ORANGE — Six students channeled their inner Maya Angelou on Thursday for a chance to be one notch closer to competing on the national stage.
Levi Baruch, a 17-year-old senior from Orange, took first place for reciting two carefully selected poems: “Memory as a Hearing Aid” by Tony Hoagland and “I Am Offering This Poem” by Jimmy Santiago Baca.
“That poem’s pretty cool because (Baca) learned to read and write in maximum-security prison,” Baruch said about his second chosen poem, adding that he especially likes poetry that confronts social issues.
His win comes as a part of Ralph C. Mahar Regional School’s participation in Poetry Out Loud, a nationwide recitation contest. This victory sends him to a regional competition in Springfield in March. The winner of that contest goes to a state competition in Boston and that winner is one of 50 students invited to compete at nationals in Washington, D.C.
Baruch — along with schoolmates and fellow competitors Cole Emery, Jeanne Grutchfield, Merrideth Fountaine-Ehlen, Carolyn Gilmore and Alexandra Fraser — suppressed any jitters on stage in a dimly lit Dr. Charlotte Ryan Theater to deliver their selected poems to four guest judges and rows of friends and family. Two rounds of recitation were separated by a five-minute intermission. Each student recited poems from memory.
English teacher John Speek organized the event and explained that competition started in the classroom and progressed to the stage. He said the students selected their poems and honed their speaking skills with his guidance before Thursday.
“The point of Poetry Out Loud is really … trying to get the poem to come alive,” he said after the event, while the students mingled with members of the audience.
Baruch was last year’s Mahar champion as well and he won regionals in Springfield. He finished second in his school’s contest as a freshman and again as a sophomore. Speek said Baruch has natural poetic ability.
“He’s just got a great stage presence. He’s comfortable,” Speek said. “He’s confident and he puts a lot of time into memorization and a lot of time into really finding the contours of the poem and really finding its ebbs and flows.”
Emery came in second and Grutchfield took third. He said Mahar has a proud tradition of good poetry work and his students learn about presentation and how to articulate themselves through poetry.
“That was pretty awesome,” Speek said to a round of applause once every student had recited two poems.
Speek also thanked a donor, who asked not to be named, for contributing $250 to be split among the young poets based on where they placed in the judges’ scores.
You can reach Domenic Poli at: dpoli@recorder.com
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