Former intern, Staci Hawkins, explains the importance of Poetry Out Loud in the community of arts in Alabama:
Poetry Out Loud is a National Endowment for the Arts and Poetry Foundation. The organization has partnered with state arts agencies of the United States to support and encourage the nation’s youth “to learn about great poetry through memorization and recitation. This program helps students master public speaking skills, build self-confidence, and learn about their literary heritage,” (poetryoutloud.org).
In other words, Poetry Out Loud was organized to celebrate the poetic musings of adolescent students across the nation. Poetry Out Loud is a curriculum administered by the school, resulting in a competition that reaches rewards up to $50,000.
This spring semester, while interning at Slash Pine Press, I had the privilege of designing the book for the Poetry Out Loud participants for Montevallo High School, Brookwood High School and Indian Hills High school.
After receiving the student’s poetry, I chose several fonts, and worked with creating the flow of the inside pages. I designed their table of content and front pages. I also worked with my intern team to design the cover art.
Because I received the winning poetry written by these students earlier then my fellow interns, I was able to read the musings of the teens before any final publication decisions had been made. What I read slightly surprised me.
My perception of poetry written by young authors met a progression. I didn’t doubt the abilities of their writing. However, I did expect a smaller frame of thesis. What I found was quite the opposite. Their topics ranged from a Holocaust scene, childhood, and life in general.
One student captured the essence of what it must have been like for a person of Jewish descent to be carted to a concentration camp on a rail road car. The imagination, sincerity, and articulate words of the author were eye opening. It was amazing to me how this student was able to step outside of himself to relate to a situation that seems so not relatable, in terms of today.
To be a person that could, in no way, experience the true horror of what the Nazi exiled must have endured; his imagination is convincing.
His last words:
A death sentence of peril into the black
Once on this train one never comes back.
The finishing sentence of the author is haunting. The chill left behind by the last words puts finality over the entire poem. The author will never know what was actually felt in those final moments. But, it is as a true writer, that he convinces his reader he does know.
Another author recounts the pleasures of childhood. Again, it’s astounding to see young adults step outside of themselves and live in a generation, or a complete other situation, that is not relatable to their current lives. She writes:
Not a care in the world
As we enjoy youth’s pleasures
Let’s indulge our adolescence
Life doesn’t get much better.
Oh, how good it is to be
A child
Though the author is still considered a youthful person, she understands and communicates that life’s most carefree moments are in their purest form when they are being experienced as a child.
One poem entitled “Today, I am OK being me”, touched me particularly. The first two Stanzas:
I decided my favorite color
At a very early age.
Purple it is, Purple it was
But what if it were to change?
Perhaps one day I would awake,
Following routine,
And suddenly discover,
That I prefer green?
Not only did the student hit home with the exact evolution of my color preference, but he so accurately related to the “wishy washy” indecision of life. The student went on to account life as a constant in-between. It leaves the reader thinking, “What is real?”
Though his words provoke a serious question he is able to keep the tone light and playful. He goes on to question what it would mean if he someday decided he preffered French toast to waffles. The author uses colors and breakfast to create a relatable metaphor for the fruition of life. His last stanza:
Changes in life will come,
and I will accept them with glee.
I await the excitement of the future
But today, I am OK being me.
This poem so carefully deconstructs the core of what it means to be youthful- the indecision, the changes, and then, finally, the acceptance.
The Poetry Out Loud Book, that the Slash Pine interns dubbed “Poetry Uncorked”, is a fine piece of literature created by Alabama’s youthful poets and a great example of their abilities and imagination. The poetry created by these young students could only be a stepping stone in a lifetime of achievement. One has to wonder- if their minds are already so artfully ticking, where will they be in 10 years?