Poetry Out Loud Southern Regional Results Announced

On Thursday February 10, over 150 students, teachers, and family members gathered at the City Theater in Biddeford for the Southern Regional Poetry Out Loud Competition, organized by the Maine Arts Commission. The 22 students in the competition were all Poetry Out Loud school champions or runners up who began the season at the classroom level in a field of 8500 students from 45 public, private, and parochial schools from across the state.

The competition included two rounds for each student to recite a poem selected from a list compiled by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation. Round three heard the top 10 semi-finalists recite a third poem and cumulative scores from a bank of four judges determined the five finalists from the southern region who will compete in the State Final Poetry Out Loud Competition on Friday March 11, at the Franco-American Heritage Center in Lewiston. At the State Final the five students from the southern region will compete against five students from the northern region for the title of State Champion and an all expenses paid trip to Washington, DC for the National Poetry Out Loud Championship. The Northern Regional competition is set to take place at 4:00pm on Thursday February 17 at the Grand in Ellsworth.

The five students that will progress from the Southern Regional Final are pictured below.
From left to right:
Lulu Hawkes from Catherine McAuley High School
Ian Hawkes from Gorham High School
Munye Mohamed from Portland High School
Morgan Wiggan from Thornton Academy
Crystal Farrington from Lake Region High School