Vernon holds Poetry Out Loud competition

Vernon — Four the sixth year, Vernon Township High School conducted its annual Poetry Out Loud competition this month, part of the national poetry recitation competition that encourages a love of poems and the spoken word.

For the second year in a row, Ethan Metz, now a sophomore, won the top spot and the chance to compete again in the regional competition slated to be held at the Mayo (Morristown) Center for Performing Arts in early February.

Metz won with his stoic recitation of John Donne’s Death Be Not Proud. Jessica Dunlop won second place with her poignant rendition of The Albatross by Kate Bass, and Shannon Rogers and Blake Harrsch tied for third. Rogers recited The Larger by Joanie Mackowski and Harrsch recited For Love by Robert Creeley. The selection of poems ran from Robert Frost’s short but powerful Fire and Ice to the lengthy classics, like Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll and Conqueror Worm by Edgar Allen Poe.

Selections ranged from modern poetry, to which we might expect young people to be drawn, to the more staid and complicated poems of Yeats, Bronte and Burns. Well-known poems, like John Masefield’s Sea Fever (“I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky…”), Joyce Kilmer’s Tree (“I never think that I shall see a Poem lovely as a tree….”), and William Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18 (“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?...) were also among the offerings.

English classes made up the majority of the audience each class period, but the program, very popular among students and staff, also drew other classes, as well, to watch and encourage their peers on the stage. Volunteer judges this year were former VTHS English teacher Mary Ann Kaicher, former VTHS chemistry teacher Dee Franklin, Highland Lakes avant-garde poet Rita Ingeborg Pentenreider-Hunken, and VTHS Alum Alicia Pollard. Students were judged on voice and articulation, dramatic appropriateness, evidence of understanding, physical presence and accuracy.

Honorable Mentions were awarded to: Andrew Lisa, Zachary Jano, Matthew Charuka, Alyssa Koehler, Violet Jastrzembski, Emily Ross, Zoe Heath, Linsday Verrico, Alexandria Bisanzio, Maxim Yacun, Sarah Benson and Connor Blake. As a special presentation, and not part of the judged portion, senior Alex Gaura recited an eight-minute, 130-line poem, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, by T. S. Eliot.

The audience of teenagers was rapt, appreciative and in awe, and rewarded Gaura with resounding applause when he was finished.