In the past few weeks at Madison High School, poetry has been ringing through the halls in preparation for the annual Poetry Out Loud competition.

Classroom competitions took place in late December of 2015, with every student in each class memorizing and performing one poem for the volunteer judges during their English class. From each class, one winner was selected to move onto the schoolwide competition.

The eighteen classroom winners prepared the same poem plus another one for the school wide competition, which was to take place in the auditorium. In preparation for this second round, the contestants participated in a workshop with staff from the Playwright’s Theatre of New Jersey. The students took constructive criticism from both their peers and the PTNJ staff to make their performances better.

“Working with the staff of Playwright’s really helped me because I had a whole other perspective on what my poem was about,” says Lauren Ebert, junior, who was one of eighteen classroom winners. “It was good to have a fresh opinion on what I had worked on before.”

The schoolwide competition was held on Wednesday, January 13th during Block 3 and Common Lunch. To judge the students with their two poems were three guest judges. There were two rounds and each contestant performed one poem per round. There were many other students and faculty in the audience supporting the contestants.

In the end, freshman Ellie Culin came out as the winner of our school’s Poetry Out Loud competition, with junior Ransom Silliman named first runner-up.

“I really wasn’t expecting to win. I won the class one and I was like ‘alright’, and then I had to pick a second poem. My second poem was better than the first one,” says Culin. “Then I went to the school one, which was, like, the most terrifying experience of my life. There were only eighteen of us! We went up there and we were sitting backstage behind the curtain, and one by one we all go out. I was third which was also very intimidating. I went, and I really didn’t think I was going to win, I thought one of the juniors was going to win.”

The next step for Culin is competing at the regional competition at Morristown Performing Arts Center in February.

“I’ve kind of put off thinking about it in general, but I guess I’m pretty excited to go. I’m excited to go with everyone else who won in the state.”

We wish Ellie the best of luck during the next competition and beyond! Congratulations to everyone who participated in this year’s Poetry Out Loud festivities.