I started reading poetry for fun and memorizing poems for fun,” Power said.
Poetry was a love he had long before this competition, but after first participating he wanted to turn his hobby into a bigger thing.
“Bradley Power definitely drummed up interest; he made sure to keep up on tasks as far as asking people and advertising,” said NS teacher Kaylene Johnson. “He really wanted it to be successful.”
After talking to Johnson, he was successful in increasing the interest in this competition as the number of participants more than doubled this year from last, which brought great opportunities for all of the competitors.
“I thought it would be a great opportunity to explore poetry and be able to do public speaking in front of crowds,” said junior Hope Shelley.
Shelley was runner-up this year and found many positive aspects in competing, one being public speaking. Sophomore Gracie Kjar also thought it was a positive experience.
“It definitely got me out of my comfort zone because I’m not a very exuberant or dramatic person,” said Kjar.
One main positive aspect that many participants have seen is the practice in public speaking and moving past that fear to gain an important skill. But that is not the only positive thing to gain from this competition.
“It’s a very simple way to express yourself; I think it’s a therapeutic release as well,” Johnson said.
Johnson thinks that finding a poem that speaks to students is a form of therapy, and many contestants did just that.
“I chose a feminist poem because it kind of resonates with me and means something to me,” Kjar said.
She connected with the women in the poem in the sense that she is against stereotypes. It really resonated with her, and she was able to express that through this opportunity. She is not the only one to relate to her poem.
“I definitely relate to the little boy in the poem just because it describes how awkward he is and he’s not able to stand still,” Power said.
Power believes that in order to like the poem you choose, you need to build some sort of connection with it and he did just that. He saw himself within that little boy and used that to express himself.
“I have a passion about poetry, and I really like to hear the poems and how they’re put together with poetry and I found it really astonishing,” Shelley said.
She thinks all the participants did really well and knows all the hard work that is put into it.
It was a positive experience for them, and there is a lot of work that goes into competing. Many participants spent a few hours preparing, memorizing, and presenting.
