By Adhya Balaji, Kaavya Bajaj and Rachel Raffloer
The Prowler Staff Writers
Bridgewater-Raritan High School held its Poetry Out Loud school competition on Friday, January 9.
And the 11th annual event was won by a first-year student from Bridgewater-Raritan High School, freshman Noelle Sapp.
The runner-up was senior Peter Shan and freshman Adhya Balaji placed third.
The event drew an estimated crowd of 100 in the newly refurbished auditorium at Bridgewater-Raritan High School.
The competition was organized by Bridgewater-Raritan High School English Teacher Kat Doherty, with students Ishaan Shetty and Aishani Uddaraju, both juniors, serving as emcees.
Poetry Out Loud is a national program that challenges students to compete in a dynamic poetry recitation meant to improve public speaking skills, build confidence, and keep poetry alive. Students must choose a poem from the competition website’s extensive database, memorize it and then recite their poem to an audience.
Judges evaluate how well students convey a poem’s meaning through diction, gestures and emphasis, as well as their accuracy and overall performance. The judges for this year were dr. Kathy Messano, Mike Dalpe, Michelle Henry and Erin Leigh.
Also, Kim Hart served as the prompter, Mallory Potosky worked as the scorekeeper and Melissa Pierce and Phil D'Apolito were the chaperones.
This year, 20 students were selected----Sapp, Shan, Balaji, Adithya Anand, Cassidy Caruthers, James Cornett, Jaden Daquiz, Aayush Dhar, Aditi Dhara, Meher Dua, Caden Goodrich, Shreya Gupta, Anushka Khedlekar, Madison Mattis, Srishti Mittal, Thomas Pelaez, Shaant Sachdeva, Oliver Shoaf, Lahari Thota and Erica Zaltzman.
After two rounds of recitation and a 10-minute deliberation period, prizes were awarded to the top three performers.
Sapp won the championship with her recitations of “An Apology” by Julia Ward Howe and “We Wear the Mask” by Paul Laurence Dunbar.
Shan earned second place performing “Collectors” by Marion Strobel and “Chicago” by Carl Sandburg. And Balaji placed third with her recitations of “My House” by Claude McKay and “Militants to Certain Other Women” by Katherine Rolston Fisher.
Sapp will advance to the regional competition at 10 a.m. on Monday, February 2, at The Mayo Performing Arts Center (MPAC) in Morristown.
The champion was thrilled with her showing.
“I’m surprised, but in the best way possible. I never in a million years thought this would happen, and I am so excited to represent the school! I’m sure it was very difficult for the judges, so for the people who didn’t get awards, I don’t believe that says anything about their merit as a performer,” she said.
Here is the program for Poetry Out Loud