POL contestant: the next stanza

POL+contestant+Hayden+Kubishta+17.

Sarah MacEachen

POL contestant Hayden Kubishta ’17.

Sarah MacEachen, Print Editor

Poetry Out Loud is a nationwide poetry recitation competition for high school students.

Participating classes of all grade levels at HB assigned each student to memorize a poem from PoetryOutLoud.org and present it to their individual class. Each classroom winner memorized a second poem and competed in the auditorium for a chance to be the school winner and the opportunity to proceed to the district competition.

The number of contestants have more than doubled since last year’s competition. Participants are judged by how accurately they present their poem of choice, along with dramatic appropriateness, voice & articulation, and poise. 

Winner Hayden Kubishta’ 17 recited Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley, as well as The New Colossus by Emma Lazarus.

Kubishta immediately knew that he wanted to memorize and recite Ozymandias- one of the first poems he took the time to analyze in depth.

“I wanted to do the poem justice,” Kubishta stated.

The choice of The New Colossus was to “juxtapose” his first performance. Lazarus writes about a hopeful new start and a welcoming new home, while Ozymandias is a sonnet about the ruins of an old city.

Kubishta has won the district’s POL competition, and will proceed to states in the coming weeks. For each new competition he will need to memorize a new poem by “read [ing] it over several times and memorizes it section by section” according to Kubishta.

The state winner’s school will receive money for poetry materials and the Poetry Out Loud National Champion will receives a scholarship award of twenty-thousand dollars.