I was aurprised Thusday aftternoon when I assisted with Springfield Area Arts Council’s (SAAC) Poetry Out Loud contest. The three-year old competition of high school students reciting poems selected from a lenghthy list of approved poems, encourages students to memorize, to do more than prove they can pronounce polysyllabic words on a piece of paper, to demonstrate the same kind of human kaliedoscope of expression when reciting a poem out loud that we use in real life. Since it was launched by the National Endowment fo the Arts and the Poetry Foundation and supported by the afore-mentioned SAAC, Illinois Arts Council, Hoogland Center for the Arts, Arena Food Service and a host of volunteers, I have been privileged to be a part of the local and and state action. I’ve been a judge, accuracy monitor and yesterday, I served as prompter. During the event, this long winter after my angry estrangement from much of the local “poetry community” I suffered a suprise: I discovered I was not as estranged from poetry as I believed. The joy of reciting, of studied, practiced elocution and expression, the wisdom and passion of better poets than I . . . . returned to me as I watched about 16 high school students infuse me with almost-forgotten splendors from words.
As prompter, I worked less than the accuracy judge, the three other judges focused on expression and the rest of the volunteers. Penny Wollan-Kriel, assistant director SAAC welcomed all and ably emceed the event. Newly arrived SAAC Executive Director Christina Steelman, fresh form Western Illinois University, took pictures.. Only two of the poets asked for my help, and only one of the two asked for my help more than once. The setup for help was pure genius. Students knew (as I also knew) that if they needed a boost, a word, the next few words, they were to look directly at me and pause. I was in the front row, several seats downwind from the expression judges, and I had the longest beard in the auditorium; easy to recognize. My role required me to stay wtih the students, dividing my attention between text on the page and their earnest, focused faces, ready to assist without embarassing, protracted silences. It was not unlike a pilot dividing attention btween the vital instruments in hic cockpit (head down) and the view out the windshield (head up) while landing an airplane in bad weather. The longest poem read — The Cremation of Sam McGee, by Robert W. Service — was four times longer than most poems read, so I anticipated speed bumps, and I was right. But the poem was very well recited, despite a few fast pauses for prompts, and I absolutely admired the young lady (there was only one young gentleman in the mix) for taking it on. Among her friends, or at the dinner table with the family — which is ideal rehearsal time as long as the mashed potatoes aren’t getting cold — she could have pulled it off without a hitch. But as I am confident YOU know, standing in front of a crowd of strangers, with visions of American Idol dancing in your head, takes a heck of a lot of composure! Every participating student had COMPOSURE radiating out of their smiles and attitudes like sunshine on the Fourth of July.
It was a kick to recognize some of the poets selected and recited. Robert Frost’s The Road Not Taken and Whitman’s O Captain, My Captain were included. Also poems by Gwendolyn Books, Sir Walter Raleigh and Edna St. Vincent Millay were recited. Other poems by authors with whom I consider myself subnominally familiar were recited well as well. Reading the poems in advance several times as home, and then sharing them recited, expanded my horizon. I will return to some of those names new to ms: AI (a real name, apparently) and Wilfred Owen for sure. Talking with some of the students afterward, I asked the Whitman reciter if he was familiar with his immortal book Leaves of Grass. He responded that he had never heard of the book. HEY DEDICATED HIGH SCHOOL ENGLISH TEACHERS! NOW is the time to supplement what your exemplary students learn from the Poetry Out Loud site on the Internet wtih some essential, engaging background! (<— just a thought)
Vachel Lindsay was among the poets presented in the program’s poet listing, but no students selected a Vachel poem. That’s okay. The event was not about Vachel; it was about something more than Vachel. Even so, I DID recite a Vachel poem quietly (almost whispered) during the break between routnds one and two with the accuracy judge. I recited Vachel’s What the Sexton Said, and I was more than amply acknowledged with her kind reaction. I also told several others about my connection to Vachel the Springfield citizen and world poet.
I departed the event renewed in my passion for the well-recited words of talented poets. I am, before I am a poet, a reciter of poetry. I am majorly pained I no longer can share poetry recited or even properly elocuted as it should be shared as much as I’d like, thanks to circumstances, the details of which would only furthur sully this blog posting. Whether I am engaged by others to recite poems is beyond my control but not beyond my concern. I will recite Vachel, or my poems, “at the drop of a hint.” And if lunch, diner or remuneration one can fold and deposit in a bank are involved, I will even rehearse. I am what I am. In the meantime, as I be what I be, I extend my sincere KUDOS to Springfield Area Arts Council and sponsors and volunteers for a heart-warming encounter with good people doing good things. They helped me with my navigation through what matters and does not in turbulent skies, and when I touch down safely onto terra firmly, it will, in part, be due to this fine encounter.
You should learn more about Poetry Out Loud by visiting www.poetryoutloud.org
One poem which really touched me was Edna St. Vincent Millay’s I think I should have loved you presently. I vowed, after encountering this poem and it’s fine reciting yesterday, to read more about her and to read, perhaps recite, her poems. When I opened today’s posting of Writer’s Almanac today, I learned today is her birthday! Happy B-Day M-lay!
.Live long . . . . . . and proper.
