- [Emcee] Please welcome our host for today's contest, the Executive Director of the Mississippi Arts Commission, David Lewis.

- On behalf of the Mississippi Arts Commission and our partners, the National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation, I want to welcome you to the 18th annual Mississippi Poetry Out Loud Recitation Contest.

This year, more than 300,000 students and more than 2300 schools participated in Poetry Out Loud, a poetry education program that is offered to high school students and teachers across our nation free of charge.

The highlight of this program is the National Recitation Contest, in which 55 contestants one from each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia and the U.S. territories Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa, and Guam, gather in our nation's capital to recite for up to $20,000 in prize money.

Nineteen high schools from across our state began the journey toward today's contest when we registered to participate in Mississippi's Poetry Out Loud program at the beginning of the academic year.

In some schools, it began in the English classroom.

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.

1410 students and 80 teachers participated in Mississippi Poetry Out Loud this year In February, he school champions represented their schools at the statewide preliminary contest from which the nine highest-scoring contestants will recite today.

I congratulate all the contestants on their achievement in reaching this stage in the contest and share my personal best wishes for their success today.

Now it is my privilege to introduce the emcee for today's contest.

Born in Agana Heights, Guam, to a naval family, our emcee is the graduate of Northwest Rankin High School and Mississippi College, where she earned a Bachelor's Degree in Mass Communications.

She began her professional radio career as an announcer in 2003 and has worked in the same capacity for Backyard Broadcasting.

WHJT, WWJK, JSU, WRBI and currently serves as the Executive Producer and host of "Next Stop, Mississippi", "Now You're Talking with Marshall Ramsey", and "Autocorrect" on Mississippi Think Radio.

Please welcome Mississippi Public Broadcasting's own Germaine Flood.

(applause) - Thank you so much, David Lewis, and welcome you all.

I'm so glad to be here with you.

First, let me tell you how proud Mississippi Public Broadcasting is to share Poetry Out Loud with our statewide television audience.

We believe that academic contests should, and do, stand on the same stage as all other pursuits of excellence and that the contestants deserve not only our attention, but our respect.

Poetry Out Loud seeks to promote the art of poetry in both the classroom and the community.

The program provides an entry point for many students to learn and love poetry and for most, to introduce them to poems that will stay with them for a lifetime.

Here with some thoughts about the magic of poetry when heard aloud is Poet Laureate of Mississippi, Catherine Pierce.

- What can a poem do?

Well, not everything.

A poem can't change a flat tire or diagnose strep throat or walk your dog or cook you dinner.

But it can make the life in which we do those things a lot more vibrant.

As everyone knows, language is powerful.

Words shape the world.

And nowhere do we find words being used more surprisingly, more succinctly, more evocatively than in poems.

So it's no surprise that poetry does some very significant work.

Poems help connect us to one another and make us feel less alone.

Hey, we say, someone else has felt this same thing.

Poems teach us about other people's lives and about our own, about the pleasures of sound, about the way a single image can shift our thinking about the world.

Poems urge us to pay close attention.

Poems can delight and comfort us.

Poems can move us.

Poems can break us open and heal us again.

Memorizing a poem and reciting it thoughtfully and expressively is a study in empathy and human connection.

This year's Poetry Out Loud contestants, through the time and care they've put into their work with these poems, honor the craft and the language of the poems they've chosen to recite.

I thank the contestants for their passion, dedication, and skilled recitations, and I congratulate all of them on this well-deserved honor.

I'll close by sharing a poem of my own.

This is called "Thompson Island Trail in Fall".

Deer crackle and flit into the pathless woods where our sons want to explore.

Where the sign says don't.

The marsh is flooded today as we cross the footbridge.

No, not flooded.

Full.

We can hardly see the muscles under the rushing water, but we know they're there.

We walk through the giant hardwood forest, the stands of loblolly pine, the fallen oak... rotted and rich with lichen and turkey-tail mushrooms.

Athe trail's-end overlook, the fiddler crabs, impossibly invented creatures, scuttle and glitter blackly in the marsh mud, their unwieldy single claws upraised.

Yes, you can go off-trail, we tell our sons.

We watch the crabs, the marsh grass, the abandoned red rowboat.

Our dog pulls to keep going.

Behind us, the boys are climbing a tree.

Their voices sharp as they bicker.

The sky blares blue.

An egret stalks invisible fish, strikes at the water like a snake, swallows, stalks again.

The silence between us hums with bass bark and late October, impossibly invented... all of it.

- Catherine Pierce is the author of four books of poems: "Danger Days", "The Tornado Is the World", "The Girls Are Peculiar", and "Famous Last Words".

Each of her most recent three books won the Mississippi Institute of the Arts and Letters Poetry Prize.

Her work has appeared in The Best American Poetry, The Pushcart Prize Anthology, The New York Times, American Poetry Review, and elsewhere.

The recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Mississippi Arts Commission, Pierce teaches at Mississippi State University.

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

Judges are asked to evaluate very different recitations, each displaying an impressive level of excellence, and they must decide how well students present complex ideas and imagery that may lend itself 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 as our adjudicators today are...

Poet, short story writer and author of eight books, C. Leigh McInnis.

Author, songwriter, singer, Mississippi Arts Commission Roster Artist and Teaching Artist and Mississippi Humanities Council Speaker, Richelle Putnam.

Executive Director of The Mississippi Theater Association, Arts Education activist and former Mississippi Poetry Out Loud Regional Mentor, Stacy Nycole Vincent Howell.

Assistant Professor of Theatre and Communication at Mississippi College, Dr. Phyllis Seawright.

Poet, writer, and Mississippi Humanities Council speaker, Dr. Benjamin Morris.

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

Our score tabulators are Adrienne Domnick and Lauren Rhoades.

And our prompter is Victoria Meek.

Poetry Out Loud recitations are scored in five categories: Contestants are also scored for accuracy.

They must recite every word of the poems they've selected, and those words must be in correct order.

It is interesting to note that Poetry Out Loud is a contest and not a competition.

If it were a competition, the contestants would all be reciting the same poems and the judges would be choosing one recitation over another.

In Poetry Out Loud, the judges evaluate each recitation independently, according to the five scoring categories, using a predefined six-level scoring system.

In other words, the judges do not select the finalists.

The scores do.

There will be three rounds in today's contest.

Each contestant has prepared three poems and will recite one in round one and another in round two.

The three top scoring contestants will then each recite a third poem to determine who will represent Mississippi at the National Recitation Contest in Washington, D.C., in May.

And now we begin round one of the 2023 Mississippi Poetry Out Loud Recitation Contest.

Our first contestant is Kelyse Spillers.

- "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) - The next contestant is Ta'Kai Thomas.

- "The Heavenly City" by Stevie Smith.

I sigh for the heavenly country, Where the heavenly people pass, And the sea is as quiet as a mirror Of beautiful beautiful glass.

I walk in the heavenly field, With lilies and poppies bright, I am dressed in a heavenly coat Of polished white.

When I walk in the heavenly parkland My feet on the pasture are bare, Tall waves the grass, but no harmful Creature is there.

At night I fly over the housetops, And stand on the bright moony beams; Gold are all heaven’s rivers, And silver her streams.

(applause) - Up next is Melany Carrasco.

- "Invisible Children" by Mariana Llanos.

Invisible children fall through the cracks of the system like Alice in the rabbit hole.

But these children won’t find an eat-me cake or a drink- me bottle.

They won’t wake up on the lap of a loving sister.

They’ll open their eyes on the hand of a monster called Negligence who’ll poke them with its sharp teeth and bait them with its heartless laughter, like a wild thing in a wild rumpus.

But the children won’t awake to the smell of a warm supper, nor will they find a purple crayon to draw an escape door or a window.

Instead they’ll make a mirror of a murky puddle on the city street which won’t tell them they’re beautiful but it’ll show their scars, as invisible to others as these children are.

(applause) - Next up is Tommy Nichol.

- "I Am the People, the Mob" by Carl Sandburg.

I am the people—the mob—the crowd—the mass.

Do you know that all the great work of the world is done through me?

I am the workingman, the inventor, the maker of the world’s food and clothes.

I am the audience that witnesses history.

The Napoleons come from me and the Lincolns.

They die.

And then I send forth more Napoleons and Lincolns.

I am the seed ground.

I am a prairie that will stand for much plowing.

Terrible storms pass over me.

I forget.

The best of me is sucked out and wasted.

I forget.

Everything but Death comes to me and makes me work and give up what I have.

And I forget.

Sometimes I growl, shake myself and spatter a few red drops for history to remember.

Then—I forget.

When I, the People, learn to remember, when I, the People, use the lessons of yesterday and no longer forget who robbed me last year, who played me for a fool—then there will be no speaker in all the world say the name: “The People,” with any fleck of a sneer in his voice or any far-off smile of derision.

The mob—the crowd—the mass—will arrive then.

(applause) - Up next is C'nia Price.

- "We Are Not Responsible" by Harryette Mullen.

We are not responsible for your lost or stolen relatives.

We cannot guarantee your safety if you disobey our instructions.

We do not endorse the causes or claims of people begging for handouts.

We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone.

Your ticket does not guarantee that we will honor your reservations.

In order to facilitate our procedures, please limit your carrying on.

Before taking off, please extinguish all smoldering resentments.

If you cannot understand English, you will be moved out of the way.

In the event of a loss, you’d better look out for yourself.

Your insurance was cancelled because we can no longer handle your frightful claims.

Our handlers lost your luggage and we are unable to find the key to your legal case.

You were detained for interrogation because you fit the profile.

You are not presumed to be innocent if the police have reason to suspect you are carrying a concealed wallet.

It’s not our fault you were born wearing a gang color.

It is not our obligation to inform you of your rights.

Step aside, please, while our officer inspects your bad attitude.

You have no rights we are bound to respect.

Please remain calm, or we can’t be held responsible for what happens to you.

(applause) - Up next is Sarah Rhodes.

- "Ars Poetica" by Archibald MacLeish.

A poem should be palpable and mute As a globed fruit, Dumb As old medallions to the thumb, Silent as the sleeve-worn stone Of casement ledges where the moss has grown— A poem should be wordless As the flight of birds.

A poem should be motionless in time As the moon climbs, Leaving, as the moon releases Twig by twig the night-entangled trees, Leaving, as the moon behind the winter leaves, Memory by memory the mind— A poem should be motionless in time As the moon climbs A poem should be equal to: Not true.

For all the history of grief An empty doorway and a maple leaf.

For love The leaning grasses and two lights above the sea— A poem should not mean But be.

(applause) - Now let's welcome Edward Wilson.

- "Beautiful Wreckage" by W.D.

Ehrhart.

What if I didn’t shoot the old lady running away from our patrol, or the old man in the back of the head, or the boy in the marketplace?

Or what if the boy—but he didn’t have a grenade, and the woman in Hue didn’t lie in the rain in a mortar pit with seven Marines just for food, Gaffney didn’t get hit in the knee, Ames didn’t die in the river, Ski didn’t die in a medevac chopper between Con Thien and Da Nang.

In Vietnamese, Con Thien means place of angels.

What if it really was instead of the place of rotting sandbags, incoming heavy artillery, rats and mud.

What if the angels were Ames and Ski, or the lady, the man, and the boy, and they lifted Gaffney out of the mud and healed his shattered knee?

What if none of it happened the way I said?

Would it all be a lie?

Would the wreckage be suddenly beautiful?

Would the dead rise up and walk?

(applause) - Up next is Emma Stapp.

- "a song in the front yard" by Gwendolyn Brooks.

I've stayed in the front yard all my life.

I want to peek at the back.

Where it's rough and untended and hungry weed grows.

A girl gets sick of a rose.

I want to go to the backyard now.

It may be down the alley to where the charity children play.

I want a good time today.

They do some wonderful things.

They have some wonderful fun.

My mother sneers, but I say it's fine.

How they don't have to go in at quarter to nine.

My mother, she says that Johnnie Mae will grow up to be a bad woman.

That George will be taking to jail sooner or later.

on account of last winter, he sold our back gate.

But I say it's fine.

Honest, I do.

And I'd like to be a bad woman too.

And wear the brave stockings of night black lace.

And strut down the street with pain on my face.

(applause) - Now let's welcome Kalen Wallace.

- "Mr. Darcy" by Victoria Chang.

In the end she just wanted the house and a horse not much more what if he didn’t own the house or worse not even a horse how do we separate the things from a man the man from the things is a man still the same without his reins here it rains every fifteen minutes it would be foolish to marry a man without an umbrella did Cinderella really love the prince or just the prints on the curtains in the ballroom once I went window-shopping but I didn’t want a window when do you know it’s time to get a new man one who can win more things at the fair I already have four stuffed pandas from the fair I won fair and square is it time to be less square to wear something more revealing in North and South she does the dealing gives him the money in the end but she falls in love with him when he has the money when he is still running away if the water is running in the other room is it wrong for me to not want to chase it because it owns nothing else when I wave to a man I love what happens when another man with a lot more bags waves back (applause) - This concludes round one of the 2023 Mississippi Poetry Out Loud Recitation Contest.

We'll now proceed directly to round two, during which we'll hear a second recitation from each contestant.

The first recitation in round two is by Kelyse Spillers.

Kelyse is a sophomore who is active in her school's Theatre group.

Key Club and Band.

She enjoys writing, reading, and acting.

She also plans to major in business administration at Townsend University toward a career in real estate.

- "Love (III)" by George Herbert.

Love bade me welcome.

Yet my soul drew back Guilty of dust and sin.

But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack From my first entrance in, Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning, If I lacked any thing.

A guest, I answered, worthy to be here: Love said, You shall be he.

I the unkind, ungrateful?

Ah my dear, I cannot look on thee.

Love took my hand, and smiling did reply, Who made the eyes but I?

Truth Lord, but I have marred them: let my shame Go where it doth deserve.

And know you not, says Love, who bore the blame?

My dear, then I will serve.

You must sit down, says Love, and taste my meat: So I did sit and eat.

(applause) - Next up is Ta'Kai Thomas.

Ta'Kai is a senior who enjoys the art of poetry.

She has the desire to explore more parts of the world, especially its wonderful nature.

Ta'Kai plans to attend Mississippi Delta Community College on her path toward a career in architecture and a successful life.

- "That's My Heart Right There" by Willie Perdomo.

We used to say, That’s my heart right there.

As if to say, Don’t mess with her right there.

As if, don’t even play, That’s a part of me right there.

In other words, okay okay, That’s the start of me right there.

As if, come that day, That’s the end of me right there.

As if, push come to shove, I would fend for her right there.

As if, come what may, I would lie for her right there.

As if, come love to pay, I would die for that right there.

(applause) - Up next is Melany Carrasco.

Melaney, a junior, is a class officer, the debate team Vice-President and is on the Mayor's Youth Council.

She loves knitting, learning new languages, reading, and listening to music.

Melaney hopes to study political science toward a career in law.

- "Epitaph" by Katherine Philips On her Son H.P.

at St. Syth’s Church where her body also lies interred What on Earth deserves our trust?

Youth and Beauty both are dust.

Long we gathering are with pain, What one moment calls again.

Seven years childless marriage past, A Son, a son is born at last: So exactly lim’d and fair, Full of good Spirits, Meen, and Air, As a long life promised, Yet, in less than six weeks dead.

Too promising, too great a mind In so small room to be confined: Therefore, as fit in Heaven to dwell, He quickly broke the Prison shell.

So the subtle Alchemist, Can’t with Hermes Seal resist The powerful spirit’s subtler flight, But t’will bid him long good night.

And so the Sun if it arise Half so glorious as his Eyes, Like this Infant, takes a shrowd, Buried in a morning Cloud.

(applause) - Up next is Tommy Nichol.

Tommy is a sophomore and an avid participant in his school's speech and debate and bowling teams.

He's a Boy Scout, a youth legislator, and an admitted video game addict.

- "1969" by Alex Dimitrov.

The summer everyone left for the moon even those yet to be born.

And the dead who can’t vacation here but met us all there by the veil between worlds.

The number one song in America was “In the Year 2525” because who has ever lived in the present when there’s so much of the future to continue without us.

How the best lover won’t need to forgive you and surely take everything off your hands without having to ask, without knowing your name, no matter the number of times you married or didn’t, your favorite midnight movie, the cigarettes you couldn’t give up, wanting to kiss other people you shouldn’t and now to forever be kissed by the Earth.

In the Earth.

With the Earth.

When we all briefly left it to look back on each other from above, shocked by how bright even our pain is running wildly beside us like an underground river.

And whatever language is good for, a sign, a message left up there that reads: Here men from the planet Earth first set foot upon the Moon July 1969, A.D. We came in peace for all mankind.

Then returned to continue the war.

(applause) - Now let's welcome C'nia Price.

C'nia is a sophomore and entrepreneur with her own baking business.

When not drumming up business, she's on the drumline for her school's marching band.

C'nia plans to attend an HBCU and major in recreational occupational therapy.

She also plans to run her own bakery.

- "Invisible Children" by Marianna Llanos.

Invisible children fall through the cracks of the system like Alice in the rabbit hole.

But these children won’t find an eat-me cake or a drink-me bottle.

They won’t wake up on the lap of a loving sister.

They’ll open their eyes on the hand of a monster called Negligence who’ll poke them with its sharp teeth and bait them with its heartless laughter, like a wild thing in a wild rumpus.

But the children won’t awake to the smell of a warm supper, nor will they find a purple crayon to draw an escape door or a window.

Instead they’ll make a mirror of a murky puddle on the city street which won’t tell them they’re beautiful but it’ll show their scars, as invisible to others as these children are.

(applause) - Up next is Sarah Rhodes.

Sarah is a junior and a member of the National Honor Society.

She is active in her school, theatre, choir, and sports programs.

In her free time, she plays guitar and does yoga.

Sarah plans to study toward a career in nursing.

- "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" by William Wordsworth.

I wandered lonely as a cloud That floats on high o'er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, A host, of golden daffodils; Beside the lake, beneath the trees, Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine And twinkle on the MilkyWway, They stretched in never-ending line Along the margin of a bay: Ten thousand saw I at a glance, Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they Out-did the sparkling waves in glee: A poet could not but be gay, In such a jocund company: I gazed—and gazed— but little thought What wealth the show to me had brought: For oft, when on my couch I lie In vacant or in pensive mood, They flash upon that inward eye Which is the bliss of solitude; And then my heart with pleasure fills, And dances with the daffodils.

(applause) - Now let's welcome Edward Wilson.

Edward is a senior captain of his school's speech and debate team and editor of his school newspaper.

He enjoys writing narratives and learning random knowledge for Quiz Bowl.

Edward plans to major in international studies and public policy toward a career in law.

- "La Belle Dame sans Merci: A Ballad" by John Keats.

O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms, Alone and palely loitering?

The sedge has withered from the lake, And no birds sing.

O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms, So haggard and so woe-begone?

The squirrel’s granary is full, And the harvest’s done.

I see a lily on thy brow, With anguish moist and fever-dew, And on thy cheeks a fading rose Fast withereth too.

I met a lady in the meads, Full beautiful— a faery’s child, Her hair was long, her foot was light, And her eyes were wild.

I made a garland for her head, And bracelets too, and fragrant zone; She looked at me as she did love, And made sweet moan I set her on my pacing steed, And nothing else saw all day long, For sidelong would she bend, and sing A faery’s song.

She found me roots of relish sweet, And honey wild, and manna-dew, And sure in language strange she said— ‘I love thee true’.

She took me to her Elfin grot, And there she wept and sighed full sore, And there I shut her wild wild eyes With kisses four.

And there she lullèd me asleep, And there I dreamed— Ah!

woe betide!— The latest dream I ever dreamt On the cold hill side.

I saw pale kings and princes too, Pale warriors, death-pale were they all; They cried—‘La Belle Dame sans Merci Thee hath in thrall!’ I saw their starved lips in the gloam, With horrid warning gapèd wide, And I awoke and found me here, On the cold hill’s side.

And this is why I sojourn here, Alone and palely loitering, Though the sedge is withered from the lake, And no birds sing.

(applause) - Next up is Emma Stapp.

Emma is an award-winning writer and musician who is President of her school's house band and Vice President of the Beta Club.

Emma has received gold and silver keys in the Scholastic Awards and plans to attend the Mississippi University for Women.

- "Jacob" by Phoebe Cary.

He dwelt among “apartments let,” About five stories high; A man I thought that none would get, And very few would try.

A boulder, by a larger stone Half hidden in the mud, Fair as a man when only one Is in the neighborhood.

He lived unknown, and few could tell When Jacob was not free; But he has got a wife,—and O!

The difference to me!

(applause) - Up next is Kalen Wallace.

Kalen is a junior who is active in her school's Thespian group and is a member of the Convergent Media Academy.

Kalen enjoys performance and competition and plans to study theatre in college.

- "Here" by Joshua Mehigan.

Nothing has changed.

They have a welcome sign, a hill with cows and a white house on top, a mall and grocery store where people shop, a diner where some people go to dine.

It is the same no matter where you go, and downtown you will find no big surprises.

Each fall the dew point falls until it rises.

White snow, green buds, green lawn, red leaves, white snow.

This is all right.

This is their hope.

And yet, though what you see is never what you get, it does feel somehow changed from what it was.

Is it the houses?

People?

Fields?

The weather?

Is it the streets?

Is it these things together?

Nothing here ever changes, till it does.

(applause) - This concludes round two.

The tabulators will now compile the scores to determine which three contestants will advance to the third round.

Welcome back for the final round of the 2023 Mississippi Poetry Out Loud Recitation Contest.

The scores from the first and second rounds have been tabulated, and the three highest scoring contestants will now recite a third poem.

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. on May 9th and 10th.

The contestants in round three in alphabetical order are.

Melaney Carrasco.

Edward Wilson.

And Kalen Wallace.

(applause) Congratulations.

And now let's begin the third and final round of the 2023 Mississippi Poetry Out Loud Recitation Contest.

In alphabetical order, first up is Melaney Carrasco, a junior at Pascagoula High School.

- "Caged Bird" by Maya Angelou.

A free bird leaps on the back of the wind and floats downstream till the current ends and dips his wing in the orange sun rays and dares to claim the sky.

But a bird that stalks down his narrow cage can seldom see through his bars of rage his wings are clipped and his feet are tied so he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings with a fearful trill of things unknown but longed for still and his tune is heard on the distant hill for the caged bird sings of freedom.

The free bird thinks of another word and the trade winds soft through the soft-- -- Trade winds soft through the sighing trees and the fat worms waiting on a dawn bright lawn and he names the sky his own.

But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream (whispers) Can I get a cue, please?

- His wings... - His wings are clipped and his feet are tied so he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings with a fearful trill of things unknown but longed for still and his tune is heard on the distant hill for the caged bird sings of freedom.

(applause) - Next is Edward Wilson, a senior at Jackson Preparatory School.

- "BLK History Month" by Nikki Giovanni.

If Black History Month is not viable then wind does not carry the seeds and drop them on fertile ground rain does not dampen the land and encourage the seeds to root sun does not warm the earth and kiss the seedlings and tell them plain: You’re As Good As Anybody Else You’ve Got A Place Here, Too (applause) - Our final recitation is by Kalen Wallace, a junior at Northwest Rankin High School.

- "To Solitude" by Alice Cary.

I am weary of the working, Weary of the long day’s heat; To thy comfortable bosom, Wilt thou take me, spirit sweet?

Weary of the long, blind struggle For a pathway bright and high,— Weary of the dimly dying Hopes that never quite all die.

Weary searching a bad cipher For a good that must be meant; Discontent with being weary,— Weary of my discontent.

I am weary of the trusting Where my trusts but torments prove; Wilt thou keep faith with me?

wilt thou be my true and tender love?

I am weary drifting, driving Like a helmless bark at sea; Kindly, comfortable spirit, Wilt thou give thyself to me?

Give thy birds to sing me sonnets?

Give thy winds my cheeks to kiss?

And thy mossy rocks to stand for The memorials of our bliss?

I in reverence will hold thee, Never vexed with jealous ills, Though thy wild and wimpling waters Wind about a thousand hills.

(applause) - And now the announcement we've all been waiting to hear: the naming of our third and second place finalists and of our 2023 state champion.

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

The 2023 Mississippi Poetry Out Loud third placed finalist is Melanie Carrasco.

(applause) The 2023 Mississippi Poetry Out Loud second place finalist and recipient of a $100 award and a $200 grant for her school library is Kalen Wallace.

(applause) And the 2023 Mississippi Poetry Out Loud state champion and recipient of a $200 reward and all-expense paid trip for two to Washington, D.C., and a $500 grant for his school library is Edward Wilson.

(applause and cheers) - Congratulations and thanks to everyone who contributed to the success of Poetry Out Loud.

The teachers, the students, coaches, parents, clinicians, volunteers and judges.

And to the schools and organizations that partnered with the Mississippi Arts Commission to bring the program to students of our state, including the Margaret Walker Alexander National Research Center at Jackson State University, Oxford University, United Methodist Church in Oxford.

And, of course, Mississippi Public Broadcasting.

Registration for the 2024 Mississippi Poetry Out Loud program opens on Monday, May 15.

Any and all schools that teach students in grades 9 through 12 are encouraged to visit the Mississippi Arts Commission website.

This concludes the 2023 Mississippi Poetry Out Loud Recitation Contest.

We hope to see you all again next year.