Poetry Out Loud Workshop

Every year our tenth-grade students, as well as a handful of eleventh and twelfth graders, participate in Poetry Out Loud, a National Recitation Contest created by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation.
The Poetry Out Loud competition is set up as a bracket that starts at the classroom level. Winners in each class advance to a school-wide competition, then to a regional and/or state competition. At Vermont Academy, all students are required to memorize two poems one that is pre-20th century and one under 25 lines.

This year in preparation for the Thursday, January, 24th semi-final competition our classroom winners worked with actor, writer, director, and teaching artist John Hadden of the VT Arts Council. Danielle ’22 said, “working with Mr. Hadden was exciting and inspiring. After reciting my poem for just 8 minutes with him I saw a great deal of improvement and growth. I saw my poem as a real story after talking and working with him.”

On Thursday, January 24th the following students will take the stage in Horowitz Performing Arts Center to compete for a spot in the finals.

Maggie Hodgson ’21
Annie Moore ’21
Danielle McCarthy ’22
Jaz Creamer ’21
Eva Wu ’21
Shea Buckley ’21
Olivia Wang ’21
Thomas Kim ’21
Drew Naylor ’21
Jake Davidson ’21
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Vermont Academy is a coed college preparatory boarding and day school in southern Vermont, serving grades 9-12 plus a postgraduate year.