>> I'm growing tired and weary of being silent.

Like this is supposed to be normal, to be a meek and mild, filed down to a dull edge, no longer able to carve out my special place in a life full of overly obedient cell phone clones version of myself.

Because making noise is the distant, yet intrusive, truth-telling cousin of chaos in defiance.

I dare not believe for a single second that I am the first or second, and won't be the last to say these things, but I shall be made a martyr for daring to say these and those things in a manner such as this.

Now listen.

Have you ever heard silence like this?

No.

You have never heard silence like this.

Edge of the folding chair in the old theater with the itchy seats, feet stuck to the floor on pins, needles and princess’ mattress peas, anxiously awaiting my very next word.

This type of silence is deafening.

This type of mind-control-- I mean crowd-control-- cannot be taught.

You must be born with this type of ink in your veins.

And these young folk are tired of blazing trails quietly.

It is now time for them to close the windows of their souls, allow their hands to flow freely towards eternal legacy, and open up their mouths so that the words from heavens may rain down and pour blessings on all those willing and unwilling to deal with their screams.

For they whisper, no longer.

They wait, no longer.

The crying, kicking and screaming of babes has ceased, but silence shall not be the end result.

For they live these verses.

They love these verses.

Layering lives and lines through movements as fluid as hips as they bacchante the stars today.

Today, we shall all bear witness to that moment when silence meets chaos mixed with rhythm and rhyme.

This is Poetry Out Loud.

(applause and music) >> On behalf of the Mississippi Arts Commission and our partners, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Poetry Foundation, and our broadcast partner, Mississippi Public Broadcasting.

I welcome you to the 19th annual Mississippi Poetry Out Loud contest.

Since its inception in 2005, more than 4.3 million students and 76,000 teachers from 19,000 schools and organizations across the nation have participated in Poetry Out Loud.

Students who participate in Poetry Out Loud may take part in the classroom and a school contest, with finalists advancing to state competitions, and ultimately to the national finals in Washington, D.C., where students compete for a grand prize of $20,000.

In total, Poetry Out Loud annually awards more than $100,000 to state and national level winners and schools.

This year, 31 high schools from across our state, from Meridian to Vicksburg, Tupelo to Gulfport, began the journey towards today's contest when they registered to participate in Mississippi's Poetry Out Loud program at the beginning of the academic year.

In some schools, that began in the English classroom, and in some, the theatre classroom, and in others with an interested teacher or club advisor leading to an in-school Poetry Out Loud contest held before the winter holidays.

Over 600 students and more than 60 teachers participated in Mississippi Poetry Out Loud this year.

And in February, the school champions represented their schools at one of the three regional contests held across the state.

And from each of the regional contests, the top-scoring contestants will be reciting today.

Last year, our Poetry Out Loud champion, Edward Wilson, took home second place in the national finals in Washington, D.C. We have eight finalists competing for the state championship slot.

We wish you all luck today in the competition.

It is now my privilege to introduce the emcee of this contest, Steven Isaac Randall, a native of Vicksburg, Mississippi, and is currently a MAC Roster Artist.

Steven is a published writer and poet, and performer of spoken word.

Steven wrote the piece that he just performed specifically for Poetry Out Loud Competition today.

We are honored to have such a prolific poet, wordsmith, and public servant as the emcee for today's Poetry Out Loud Contest.

Please help me welcome Steven Isaac Randall.

(applause) >> Thank you David and welcome to the 2024 Poetry Out Loud State Competition.

It is my pleasure to introduce Dr. Ebony Lumumba, chair of the Phillis Wheatley Poetry Festival and Associate Professor of English at Jackson State University, who has some words for our students of encouragement.

>> Greetings, Poetry Out Loud Participants.

I am Ebony Lumumba, an Associate Professor of English at Jackson State University, where I also chair the Department of English and Modern Languages, the very same department of Margaret Walker, famed author of For My People.

It's thrilling to know that there are young people, like you all, committed to crafting art that speaks to the very essence of our humanity.

With your words, you are breathing life, giving shape to the abstract, hope to the despondent, color to a world that is determined to see us only as black and white.

Today, and always, your words are needed more than ever.

Our world is laden with tragedy and trauma.

As we watch news reports of violence against humanity, and encounter our own challenges right here at home.

It is the artists, the writers, that allow us to dream of better.

It's the stories and the poetry that remind us that we are better than the worst of our conditions, or our treatment of one another.

That there is something binding us all together as one global family, a line, a verse, a meter that we can all understand.

I hope you know how very special and needed you are in our world.

What you do with your words is powerful, regardless of whether or not you are named a winner today, know that what you've done here is for more than a prize.

Your beautiful recitations are reminders that we are capable of the beauty that we crave, we deserve.

I know many of you have plans already.

Some of you are planning to continue perfecting your craft.

Others of you can already see yourselves in programs and careers that have nothing to do with poetry at all.

While you are making plans for the future, be clear that there are others making plans as well.

Some are planning to challenge your access to health care, and to ban the books you love, or to alter what you will learn about history.

Some are planning ways to decrease your access to the funding and the institutions you need to obtain your education.

Some plan to attack your very freedom, and civil rights.

So regardless of what you plan to do, never stop using your voice.

We exist in a world that needs serious change, a world that needs you and your words.

I want to end by encouraging you with the words of one of my favorite poets, Nikki Giovanni.

Last year, Professor Giovanni told me that poets are important because poets help people see things, that poets take stories and make songs out of them.

Professor Giovanni went on to add that as young writers and poets, don't worry about what they think about your art, or if they try to ban or burn it, because you cannot burn a song.

So keep singing to us, young poets.

We are listening and we are all the better to have heard your song.

Congratulations, and thank you.

>> Scoring recitations is one of the most important and most difficult aspects of a Poetry Out Loud contest.

Judges are asked to evaluate different recitations each displaying an impressive level of excellence, and they must decide how well students represent complex poems that may lend themselves to more than one interpretation.

The integrity of Poetry Out Loud rests on the work of the judges at each and every level of the contest.

Serving on today's panel of judges are poet, short-story writer, editor and print scholar C. Leigh MacInnis.

Oral Communications instructor and nationally award-winning speech and debate coach, as well as the coach of the 2012 National Poetry Out Loud champion, Stacy Howell.

Storyteller, artist, writer and Poetry Out Loud prompter and judge Diane Williams.

Writer, editor and Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Jackson State University, Danielle Littlefield.

Co-Founder and Principal of Fahrenheit Creative Group, LLC and owner of the Orchid Bed and Breakfast, the largest black-owned bed and breakfast in the South, Jason Thompson.

And courtesy of the Mississippi Arts Commission, our accuracy judge is Maria Zeringue.

And our score tabulators are Lauren Rhodes, and Timothy Davis.

Our prompter for today is Victoria Meek.

Poetry Out Loud recitations are scored in five categories: physical presence, voice and articulation, interpretation, evidence of understanding, and overall performance.

The contestants are scored for accuracy.

They need to recite all the words of the poem and recite them in the correct order.

To view the full rules of the process of scoring, please use the QR code on your screen or visit arts.ms.gov.

We will now begin round one of the 2024 Mississippi Poetry Out Loud recitation contest with our first contestant, Sarah Rhodes, a senior at Clinton High School.

>> I got into theatre in seventh grade.

I auditioned for a play and my teacher just, I don't know, like...

I was kind of a shy little kid and she just really believed in me.

And so that kind of led to poetry.

You start out by memorizing and, you know, like looking for understanding in the poem, and then as you go on, like, with the different levels and you add poems and you add gestures and you add, like, vocal differences, and then you really focus on getting that story across instead of, just, having it memorized and like, oh yeah, I can recite a poem.

You end up telling a story by the end of it.

“Whenever you see a tree” by Padma Venkatraman.

Think how many long years this tree waited as a seed for an animal or bird or wind or rain to maybe carry it to maybe the right spot where again it waited months for seasons to change until time and temperature were fine enough to coax it to swell and burst its hard shell so it could send slender roots to clutch at grains of soil and let tender shoots reach toward the sun.

Think how many decades or centuries it thickened and climbed and grew taller and deeper, never knowing if it would find enough water or light, or when conditions would be right so it could keep on spreading leaves, adding blossoms and dancing.

Next time you see a tree think how much hope it holds.

(applause) >> Our next contestant is Tommy Nichol, a junior at Oxford High School.

>> This is incredibly cliché, but it was in my sixth grade English class.

We'd been introduced to Robert Frost, you know, and about, you know, the path less taken, et cetera, et cetera.

And, to me, it wasn't what the poem was saying.

It was what I was feeling when the poem was said.

And that's why, in high school, when I learned about Poetry Out Loud, I decided to join.

I decided to become a contestant, because I thought it was something that would help me understand my feelings.

“Choices” by Tess Gallagher.

I go to the mountain side of the house to cut saplings, and clear a view to snow on the mountain.

But when I look up, saw in hand, I see a nest clutched in the uppermost branches.

I don’t cut that one.

I don’t cut the others either.

Suddenly, in every tree, an unseen nest where a mountain would be.

(applause) >> The next contestant is Archer Adams, a freshman at Regent School of Oxford.

>> I think I have always really liked poetry.

I'm definitely someone who's very into literature.

I just always loved how the words fit together and flow just so easily.

Yes, I definitely think about how the writers were feeling when they wrote this poem and what they meant by each word.

I've definitely analyzed each poem a ton and gone, okay, what was the author feeling here and what were they trying to communicate?

"One Art" by Elizabeth Bishop.

The art of losing isn’t hard to master; so many things seem filled with the intent to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day.

Accept the fluster of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.

The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster: places, and names, and where it was you meant to travel.

None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother’s watch.

And look!

my last, or next-to-last, of three loved houses went.

The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones.

And, vaster, some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.

I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.

—Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture I love) I shan’t have lied.

It’s evident the art of losing’s not too hard to master though it may look like (Write it!)

like disaster.

(applause) >> Next contestant, Kelyse Spillers, a junior at Biloxi High School.

>> I chose “Enough” by Suzanne Buffam.

I chose it because, if you heard the poem, you could tell she's angry.

And I feel like, as a teenage girl, and especially being an African-American girl, there's a lot of things I'm just-- I guess I have built up anger with, so I was just able to, I guess, relate to that poem.

For me, it's comforting because I'm not the best at, like, conversating and expressing myself verbally.

Like, I'm a writer.

I like writing my things out.

That comes easiest to me.

So with poetry, they just give me, like, the words that I'm not able to say or I'm not confident enough to say.

“Enough” by Suzanne Buffam.

I am wearing dark glasses inside the house To match my dark mood.

I have left all the sugar out of the pie.

My rage is a kind of domestic rage.

I learned it from my mother Who learned it from her mother before her And so on.

Surely the Greeks had a word for this.

Now surely the Germans do.

The more words a person knows To describe her private sufferings The more distantly she can perceive them.

I repeat the names of all the cities I’ve known And watch an ant drag its crooked shadow home.

What does it mean to love the life we’ve been given?

To act well the part that’s been cast for us?

Wind.

Light.

Fire.

Time.

A train whistles through the far hills.

One day I plan to be riding it.

(applause) >> Our next contestant, Allie Landry, a junior at Jackson Preparatory School.

>> My first poem is a very long poem.

I did not choose it because it was easy.

I chose it more because I really liked what it meant, and I liked...

I liked how it sounded, and I liked reciting it, because when you write it, you intend for it to be read and you don't intend for it to be spoken as much.

So I have to think about it from the perspective of someone who's going to have to be saying it out loud.

But I feel pretty good about my poems, now.

I'm just... it's just....

Being on stage is just a little frightening.

“Poem About People” by Robert Pinsky.

The jaunty crop-haired graying Women in grocery stores, Their clothes boyish and neat, New mittens or clean sneakers, Clean hands, hips not bad still, Buying ice cream, steaks, soda, Fresh melons and soap— or the big Balding young men in work shoes And green work pants, beer belly And white T-shirt, the porky walk Back to the truck, polite; possible To feel briefly like Jesus, A gust of diffuse tenderness Crossing the dark spaces To where the dry self burrows Or nests, something that stirs, Watching the kinds of people On the street for a while— But how love falters and flags When anyone’s difficult eyes come Into focus, terrible gaze of a unique Soul, its need unlovable: my friend In his divorced schoolteacher Apartment, his own unsuspected Paintings hung everywhere, Which his wife kept in a closet— Not, he says, that she wasn’t Perfectly right; or me, mis-hearing My rock radio sing my self-pity: “The Angels Wished Him Dead”—all The hideous, sudden stare of self, Soul showing through like the lizard Ancestry showing in the frontal gaze Of a robin busy on the lawn.

In the movies, when the sensitive Young Jewish soldier nearly drowns Trying to rescue the thrashing Anti-Semitic bully, swimming across The river raked by Nazi fire, The awful part is the part truth: Hate my whole kind, but me, Love me for myself.

The weather Changes in the black of night, And the dream-wind, bowling across The sopping open spaces Of roads, golf courses, parking lots, Flails a commotion In the dripping treetops, Tries a half-rotten shingle Or a down-hung branch, and we All dream it, the dark wind crossing The wide spaces between us.

(applause) >> Next up Malisha Taylor, a sophomore at Pascagoula High School.

>> Last year I went to a Poetry Out Loud competition, and one of my classmates, like, went on to go to State, and I thought it was really cool and I liked how she did her thing.

So I was like, I can do this.

And so this year I was, like, maybe I can beat her, and, you know, go to State, too.

So that's what I did.

“Mansplaining” by Jennifer Militello.

Dear sir, your air of authority leaves me lost.

Eases me from a place of ease.

Contracts with my contradictions to take from me a place.

Autopilots my autobiography.

Frightens my fright.

Sighs with my breath.

Wins at my race.

Your certainty has me curtained.

Your nerves has me nervous.

Your childhood has me childlike and your nastiness nests in my belfry like a hawk.

You are beyond and above my slice of sky, peach as a pie, bourbon as its pits.

You are spit and vinegar while I sour in my bowl.

You bowl me over while I tread lightly on my feet.

You walk on water while I sink.

You witness me, fisherman, boat on the lake, while I struggle and burble and brittle and drop.

You wink at me and I must relate.

I close my eyes to erase you and you are written in my lids.

A litmus test.

A form of lair.

God with three days of facial growth and an old bouquet for a face.

Soap and water for a brain.

I have no handsome answer.

I have no pillar of salt or shoulder to look over.

I have no feather to weigh.

I have no bubble to burst.

I am less to myself, a character in a drama, a drumbeat, a benevolence, a blight.

All parts of me say shoot on sight.

Aim for an artery or organ.

Good night.

(applause) >> Our next contestant, Sanika Janorkar, freshman at Rosa Scott High School.

>> So in eighth grade, one time, my teacher was talking about, like, utopias and dystopias, and I just decided that I would write a poem.

So I just wrote a poem.

People from Poetry Out Loud came to our school to come and talk to us, and they told us all about it.

I thought it sounded interesting, because I'm in the Speech and Debate program at my school.

So this is kind of something I like to do, like performing and memorization.

“The Ecchoing Green” by William Blake.

The sun does arise, And make happy the skies.

The merry bells ring To welcome the Spring.

The sky-lark and thrush, The birds of the bush, Sing louder around, To the bells’ cheerful sound.

While our sports shall be seen On the Ecchoing Green.

Old John, with white hair Does laugh away care, Sitting under the oak, Among the old folk, They laugh at our play, And soon they all say.

‘Such, such were the joys.

When we all girls & boys, In our youth-time were seen, On the Ecchoing Green.’ Till the little ones weary No more can be merry The sun does descend, And our sports have an end: Round the laps of their mothers, Many sisters and brothers, Like birds in their nest, Are ready for rest; And sport no more seen, On the darkening Green.

(applause) >> Our next contestant, Lola Mae Hallows, a freshman at Neshoba Central High School.

>> I've been writing poetry since maybe three years ago, and that's just a really good way for me to express myself.

And my theatre director was the one that put it all on for us, and I was like, well, this is a really good opportunity for me to do something else that I love and maybe meet new people who also love poetry.

For round one, I chose “Since There is No Escape” by Sara Teasdale.

The speaker really has... she's having to come to terms with that Death is following her, and she has to accept it.

She’s like, hey, I've lived my life to the fullest.

I did everything I wanted to do.

Now death is the next step in the process of life.

“Since There is No Escape” by Sara Teasdale.

Since there is no escape, since at the end My body will be utterly destroyed, This hand I love as I have loved a friend, This body I tended, wept with and enjoyed; Since there is no escape even for me Who love life with a love too sharp to bear: The scent of orchards in the rain, the sea And hours alone too still and sure for prayer— Since darkness waits for me, then all the more Let me go down as waves sweep to the shore In pride, and let me sing with my last breath; In these few hours of light I lift my head; Life is my lover— I shall leave the dead If there is any way to baffle death.

(applause) >> This concludes Round 1 of the 2024 Poetry Out Loud recitation contest.

We will now proceed directly to Round 2, during which we'll hear a second recitation from each contestant.

>> My poem for round two was very similar.

So I do theatre, so whenever I come to Poetry Out Loud, I sometimes take too much of a theatre approach.

That was one that I thought was really fun, and it's kind of like a story, and it's just talking about all these little things like this house, and I just thought that one is really fun and I could figure out how to balance, like, the theatre aspects and also the recitation, and that I could just have more fun with that one.

>> The first recitation in round two is by Sarah Rhodes.

“Mrs.

Caldera’s House of Things” by Gregory Djanikian.

You are sitting in Mrs. Caldera’s kitchen, you are sipping a glass of lemonade and trying not to be too curious about the box of plastic hummingbirds behind you, the tray of tineless forks at your elbow.

You have heard about the backroom where no one else has ever gone and whatever enters, remains, refrigerator doors, fused coils, milk bottles, pistons, gears.

“You never know,” she says, rummaging through a cedar chest of recipes, “when something will come of use.” There is a vase of pencil tips on the table, a bowl full of miniature wheels and axles.

Upstairs, where her children slept, the doors will not close, the stacks of magazines are burgeoning, there are snow shoes and lampshades, bedsprings and picture tubes, and boxes and boxes of irreducibles!

You imagine the headline in the Literalist Express: House Founders Under Weight Of Past.

But Mrs. Caldera is baking cookies, she is humming a song from childhood, her arms are heavy and strong, they have held babies, a husband, tractor parts and gas tanks, what have they not found a place for?

It is getting dark, you have sat for a long time.

If you move, you feel something will be disturbed, there is room enough only for your body.

“Stay awhile,” Mrs. Caldera says, and never have you felt so valuable.

(applause) >> Honestly, for most of my delivery, I'm thinking inside of the poem and I'm looking out from inside the poem.

So I'm not even aware of what's happening around me.

I'm just inside of the poem and I'm feeling every word and all of the imagery, and it's just part of me.

So I don't really know much about what's happening when I'm reciting.

>> Next up is Archer Adams.

“Thoughtless Cruelty” by Charles Lamb.

There, Robert, you have kill'd that fly — , And should you thousand ages try The life you've taken to supply, You could not do it.

You surely must have been devoid Of thought and sense, to have destroy'd A thing which no way you annoy'd — You'll one day rue it.

Twas but a fly perhaps you'll say, That's born in April, dies in May; That does but just learn to display His wings one minute, And in the next is vanish'd quite.

A bird devours it in his flight — Or come a cold blast in the night, There's no breath in it.

The bird but seeks his proper food — And Providence, whose power endu'd That fly with life, when it thinks good, May justly take it.

But you have no excuses for't — A life by Nature made so short, Less reason is that you for sport Should shorter make it.

A fly a little thing you rate — But, Robert do not estimate A creature's pain by small or great; The greatest being Can have but fibres, nerves, and flesh, And these the smallest ones possess, Although their frame and structure less Escape our seeing.

(applause) >> My second poem is “In Praise My Bed” by Meredith Holmes, and I choose that one because my first and last poems are pretty, uh, they end on a very depressing note, and this one is very more upbeat and more relaxed.

And I wanted to choose that one to kind of bring up my energy again.

>> Our next contestant, Allie Landry.

“In Praise of My Bed” by Meredith Holmes.

At last I can be with you!

The grinding hours since I left your side!

The labor of being fully human, working my opposable thumb, talking, and walking upright.

Now I have unclasped unzipped, stepped out of.

Husked, soft, a be-er only, I do nothing, but point my bare feet into your clean smoothness feel your quiet strength the whole length of my body.

I close my eyes, hear myself moan, so grateful to be held this way.

(applause) >> For round two, I chose “First Love” by John Clare.

Love has always been a special thing.

I fall in love with almost-- not even just people, everything around me.

Even though it's like a smile, or one word someone said to you how big it can get in your head, though it's literally nothing.

Just...

I thought that I would be able to perform that pretty well.

Coming from the theatre background, it's like, well, let me pretend that the boy of my dreams is over there and he's coaching me through this poem.

And it's really fun to do, to get in that moment.

>> Our next contestant, Lola Mae Hallows.

>> “First Love” by John Clare.

I ne’er was struck before that hour With love so sudden and so sweet, Her face it bloomed like a sweet flower And stole my heart away complete.

My face turned pale as deadly pale, My legs refused to walk away, And when she looked, what could I ail?

My life and all seemed turned to clay.

And then my blood rushed to my face And took my eyesight quite away, The trees and bushes round the place Seemed midnight at noonday.

I could not see a single thing, Words from my eyes did start— They spoke as chords do from the string, And blood burnt round my heart.

Are flowers the winter’s choice?

Is love’s bed always snow?

She seemed to hear my silent voice, Not love's appeals to know.

I never saw so sweet a face As that I stood before.

My heart has left its dwelling-place And can return no more.

(applause) >> I did not get into poetry until I did theatre.

My theatre teacher, taught us how to analyze poems and I liked how the deeper you went into understanding it, the more you found out about how the author was feeling while writing it.

It helped me with, like, just performing in general because I am a very shy person.

Since the poem does have a lot of emotion, I have to emphasize certain words and deliver them a certain way so that the audience can know how the speaker is feeling.

>> Next up, Malisha Taylor.

>> “I felt a Funeral, in my Brain” by Emily Dickinson.

I felt a Funeral, in my Brain, And Mourners to and fro Kept treading - treading - till it seemed That Sense was breaking through - And when they all were seated, A Service, like a Drum - Kept beating - beating - till I thought My mind was going numb - And then I heard them lift a Box And creak across my Soul With those same Boots of Lead, again, Then Space - began to toll, As all the Heavens were a Bell, And Being, but an Ear, And I, and Silence, some strange Race, Wrecked, solitary, here - And then a Plank in Reason, broke, And I dropped down, and down - And hit a World, at every plunge, And Finished knowing - then - (applause) >> So I kind of went back to my roots, here, and I chose “The Statesman” by Ambrose Bierce because it's a really good mixture of satire and political commentary.

One might think that maybe it might not apply as much today as it did back then.

And of course, it's got tons of language in it that's very old, but I think what's interesting and I think what's really beautiful about it is that even though it's old, even though it's pretty dated, it's still it's incredibly relevant today.

And a lot of the language even though most people, if they just heard it in a vacuum, they might not know, like, what does this word mean, or what's he saying by this?

But when they hear it together and they think about the world we live in right now, I think it'll make a lot of sense.

A large component of making sure that the emotions that I portray are not only true to the poem, but are also authentic to me.

The parts that needed anger or needed frustration, I would specifically practice when I was already in a moment of anger or frustration.

When I'm sitting at, you know, a stoplight or something and somebody blows past me, or just any little, you know, road rage incident, somebody doesn't use their blinker.

You know, I just recite a little bit of my poem there and I'm like, that's what I need.

That's what's going to get this across.

That's what's, you know, the very authentic portrayal of these emotions is.

>> Next up, Tommy Nichol.

>> “The Statesman” by Ambrose Bierce.

How blest the land that counts among Her sons so many good and wise, To execute great feats of tongue When troubles rise.

Behold them mounting every stump, By speech our liberty to guard.

Observe their courage— see them jump, And come down hard!

"Walk up, walk up!"

each cries aloud, "And learn from me what you must do To turn aside the thunder cloud, The earthquake too.

"Beware the wiles of yonder quack Who stuffs the ears of all that pass.

I—I alone can show that black Is white as grass."

They shout through all the day and break The silence of the night as well.

They'd make—I wish they'd go and make— Of Heaven a Hell.

A advocates free silver, B Free trade and C free banking laws.

Free board, clothes, lodging would from me Win warm applause.

Lo, D lifts up his voice: "You see The single tax on land would fall on all alike."

More evenly no tax at all.

"With paper money," bellows E, "We'll all be rich as lords."

No doubt— And richest of the lot will be The chap without.

As many "cures" as addle-wits Who know not what the ailment is!

Meanwhile the patient foams and spits Like a gin fizz.

Alas, poor Body Politic, Your fate is all too clearly read: To be not altogether quick, nor very dead.

You take your exercise in squirms, Your rest in fainting fits between.

'Tis plain that your disorder's worms— Worms fat and lean.

Worm Capital, Worm Labor dwell Within your maw and muscle's scope.

Their quarrels make your life a Hell, Your death a hope.

God send you find not such an end To ills however sharp and huge!

God send you convalesce!

God send You vermifuge.

(applause) >> I chose “First Love” for round two.

I kind of interpreted as like first love is being myself.

I'm kind of falling in love with the version of myself.

Like the version of my best self because, like, for so long, I'm, like, concentrating on, like, my flaws and stuff and, like, at the end of the day, you just have to love yourself.

>> Next we have Kelyse Spillers.

>> “First Love” by John Clare.

I ne’er was struck before that hour With love so sudden and so sweet, Her face it bloomed like a sweet flower And stole my heart away complete.

My face turned pale as deadly pale, My legs refused to walk away, And when she looked, what could I ail?

My life and all seemed turned to clay.

And then my blood rushed to my face And took my eyesight quite away, The trees and bushes round the place Seemed midnight at noonday.

I could not see a single thing, Words from my eyes did start— They spoke as chords do from the string, And blood burnt round my heart.

Are flowers the winter’s choice?

Is love’s bed always snow?

She seemed to hear my silent voice, Not love's appeals to know.

I never saw so sweet a face As that I stood before.

My heart has left its dwelling-place And can return no more.

(applause) >> For round two, it's more personal, so I use more of like my personal emotions and what I would think if I were saying that poem.

I chose “Filter” by Suma Subramaniam and I really liked that one.

It has in parts of Indian heritage in it.

I'm Indian.

There's also the message at the end that even though we may not look the same, or have the same family life, we can still be friends, and we can still interact.

>> Next, we have Sanika Janorkar.

>> “Filter” by Suma Subramaniam.

I come from a country so far away that you may have been to only in your dreams.

My face does not bear the pale color of my palms.

I don’t speak your language at home.

I don’t even sound like you.

If you come to my house, you’ll see my family: my mother in a sari, my father wearing a sacred thread around his body, and me, eating a plate of spicy biryani instead of a burger or pizza at the dinner table.

If you, for a moment, shed your filter, you will also see my pockets filled with Tootsie Rolls, waiting to be shared with you.

(applause) >> This concludes round two, the tabulators will now compile the scores to determine which three contestants will advance to the third round.

The scores they earn in this round will be added to their standing scores and will be used to select Mississippi's representative to the Poetry Out Loud National Recitation Contest to be held in Washington, D.C. from April 30th to May 2nd.

The contestants in round three, in alphabetical order are Sanika Janorkar, Tommy Nichol, and Malisha Taylor.

(applause) Congratulations.

Now let's begin the third and final round of the 2024 Mississippi Poetry Out Loud Recitation Contest.

>> Round three is... it's almost saying that I'm almost there, right?

It’s saying that, you know, I'm ever closer to, you know, winning the state championship, or placing second or third, or just anything good like that.

That's why for my third poem I chose something that was, you know, really personal to me which was “Good People” by W.S.

Merwin, because one of the first lines of the poem, you know, talks about how the author feels the way he does about things that are going on, because he was brought up a certain way, because of the kindness of his parents.

And I feel like that's very personal to me, because I feel like my parents have been very kind, and they've been a great inspiration to me.

So, a lot of times when I'm, you know, looking at the world around me, I just wonder, you know, maybe if everybody was just raised by my parents, the world would be a better place.

>> Next up, we have Tommy Nichol, a junior at Oxford High School.

>> “Good People” by W.S.

Merwin.

From the kindness of my parents I suppose it was that I held that belief about suffering imagining that if only it could come to the attention of any person with normal feelings certainly anyone literate who might have gone to college they would comprehend pain when it went on before them and would do something about it whenever they saw it happen in the time of pain the present they would try to stop the bleeding with their own hands but it escapes their attention or there may be reasons for it the victims under the blankets the meat counters the maimed children the animals the animals staring from the end of the world.

(applause) >> I'd really like to hear other people's poems so I can learn from them and just hear different poems.

That means that I have another chance to compete, and recite the poems and see how good I am, or how well I can do this.

>> Our next contestant, Sanika Janorkar, freshman at Rosa Scott High School.

“And If I Did, What Then?” by George Gascoigne.

“And if I did, what then?

Are you aggriev’d therefore?

The sea hath fish for every man, And what would you have more?” Thus did my mistress once, Amaze my mind with doubt; And popp’d a question for the nonce To beat my brains about.

Whereto I thus replied: “Each fisherman can wish That all the seas at every tide Were his alone to fish.

“And so did I (in vain) But since it may not be, Let such fish there as find the gain, And leave the loss for me.

“And with such luck and loss I will content myself, Till tides of turning time may toss Such fishers on the shelf.

“And when they stick on sands, That every man may see, Then will I laugh and clap my hands, As they do now at me.” (applause) >> So my third poem is “Burning in the Rain” by Richard Blanco.

I wanted my first and third poems to have a big impact, so I can start with a good impact, and end with a good impact, because it had a lot of emotion into it, and I feel like I could portray that well.

And I kind of related to it, you know, like everything is already written.

I just need to deliver it, so that what the author put in there can be sent out into the audience.

>> Our final recitation is from Malisha Taylor, a sophomore at Pascagoula High School.

>> “Burning in the Rain” by Richard Blanco.

Someday compassion would demand I set myself free of my desire to recreate my father, indulge in my mother’s losses, strangle lovers with words, forcing them to confess for me and take the blame.

Today was that day: I tossed them, sheet by sheet on the patio and gathered them into a pyre.

I wanted to let them go in a blaze, tiny white dwarfs imploding beside the azaleas and ficus bushes, let them crackle, burst like winged seeds, let them smolder into gossamer embers— a thousand gray butterflies in the wind.

Today was that day, but it rained, kept raining.

Instead of fire, water— drops knocking on doors, wetting windows into mirrors reflecting me in the oaks.

The garden walls and stones swelling into ghostlier shades of themselves, the wind chimes giggling in the wind, a coffee cup left overflowing with rain.

Instead of burning, my pages turned into water lilies floating over puddles, then tiny white cliffs as the sun set, finally drying all night under the moon into papier-mâché souvenirs.

Today the rain would not let their lives burn.

(applause) >> We are now ready to present the naming of our third and second place finalists and our 2024 state champion.

Presenting this year's awards is David Lewis, Executive Director of the Mississippi Arts Commission.

The 2024 Poetry Out Loud third place finalist is Sanika Janorkar.

(applause) The 2024 Poetry Out Loud second place finalist and recipient of a $100 award and a $200 grant for his school library is Tommy Nichol.

(applause) And the 2024 Poetry Out Loud state champion and recipient of a $200 award and an all-expense-paid trip for two to Washington, D.C. and a $500 grant for her school library is Malisha Taylor.

(applause and cheers) >> I'm actually surprised.

Everyone was like "You're going to do great."

When it was announced that I was first place, I was, like... they were right!

I think that was, like, another reason why I did Poetry Out Loud to overcome things.

I guess I'm just one of those girls who isn’t very confident in what they do.

But like, this experience has helped me realize that I'm better than I say I am.

So I’ll use that in the future.

>> Thank you, Steven.

And thanks to Fifth Child, our musical guest.

Congratulations and thanks to everyone who contributed to the success of the Poetry Out Loud competition: the teachers, the students, the coaches, the parents, the clinicians, the volunteers, and the judges.

And to the schools and organizations that partnered with the Mississippi Arts Commission to bring the magic of poetry to the students of our state.

Registration for the 2025 Mississippi Poetry Out Loud program is now open.

Schools that teach students in grades 9 through 12 are encouraged to visit the Mississippi Arts Commission's website at Arts dot MS dot gov for more information.

This concludes the 2024 Mississippi Poetry Out Loud Recitation Contest.

(applause) ♪♪