- [Voiceover] Poetry Out Loud is a program of the National Endowment for the Arts and supported locally by the Arts Education Program of NEIU AIE/nepa.

The project is funded by the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, Lackawanna County.

With additional generous funds by the Overlook Estate Foundation.

(upbeat pop music) - Good evening and welcome to the Poetry Out Loud Regional Competition.

I'm your host, Sarah Marie Thomas.

Poetry Out Loud is a national program from which high school students learn about great poetry through memorization and recitation.

One of the students here tonight will advance to the state competition in Harrisburg and perhaps even to the national finals in Washington D.C. where they will compete for a grand prize scholarship.

Thank you to all participating teachers throughout Northeast Pennsylvania for holding the in-school competitions and for generating enthusiasm in your students.

Now our seven regional contestants are already winners representing their own high schools.

They'll now compete in three rounds and we'll award certificates to all participants.

Tonight's top three finalists will receive free tuition to The Lyceum School for the Arts.

But before we get started, I have someone to thank for making this great event possible.

Please welcome Dr. Kathleen Sottile.

- Good evening everyone.

My name is Kathleen Sottile and I'm the executive director at Northeast Educational Intermediate Unit, NEIU19 as we're called.

It is an honor to be here tonight to welcome all of you and to watch the incredible performances I know I'm about to see.

I know firsthand as a former music teacher and for someone who has a son who's a professional actor how important the arts are and I also know firsthand what a great job everyone in this area does.

I just moved back here from New York, I've been working there for 17 years and I can tell you that they can't hold a candle to us and all of the great work that everybody does around here and I just wanna say thank you.

I would like to thank WVIA.

I would like to thank the Pennsylvania Council of the Arts.

I would like to thank WVIA for hosting this tonight and being such an important part of the arts in Pennsylvania and I would like to thank our school districts, our teachers who are incredible, and basically held us together through this COVID 19 crisis that we just went through.

And most importantly, I'd like to thank our students.

They are amazing and they never ceased to impress us, so thank you.

It is an honor to be here and I'm looking forward to this evening.

Thank you very much.

- Thank you so much, Kathleen.

In this competition, students will be judged on physical presence and posture, voice projection and articulation, appropriate gestures that enhance the recitation, level of difficulty, and evidence of understanding.

Please welcome our judges who are giving their time and talents so generously today.

Matthew Hinton.

Matthew is a playwright, poet, and an educator at Misericordia University.

Dawn Leas, a published poet, editor, and writing coach.

Alicia Grega, a playwright, poet, and educator at Wilkes University, Lackawanna College, and the University of Cincinnati and a PCA rostered artist.

Our prompter tonight is Conor McGuigan.

Connor is an actor, artist, and writer and is a PCA rostered artist.

Judging accuracy is Dellana Diovisalvo.

Delena is the executive director of the Tunkhannock Public Library.

Keeping tally is Stefanie Colarusso.

She is an art educator and also a PCA rostered artist.

And now on with the competition.

It is my pleasure to introduce our first student Shannon O'Malley from Holy Cross High School.

- "Cartoon Physics, Part 1" by Nick Flynn.

Children under, say, ten, shouldn't know that the universe is ever expanding, inexorably pushing into the vacuum, galaxies swallowed by galaxies, whole solar systems collapsing, all of it acted out in silence.

At ten we are still learning the rules of cartoon animation, that if a man draws a door on a rock only he can pass through it.

Anyone else who tries will crash into the rock.

Ten-year-olds should stick with burning houses, car wrecks, ships going down, earthbound, tangible disasters, arenas where they can be heroes.

You can run back into a burning house, sinking ships have lifeboats, the trucks will come with their ladders, if you jump you will be saved.

A child places her hand on the roof of a school bus and drives across a city of sand.

She knows the exact spot it will skid, at which point the bridge will give, who will swim to safety, and who will be pulled under by sharks.

She will learn that if a man runs off the edge of a cliff he will not fall until he notices his mistake.

(audience applauding) - Our next student is Diane Arias-Tejeda from MMI Prep.

- "Semi-Splendid" by Tracy K. Smith.

You flinch.

Something flickers, not fleeing your face.

My heart hammers at the ceiling, telling my tongue to turn it down.

Too late.

The something climbs, leaps, is falling now across us like the prank of an icy, brainy lord.

I chose the wrong word.

I am wrong for not choosing merely to smile, to pull you toward me and away from what you think of as that other me, who wanders lost among.

Among whom?

The many?

The rare?

I wish you didn't care.

I watch you watching her.

Her very shadow is a rage that trashes the rooms of your eyes.

Do you claim surprise at what she wants, the poor girl, pelted with despair, who flits from grief to grief?

Isn't it you she seeks?

And if you blame her, know that she blames you for choosing not her, but me.

Love is never fair.

But do we, should we care?

(audience applauding) - Next is Dominic Huffman for Maria Kaupas Academy.

- "Songs for the People" by Frances Ellen Watkins Harper.

Let me make the songs for the people, songs for the old and young.

Songs to stir like a battle-cry wherever they are sung.

Not for the clashing of sabres, for carnage nor for strife, but songs to thrill the hearts of men with more abundant life.

Let me make the songs for the weary, amid life's fever and fret, till hearts shall relax their tension, and careworn brows forget.

Let me sing for little children, before their footsteps stray, sweet anthems of love and duty, to float o'er life's highway.

I would sing for the poor and aged, when shadows dim their sight, of the bright and restful mansions, where there shall be no night.

Our world, so worn and weary, needs music, pure and strong, to hush the jangle and discords of sorrow, pain, and wrong.

Music to soothe all its sorrow, till war and crime shall cease, and the hearts of men grown tender girdle the world with peace.

(audience applauding) - Our next student is Jennifer Genell from Riverside High School.

- "The Charge of the Light Brigade" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson.

Half a league, half a league.

Half a league onward, all in the valley of death rode the six hundred.

"Forward, the Light Brigade!

Charge for the guns!"

he said.

Into the valley of death rode the six hundred.

"Forward, the Light Brigade!"

Was there a man dismayed?

Not though the soldier knew someone had blundered.

Theirs not to make reply, theirs not to reason why, theirs but to do and die.

Into the valley of death rode the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them, cannon to left of them, cannon in front of them volleyed and thundered, stormed at with shot and shell, boldly they rode and well, into the jaws of death, into the mouth of hell rode the six hundred.

Flashed all their sabres bare, flashed as they turned in air, sabring the gunners there, charging an army, while all the world wondered.

Plunged in the battery-smoke, right through the line they broke, Cossack and Russian reeled from the sabre stroke.

Shattered and sundered.

Then they rode back, but not, not the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them, cannon to left of them, cannon behind them volleyed and thundered, stormed at with shot and shell, while horse and hero fell.

They that had fought so well came through the jaws of death, back from the mouth of hell, all that was left of them, left of six hundred.

When can their glory fade?

O the wild charge they made.

All the world wondered.

Honour the charge they made.

Honour the Light Brigade, noble six hundred.

(audience applauding) - Up next is Kendal Pauline from the Hazleton Area Arts and Humanities Academy.

- "Self-Employed" by David Ignatow.

For Harvey Shapiro.

I stand and listen, head bowed to my inner complaint.

Persons passing by think I am searching for a lost coin.

You're fired, I yell inside after an especially bad episode.

I'm letting you go without notice or terminal pay.

You just lost another chance to make good.

But then I watch myself standing at the exit, depressed and about to leave, and wave myself back in wearily, for who else could I get in my place to do the job in dark, airless conditions?

(audience applauding) - Next is Fatema Shah from Abington Heights High School.

- "the world is about to end and my grandparents are in love" by Kara Jackson.

Still, living like they orbit one another, my grandfather, the planet, and grandma, his moon assigned by some gravitational pull.

They have loved long enough for a working man to retire.

Grandma says she's not tired, she wears her husband like a coat that survives every season, talks about him the way my parents talk about vinyl, the subject salvaged by the tent of their tongues.

Grandma returns to her love like a hymn, marks it with a color.

When the world ends will it suck the earth of all its love?

Will I go taking somebody's hand, my skin becoming their skin?

The digital age is taking away our winters, and I'm afraid the sun is my soulmate, that waste waits for a wet kiss, carbon calls me pretty, and I think death is a good first date.

I hope when the world ends it leaves them be, spares grandpa and his game, grandma spinning corn into weight, the two of them reeling into western theme songs, the TV louder than whatever's coming.

(audience applauding) - And lastly is Jack Benedict from Montrose Area High School.

- I grieve and dare not show my discontent, I love and yet am forced to seem to hate, I do, yet dare not say I ever meant, I seem stark mute but inwardly do prate.

I am and not, I freeze and yet am burned, for from myself another self I turned.

My care is like my shadow in the sun, follows me flying, flies when I pursue it, stands and lies by me, doth what I have done.

His too familiar care doth make me rue it.

No means I find to rid him from my breast, till the end of things it be supprest.

Some gentler passion slide into my mind, for I am soft and made of melting snow, or be more cruel, love, and so be kind.

Let me or float or sink, be high or low.

Or let me live with some more sweet content, or die and so forget what love ere meant.

(audience applauding) - And now on to round two.

Once again, let's welcome Shannon O'Malley.

- "I Am Offering this Poem" by Jimmy Santiago Baca.

I am offering this poem to you, since I have nothing else to give.

Keep it like a warm jacket when winter comes to cover you, or like a pair of thick socks the cold cannot bite through, I love you, I have nothing else to give you, so it is a pot full of yellow corn to warm your belly in winter, it's a scarf for your head, for over your hair to tie up around your face, I love you.

Keep it, treasure it as if you were lost needing direction, in the wilderness life becomes when mature; and in the corner of your drawer, tucked away like a cabin or hogan in dense trees, come knocking, and I will answer you, give you directions, let you warm yourself by this fire, ley you rest by this fire, and make you feel safe.

I love you.

I have to give else to give, it's all anyone needs to live, and to go on living inside, when the world doesn't care if you live or die, remember, I love you.

(audience applauding) - Our next student is Diane Arias-Tejeda.

- "Caminitos" by Carmen Tafolla The pathways of my thoughts are cobbled with mesquite blocks and narrow-winding, long and aged like the streets of san fernando de bexar y la villa real de san antonio pensive y callados cada uno con su chiste idiosyncracy crazy turns that are because they are, centuries magic cada uno hecho así, y with a careful capricho touch, así.

They curl slowly into ripples, earthy and cool like the Río Medina under the trees silently singing, standing still, and flowing, becoming, became and always as always still fertile, laughing, loving, alivianada Río Medina under the trees, celebrating life.

They end up in the monte, chaparral, llenos de burrs, spurs, pero libres Running through the hills free foot, con aire azul, blue breaths peacefully taken between each lope remembering venado, remembering conejos, remembering where we came from.

(audience applauding) - Next up is Dominic Huffman.

- "In Praise of My Bed" by Meredith Holmes.

At last I can be with you!

The grinding hours since I left your side!

The labor of being fully human, working my opposable thumb, talking and walking upright.

Now I have unclasped, unzipped, stepped out of, husked, soft, a be-er only, I do nothing, but point my bare feet into your clean smoothness, feel your quiet strength the whole length of my body.

I close my eyes, hear myself moan, so grateful to be held this way.

(audience applauding) - Please welcome back Jennifer Genell.

- "The Glories of Our Blood and State" by James Shirley.

The glories of our blood and state are shadows, not substantial things, there is no armour against fate, death lays his icy hand on kings, sceptre and crown must tumble down, and in the dust be equal made with the poor crooked scythe and spade.

Some men with swords may reap the field, and plant fresh laurels where they kill, but their strong nerves at last must yield, they tame but one another still, early or late they stoop to fate, and must give up their murmuring breath when they, pale captives, creep to death.

The garlands wither on your brow, then boast no more your mighty deeds!

Upon death's purple altar now see where the victor, victim bleeds.

your heads must come to the cold tomb, only the actions of the just smell sweet and blossom in their dust.

(audience applauding) - Once again, here is Kendall Pauline.

- "Blade, Unplugged" by Tim Seibles.

It's true, I almost never smile, but that doesn't mean I'm not in love.

My heart is that black violin played slowly.

You know that moment late in the solo when the voice is so pure you feel the blood in it, the wound between rage and complete surrender.

That's where I'm smiling.

You just can't see it, the sound bleeding perfectly inside me.

The first time I killed a vampire I was sad, I mean we were almost family.

But that's so many lives ago.

I believe in the cry that cuts into the melody, the strings calling back the forgotten world.

When I think of the madness that has made me and the midnight I walk inside, all day long, when I think of that one note that breaks, what's left of what's human in me, man, I love everything.

(audience applauding) - Next up, Fatema Shah.

- "Semblance: Screens" by Liz Waldner.

A moth lies open and lies like an old bleached beech leaf, a lean-to between window frame and sill.

Its death protects a collection of tinier deaths and dirts beneath.

Although the white paint is water-stained, on it death is dirt, and hapless.

The just-severed tiger lily is drinking its glass of water, I hope.

This hope is sere.

This hope is severe.

What you ruin ruins you, too and so you hope for favor.

I mean I do.

The underside of a ladybug wanders the window.

I wander the continent, my undercarriage not as evident.

So go more perilously, it seems to me.

But I am only me, to you it seems clear I mean to disappear, and project on you some ancient fear.

If I were a bug, I hope I wouldn't be this giant winged thing, spindly like a crane fly, skinny-legged like me, kissing the cold ceiling, fumbling for the face of the other, seeking.

It came in with me last night when I turned on the light.

I lay awake, afraid it would touch my face.

It wants out.

I want out, too.

I thought you a way through.

Arms wide for wings, your suffering mine, twinned.

Screen.

Your unbelief drives me in, doubt for dirt, white sheet for sill.

You don't stay often enough or well enough to be likened to.

(audience applauding) - And finishing up round two is Jack Benedict.

- "The Glories of Our Blood and State" by James Shirley.

The glories of our blood and state are shadows, not substantial things, there is no armour against fate, death lays his icy hand on kings, sceptre and crown must tumble down, and in the dust be equal made with the poor crooked scythe and spade.

Some men with swords may reap the field, and plant fresh laurels where they kill, but their strong nerves at last must yield, they tame but one another still, early or late they stoop to fate, and must give up their murmuring breath when they, pale captives, creep to death.

the garlands wither on your brow, then boast no more your mighty deeds!

Upon death's purple altar now see where the victor, victim bleeds.

your heads must come to the cold tomb, only the actions of the just smell sweet and blossom in their dust.

(audience applauding) - And now for our final round.

Please welcome once again Shannon O'Malley.

- "I heard a Fly buzz - when I died" by Emily Dickinson.

I heard a fly buzz, when I died, the stillness in the room like the stillness in the air, between the heaves of storm, the eyes around had wrung them dry and breaths were gathering firm.

For that last onset, when the King be witnessed in the room.

I willed my keepsakes, signed away what portion of me be assignable, and then it was, there interposed a fly with blue, uncertain, stumbling buzz between the light and me, and then the windows failed, and I couldn't see to see.

(audience applauding) - Next is Diane Arias-Tejeda.

- "The Children's Hour" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

Between the dark and the daylight, when the night is beginning to lower, comes a pause in the day's occupations, that is known as the children's hour.

I hear in the chamber above me the patter of little feet, the sound of a door that is opened, and voices soft and sweet.

From my study I see in the lamplight, descending the broad hall stair, brave Alice, and laughing Allegra, and Edith with golden hair.

A whisper, and then a silence.

Yet I know by their merry eyes they are plotting and planning together to take me by surprise.

A sudden rush from the stairway, a sudden raid from the hall!

By three doors left unguarded they enter my castle wall!

They climb up into my turret o'er the arms and back of my chair, if I try to escape, they surround me, they seem to be everywhere.

They almost devour me with kisses, their arms about me entwine, till I think of the Bishop of Bingen in his Mouse-Tower on the Rhine!

Do you think, O blue-eyed banditti, because you have scaled the wall, such an old mustache as I am is not a match for you all!

I have you fast in my fortress, and will not let you depart, but put you down into the dungeon in the round-tower of my heart.

And there will I keep you forever, yes, forever and a day, till the walls shall crumble to ruin, and moulder in dust away!

(audience applauding) - Once again, here is Dominic Huffman.

- "The New Colossus" by Emma Lazarus.

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame, with conquering limbs astride from land to land, here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand a mighty woman with a torch, whose flame is the imprisoned lightning, and her name Mother of Exiles.

From her beacon hand glows world-wide welcome.

Her mild eyes command the air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!"

cries she with silent lips.

"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

(audience applauding) - Up next is Jennifer Genell.

- "I am the People, the Mob" by Carl Sandberg.

I am the people, the mob, the crowd, the mass.

Do you know that all the great work of the world is done through me?

I am the workingman, the inventor, the maker of the world's food and clothes.

I am the audience that witnesses history.

The Napoleons come from me and the Lincolns.

They die.

And then I send forth more Napoleons and Lincolns.

I am the seed ground.

I am a prairie that will stand for much plowing.

Terrible storms pass over me.

I forget.

The best of me is sucked out and wasted.

I forget.

Everything but death comes to me and makes me work and give up what I have.

And I forget.

Sometimes I growl, shake myself, and spatter a few red drops for history to remember.

Then, I forget.

When I, the people, learn to remember, when I, the people, use the lessons of yesterday, and no longer forget who robbed me last year, who played me for a fool, then there will be no speaker in all the world say the name, "The People," with any fleck of a sneer in his voice or any far-off smile of derision.

The mob, the crowd, the mass, will arrive then.

(audience applauding) - And next in this final round is Kendal Pauline.

- "Dirge in Woods" by George Meredith.

A wind sways the pines, and below not a breath of wild air.

Still as the mosses that glow on the flooring and over the lines of the roots here and there.

The pine-tree drops, its dead.

They are quiet, as under the sea.

Overhead, overhead rushes life in a race, As the clouds the clouds chase.

And we go, and we drop like the fruits of the tree, Even we, even so.

(audience applauding) - And for our final poem this evening, Jack Benedict.

- "Charge of the Light Brigade" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson.

Half a league, half a league.

Half a league onward, all in the valley of death rode the six hundred.

"Forward, the Light Brigade!

Charge for the guns!"

he said.

Into the valley of death rode the six hundred.

"Forward, the Light Brigade!"

Was there a man dismayed?

Not though the soldier knew someone had blundered.

Not theirs to make reply, not theirs to reason why, theirs but to do and die.

Into the valley of death rode the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them, cannon to left of them, cannon in front of them volleyed and thundered, stormed at with shot and shell, boldly they rode and well, into the jaws of Death, into the mouth of hell rode the six hundred.

Flashed all their sabres bare, flashed as they turned in air sabring the gunners there, charging an army, while all the world wondered.

Plunged in the battery-smoke, right through the line they broke, Cossack and Russian reeled from the sabre stroke.

Shattered and sundered.

Then they rode back, but not, not the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them, cannon to left of them, cannon behind them volleyed and thundered, stormed at with shot and shell, while horse and hero fell.

They that had fought so well came through the jaws of death, back from the mouth of hell, all that was left of them, left of six hundred.

When can their glory fade?

O the wild charge they made.

All the world wondered.

Honour the charge they made.

Honour the Light Brigade, noble six hundred.

(audience applauding) - I wanna take a moment to congratulate the seven amazing students who have joined us here this evening for this competition.

You probably didn't know but backstage, they were so supportive of one another, cheering each other on, and just being there for each other in this competition.

And that speaks volumes to each one of these students, in addition to the great talent that we saw here today.

So congratulations to each and every one of you.

(audience applauding) Now for the hard part, the judges have tallied the scores and it's time to announce the winners and recipients of free tuition to The Lyceum School of the Arts.

In third place, we have Dominic Huffman.

(audience applauding) In second place, the Poetry Out Loud runner up is Jennifer Genell.

(audience applauding) And our winner for the Poetry Out Loud Regional Competition and advancing to states in Harrisburg is Kendall Pauline.

(audience applauding) (audience cheering and applauding) Oh, congratulations to all of our winners and to all of the contestants for such a wonderful job.

A special thanks to the lead teachers and our judges who certainly helped make this competition possible tonight.

Thank you so much.

Of course, it's our pleasure to thank the Poetry Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts, as well as the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, Regional Director Dr. Katherine Richmond Cullen and executive Director Dr. Kathleen Sottile, the Overlook Estate Foundation, Lackawanna County Arts and Culture, and our partners the Northeastern Educational Intermediate Unit who made this broadcast possible.

WVIA is proud to showcase the talented students of our region and to provide quality arts, cultural programming, and educational services all thanks to your support.

If your school didn't get to participate this year, but you would like to be a part of Poetry Out Loud next year, please get in touch with WVIA's education team and we'll make sure you receive the necessary information.

For now, I'm Sarah Marie Thomas, director of membership here at WVIA saying, thank you for watching and have a great night.

(audience applauding) - [Voiceover] Poetry Out Loud is a program of the National Endowment for the Arts and supported locally by the Arts Education Program of NEIU AIE/nepa.

The project is funded by the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, Lackawanna County.

With additional generous funds by the Overlook Estate Foundation.