001[Music] good morning and welcome to today's poetry out loud school competition for the 2021 school year the competition has been organized by the english department led by our lead teacher mr wilbur higgins and we have several contestants from several different grade levels this year competing we have four accuracy judges excuse me quality judges i suppose one accuracy judge and all members are from the school system which is super exciting so we're going to start today with miss hannah lima who is a grade 11 student and was our poetry out live loud winner for last year's season she is a member of the dhs school count student council a member of the golf team a member of the dance team a member of the theater company and because she has all those amazing talents she was
002recently crowned as miss new bedford's outstanding teen and has been serving as a volunteer throughout the community in various capacities hannah also just participated in the moby dick marathon for this year's reading of the historic story of moby dick she also stays busy with both singing and dancing lessons i don't know how she has time but here with her first poem is hannah lima [Music] i will be reciting songs for the people by francis ellen watkins harper let me make the songs for the people songs for the old and young songs to stir like a battle cry whenever they are sung not for the clashing of sabers for carnage nor for strife but songs to thrill the hearts of men with more abundant life let me make the songs for the weary amid life's fever
003and threat till hearts shall relax their tension and care worn brows forget let me sing for little children before their footsteps stray sweet anthems of love and duty to float over life's highway let me sing for the poor and aged when shadows dim their sight of the bright and restful mansions where there shall be no night our world so worn and weary needs music pure and strong to hush the jangle and discords of sorrow pain and wrong music to soothe all its sorrow to war and crime shall cease and the hearts of men grown tender girdle the world with peace [Music] while we transition to our next reciting i would like to introduce our first performance judge which is associate principal rachel chavier rachel is a crucial member of dhs and she is definitely in
004charge of my smile most of the time at staff meetings she's a good one and we're glad to have her here as a former english teacher as well so next up we have ariana stevens she is a senior this year in mr lima's class and it is the first time she has competed in poetry out loud she participates in cheerleading and the key club ariana thinks poetry is beautiful in all links with meaning behind each line [Music] english teachers doing math forgive us [Music] in between okay each one [Music] do [Music] and now with her first reading ariana stevens [Music] hi i'm ariana i'm going to be reading ebb by edna saint vincent malay i know what my heart is like since your love died it is like a hollow ledge holding a little pool
005left there by the tide a little tepid pool drying inward from the edge okay all right hi everybody this is mr higgins so in between the the performances i'll be doing a little reading of some poems and limericks as well just to kind of give the judges some time thanks for tuning in to this poetry out loud uh to everybody in the school who is who is watching today so here's the first poem that i'd like to read in between so this is called christmas trees and this is by robert frost this is from a christmas circular letter the city had withdrawn into itself and left at last the country to the country when between worlds of snow not come to lie and whirls of foliage not yet laid there drove a stranger to our
006yard who looked the city yet did in country fashion in that there he sat and waited until he drew us out a buttoning codes to ask him who he was he proved to be the city come again to look for something it had left behind and could not do without and keep its christmas he asked if i would sell my christmas trees my woods the young fur balsams like a place where houses all are churches and have spires i hadn't thought of them as christmas trees i doubt if i was tempted for a moment to sell them off their feet to go in cars and leave the slope behind the house all bear where the sun shines now no warmer than the moon i'd hate to have them know it was it was i yet
007more i'd hate to hold my trees except as others hold theirs or refuse for them beyond the time of profitable growth the trial by market everything must come true i dallied so much with the thought of selling then whether from mistaken courtesy and fear of seeming short of speech or whether from hope of hearing good of what was mine i said there aren't enough to be worthwhile i could soon tell how many they would cut you let me look them over back to miss lassie [Music] our next performance judge is the much beloved mr john bro he is the head of the special education department here at the high school and he is pretty much responsible for our amazing inclusive programs with athletics and the students blending in with the regular ed students and having
008opportunities they wouldn't have normally had so his heart is bigger than he is and uh we love mr bro here at the high school so our next contestant is the mr joshua minis he is a senior and a man of many interests i have been privileged enough to have joshua twice in class he's amazing he participates in the marching band key club the spectrum the math team student council and unified track he's very excited and a little nervous to participate today so please let's give joshua minis a warm welcome [Music] where the wild things go by d gilson the night max war's wolf suit made him infamous bred the child star never sent to bed middle school max started drinking not in my house his mother begged no no no wild thing max reminded her
009who bought this condo who paid for her meds freshman year max raved roared his terrible roar rolled and almost wound up in a warehouse dead where oh where do the wild things go to rehab in high school the college on residual book sales max kept his head down laughed at drunken frat boys bro let the wild rumpus start max said no thanks and volunteered for the peace corps instead two years in kenya one in belarus the president thought max might be of some use max moved to washington appointed at the state department a cultural attache one important day max wore his wolf gray suit then drove home well past rush hour in a freak snow storm max drove on the deserted beltway thought his throne yes max belted this is where the wild things roam
010[Music] hey it's mr higgins again so we're gonna try to lighten things up a little bit this time with some limericks uh limericks are very very short palms almost like haikus but they might be funny ridiculous sometimes body uh or coarse but we're not gonna read those today uh so here are a couple um to entertain you um let's see my neighbor came over to say although not in a neighborly way that he'd knock me around if i didn't stop the sound of the classical music i play i can hear your laughter around the school right now here's another one there once was a man from tibet who couldn't find a cigarette so he smoked all his socks and got chicken pox and had to go to the vet i heard some laughter that time
011here's another one there once was a man stuck in a stall he tried to get out but would fall one day a man flushed the fat man just blushed and quickly ran out of the mall here's one more there was an enchanting young bride who ate many green apples and died the apples fermented inside the lamented and made cider inside her inside back to miss lassie i don't know how to follow that so our next performance judge is mrs jean flight uh she is my co-teacher this year which is very exciting and i'm very thankful for uh she is the kindest person i think i've ever encountered she is so thoughtful not just with the kids but with all of us as a staff she makes the best cookies on the planet so please definitely
012take one of those cookies but we are very lucky to have miss jean play with us today so our next recitation will be from bronte masuko and i had the privilege of having bronte last year and we are officially pen pals now we write back and forth all the time with silliness and i love it so she is a junior who participated in poetry out loud for class but not for the competition for the school she is involved in winter track tennis she's secretary of the naacp youth council founder of the yoga ceramics club secretary of the multicultural club environmental club creative writing club and key club she works at the amc cinema she is competing due to the prospect of the extra credit point she called mr higgins into giving her for participating but
013i'm sure we will all be overjoyed with her performance so with her first reading is bronte [Music] epitaph on the lady mary billiards by thomas carew this little vault this narrow room of love and beauty is the tomb the dawning beam that began to clear our clouded sky lies darkened here forever set to us by death sent to inflame the world beneath it was but a bud yet did contain more sweetness than shall spring again a budding star that might have grown into a sun when it had blown this hopeful beauty did create new life in love's declining state but now his empire ends and we from fire and wounding darts are free his brand his bow let no man fear the flames the arrows all lie here [Music] okay thank you bronte i'm back
014for some more ridiculous limericks here here's a good one a newspaper man named fling could make copy from any old thing but the copy he wrote of a five dollar note was so good he is now wears so much bling i heard somebody left all these are in triplet i think you can hear here's another one there was a young lady of cork whose paw made a fortune in pork he bought for his daughter a tutor who taught her to balance green peas on her fork [Laughter] i think that was technically a guffaw here's another one there was an odd fellow named gus when traveling he made such a fuss he was banned from the train not allowed on a plane and now travels only by bus that's a good one for the holidays right
015there one more i need a front door for my hall the replacement i bought was too tall so i hacked it and chopped it and carefully lopped it and now the dumb thing is too small back to ms lassie [Music] our next performance judge and our last performance judge is one of my work besties miss tara kearney aka tk she is my fashion inspiration and she motivates me every day to be more creative with my lessons if you go in her room your jaw will drop her kids are engaged and she's doing something that i couldn't have even fathomed to do she's amazing and we're lucky to have her in our department and i'm lucky to have her in my life so our next contestant is lauren lima lauren is a junior who i also
016had the privilege of having in class last year she's never competed in poetry out loud before but she has participated in the dartmouth high school theater company and harmonix so this is right up her alley she loves performing and reflecting on how much poems can affect us emotionally so here is my beloved lauren lima [Music] ozymandias by percy b shelley i met a traveler from an antique land who said two vast and trunkless legs of stone stand in the desert near them on the sand hath sunk a shattered visage lies whose frown and wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command tell that it's sculpter well those passions read which yet survive stamped on these lifeless things the hands that mock them and the heart that fed and on the pedestal these words appear my name
017is ozymandias king of kings look upon my works ye mighty and despair nothing beside remains around the decay of that colossal wreck boundless and bare the lone and level sands stretch far away [Music] great job in that poem anybody who's ever had me for class knows that azamandias is one of my favorite poems i think ozymandias is actually a translation of ramses uh the ancient egyptian pharaoh in greek all right here's a couple more limericks to give the judges some time a gherkin is a pickle i believe for this one it makes sense there was a young lady named perkins who just simply lived on gherkins in spite of advice she ate so much spice that she ruined her internal workings that's right there's a building in a famous skyscraper in london that's shaped like
018a pickle it's called the gherkin here's another one a painter who lived in great britain interrupted two girls with their knitting he said with a sigh that park bench well i just painted it right where you're sitting [Laughter] one more there once was a boy named dan who wanted to fry in a pan he tried and he tried and eventually died that weird little boy named dan [Laughter] miss lassie okay i'd like to move on to introducing our prompter for today which is miss kimberly rivard she is my neighbor up in the english department and i could not be more thankful kim is the type of person that if you're having a bad day just just listen or watch her for a few minutes she's dancing in the hallway she's got a smile or a
019compliment for you and again we're very lucky to have her in the department our next reading is going to be from mr sean martin el presidente of the junior class he has competed in poetry allowed at the classroom level for the past two years but never at the school-wide level he plays football and basketball here at dhs as i said he is the class president for the junior class a member of the deca a member of key club and a member of the chess team he's excited to participate in poetry out loud to give it my best shot and see how well i can do with my recitations because he always gives his best here's sean martin [Music] holding court by jacob signs today i became king of the court without a diamond-encrusted crown thrust
020upon my sweaty head instead my markings of royalty were the t-shirt draping my body like a robe soaked in champagne and the pain in my right knee a sign of a battle endured my will tested and bested by none as the ball flew off my hands i swift as an arrow toward the heart of her target my fingers ringless yet feeling like gold [Music] okay i think for this poem this limerick to make sense you need to know that brie is a type of cheese one saturday morning at three a cheesemonger's shop in paris collapsed to the ground with a thunderous sound leaving only a pile of debris here's another one i'm really determined and keen to start giving this house a spring clean i will do it i say yes i'll do it today
021well i'll do it tomorrow i mean one more there once was a child in spain who loved to play in the rain one day he tripped and broke his hip now he's in serious pain our next judge today is anne feinfield who is doing our accuracy scores and she's the perfect person to do this because i swear she could be an editor in another life i think i think she probably was she is one of the most well traveled well-read women i have ever met and she is definitely my role model when it comes to pushing kids to the absolute highest capacity they can go to she is she just demands respect as a teacher as a woman as a human being and i adore her so our next reading will be from phoenix campbell
022who i have never had the pleasure to have in class very sad but i got to meet the other day so so so exciting phoenix is a junior and has not done poetry out loud before he's part of the winter and spring track teams as well as the cross country team in the fall he is also on the math team phoenix is excited to participate as he has never done it before he enjoys poetry and analyzing the meaning behind it as he learned to do in mr lima's class this year so with a great plug for mr lima here is phoenix [Music] this is once you celebrate with me by lucille clifton won't you celebrate with me what i have shaped into a kind of life i had no model born in babylon both non-white
023and woman what did i see to be except myself i made it up here on this bridge between starshine and clay my one hand holding tight my other hand come celebrate with me that every day something has tried to kill me and it's fail [Music] right here's a serious poem this is titled mistletoe by walter de lamar sitting under the mistletoe pale green fairy mistletoe one last candle burning low all the sleepy dancers gone just one candle burning on shadows lurking everywhere someone came and kissed me there tired i was my head would go nodding under the mistletoe pale green fairy mistletoe no footsteps steps came no voice but only just as i sat there sleepy lonely stooped in the still and shadowy air lips unseen and kissed me there miss lassie [Music] our last
024employee for the poetry out loud competition today is miss anna source she is part of the special education department that works with the english department and we are so lucky to have her she works primarily with mr karen and that is a lot to handle with the technology so she is one of our saviors at all times one of the sweetest people as well we're very lucky upstairs so our next contestant is holly raposo she is a junior and she's competed in poetry out loud but it was her freshman year she also does dance in theater she enjoyed doing poetry out loud her freshman year and wanted to do it again because it's fun and maybe to redeem herself this year which having interacted with her several times i have complete confidence in her here
025is holly [Music] i will be reciting you if no one else by tino vili villiova listen you who transformed your anguish into healthy awareness put your voice where your memory is you who swallowed the afternoon dust defend everything you understand with words you if no one else will condemn with your tongue [Music] the erosion each disappointment brings you who saw the images of disgust growing you will understand how time devours you distinct you who gave yourself your own commandments know better than anyone why you turned your back on the town's toughest moments don't hush don't throw away the most persistent truth as our hard-headed brethren sometimes do remember well what life was like cloudiness and a slick mud after drizzle flimsy windows the wind kept rattling in winter and that unheated slab dwelling where coldness
026crawled up under your clothes tell how you come to this point to unbar the history stores to see your early years your people the others name the way rebellions calm spirit has served you and how you came to unlearn these lessons of that teacher your lands on your opponent defiler [Music] okay i'm back with some more absurdity if you've been listening to these limericks you can tell that there's a specific rhythm and a rhyme scheme they're all in triplets so it should be duh duh duh duh duh duh duh duh duh duh duh dah dah dah dah dah dah that's kind of the general idea here's the limerick there was a young school boy of rye who was baked by mistake in a pie to his mother's disgust he emerged through the crust and exclaimed
027with a yawn where am i here's another there is a young schoolboy named mason whose mom cuts his hair with a basin when he stands in one place with a scarf around his face it's a mystery which way he's facing last one there once was a fly on the wall i wonder why didn't it fall because its feet stuck or was it just luck or does gravity miss things so small so my last introduction today will just be a return to our beloved mr higgins he is the lead teacher of the english department and we are a rough group to handle we are loud and opinionated and he gives us joy and he has unified us and he has pushed our department forward in so many different ways we would not be the same without
028mr higgins at the helm for the english department and our last contestant today is anna oliveira and um she was kind enough to let mr higgins write her bio so here we go anna is a junior that's true and has not competed in poetry out loud before here's where it gets a little spicy she enjoys playing horseshoes cornhole and badminton in her spare time anna works as a pickleball referee at a local retirement community anna is also an avid knitter she has an etsy store that sells sweaters for kittens and her favorite beetle is ringo so here's our woman of mystery anna oliveira [Music] this is beginning by james wright the moon drops one or two feathers into the field the dark wheat listens be still now there they are the moon's young trying their
029wings between trees a slender woman lifts up a lovely shadow of her face and now she steps into the air now she is gone holy into the air i stand alone by an elder tree i do not dare breathe or move i listen the wheat leans back toward its own darkness and i lean toward mine [Music] okay we need to get a link to that etsy store hannah let's see those those sweaters for kittens all right so you heard that there's a rhythm in these poems there's also a rhyme scheme too so this is aabba all the way through these here's the limerick an elephant slept in his bunk and in slumber his chest rose and sunk but he snored how he snored all the other beasts roared so his wife tied a knot in
030his trunk here's another a circus performer named brian once smiled as he rode on a lion they came back from the ride but with brian inside and the smile on the face of the lion one more there was an old man of peru who dreamt he was eating his shoe he woke in the night with a terrible fright and found it was perfectly true miss lassie so now our contestants are going to do their second poems so i'm going to be reintroducing after this bell hannah lima two years ago hannah experienced the gift of poetry and was forever changed words have the power to help heal unite and inspire she's excited to participate because she gets to take the beautiful words of others and bring them to life through her own interpretation taking the audience
031on a journey and opening their hearts and minds to think about and imagine what is and what could be lastly she also enjoys composing and performing her own poems hannah chose the first poem because it speaks to how music touches the heart of young and old it also reminds us how important music is in our lives and how it is good for the soul this second poem helps us to reflect on the wonders of nature that surrounds us it causes us to pause and think about every day and everything around us here once again is hannah lima [Music] the day's gone by by james whitcomb riley oh the day's gone by oh the days gone by the apples and the orchard and the pathway through the rye the churro of the robin and the whistle
032of the quail as he piped along the meadows sweet as any nightingale when the bloom was on the clover and the blue was in the sky and my happy heart brimmed over and the days gone by and the days gone by when my naked feet were tripped by the honeysuckles tangles where the water lilies dipped and the ripples of the river along along ripples of the river the ripples of the river lift the moss along the brink oh god um yeah just the word okay what i just need like the first one oh with the placid eye and the lazy footed cattle came to drink oh god and the tilting snipe stood fearless of the students wayward cry and the splashing of the swimmers in the days gone by oh the day's gone by oh
033the days gone by the music of the laughing whip the lustre of the eye the childish faith in fairies and the magic in aladdin's magic ring the simple soul reposing glad belief in everything when life was like a story holding neither saab noir sigh and the golden old and glory and the days gone by [Music] okay i'm back with a couple of limericks here's a good one there was a young person called smarty who sent out his cards for a party so exclusive and few were the friends that he knew that no one was present but smarty [Laughter] i know if you can hear but this there's some laughter coming from the control room here here's another one an elderly man called keith mislaid his set of false teeth they had been laid on a
034chair he had forgot they were there sat down and was bitten beneath [Laughter] one more there was a young lady of kent whose nose was most awfully bent she followed her nose one day i suppose and no one knows which away she went [Laughter] i mean how can you not love mr higgins i mean you're getting a taste of it right here with her second poem we have ariana stevens she chose two love poems that she enjoys reading due to the intense feelings conveyed by someone in love everyone has different definitions of what love is and feels like and she finds it interesting to read the different perspectives with her second poem ariana stevens [Music] this is rondo by lay hunt jenny kissed me when we met jumping from the chair she sat in time
035you fool who loved to get sweets into your list put that in say i'm wary same sad say that health and wealth have missed me say i'm growing old but add jenny kissed me [Music] right here's a serious one this is a real poem this is titled to mrs k on her sending me an english christmas plum cake at paris by helen maria williams what crowding thoughts around me wake what marvels in a christmas cake ah say what strange enchantment dwells enclosed within his odorous cells is there no small magician bound encrusted in its snowy round for magic surely lurks in this a cake that tells of vanished bliss a cake that conjures up to view the early scenes when life was new one memory knew no sorrows passed and hope believed in joys that
036last mysterious cake whose folds contain life's calendar of bliss and pain that speaks of friends forever fled and wakes the tears i love to shed oft shall i breathe her cherished name from whose fair hand the offering came for she recalls the artless smile of nymphs that deck my native isle of beauty that we love to trace allied with tender modest grace of those who while abroad they roam retain each charm that gladdens home and whose dear friendships can impart a christmas banquet for the heart that's for those who like fruitcake it's got to be a very small crowd out there miss lassie no one likes fruitcake okay with his second poem today i would like to sing some more praises for mr joshua minis he doesn't just get recognized by us as a staff
037but also his peers recently winning the superlatives most likely to succeed most involved and best all-around with his second reading here is josh [Music] meeting at an airport by taha muhammad ali you asked me once on our way back from the mid-morning trip to the spring what do you hate and who do you love and i answered from behind the eyelashes of my surprise my blood rushing like a shadow cast by a cloud of starlings i hate departure i love the spring and i love the pa and the path to the spring and i worship the middle hours of morning and you laughed and the almond tree blossomed and the thicket grew loud with nightingales a question now four decades old i salute the questions answer and answer as old as your departure i salute
038the answers question and today it's preposterous here we are at a friendly airport by this limit of chances and we meet ah lord we meet and here you are asking again it's absolutely preposterous i recognized you but you didn't recognize me is it you but you wouldn't believe it and suddenly you burst out and asked if you're really you what do you hate and who do you love and i answered my blood fleeing the hall rushing in me like the shadow cast by a cloud of starlings i hate departure and i love the spring and the path to the spring and i worship the middle hours of morning and you wept and flowers bowed their heads and the doves and doves in the silk of their sorrows stumbled [Music] okay here's some more levity no
039more fruitcake there once was a girl named zoe she went out in her yard which was quite snowy she ate her brother asked her parents for another so they had another name joey her name should have been zoe mess that one up here's another one a young gourmet dining net crew found a rather large mouse in his stew said the waiter don't shout and wave it about or the rest will be wanting one too [Laughter] one more a crossword compiler named moss who found himself quite at a loss when asked why so blue said i haven't a clue i'm too down to put one across that takes a second there you go okay up next with her second performance is going to be bronte masuko her first poem really captured her attention by the way
040of its vivid imagery and really unique word choice she liked the construction of her second poem and thought it was a really beautiful sort of narrative with these conflicting ideas of flames and conflict but also beauty in hope and here is our unique hopeful beauty bronte mazuco the maldive shark by herman melville about the shark phlegmatical one pale sought of the maldives sea the sleek little pilot fish azur and slim how alert in attendance be from his saw pit of mouth from his charnel of maw they have little of harm to dread but liquidly glide on his ghastly flank or before his gorgonian head or seek port behind his serrated teeth in white triple tears of glittering gates they are friends and friendly they guide him to pray eyes and brains of the dotard lethargic
041and dull pale ravener of horrible meat [Music] okay for this one to make sense you need to know that a lou is the british word for a bathroom i'm papering walls in the loo and quite frankly i haven't a clue for the pattern's all wrong or the paper is too long and i'm stuck to the toilet with glue here's another there was a young lady whose chin resembled the point of a pin so she had made it she had it made sharp and purchased a harp and played several tunes with her chin [Laughter] one more there was an old man with a gong who bumped at it all day long but they called out no more you're a horrid old boar so they smashed that old man with a gong [Laughter] poor man was just
042trying to play his music okay next up with her second performance we have lauren lima for her first poem she chose this because it was very intriguing or excuse me she was very intrigued by the message of power being temporary it is a short poem but it still manages to present a large message she chose her second poem because as a queer individual who does not fit into the gender binary she related deeply to the words written here's the wonderful lauren lima [Music] portrait of my gender as an audible by meg day i knew i was a god when you could not agree on my name and still none you spoke could force me to listen closer is this the nothing the antelope felt when adam lit on his own entitling dubbed family genus species
043so many descendants became doctors delivered babies bestowed bodies names as if to say it is to make it so if i told you you wouldn't believe me because i was the one to say it on the first day there was no sound worth mentioning if if i too am a conductor of air the only praise i know is in stereo one pair an open hand enclosed fist will have to do i made a photograph of my name there was a shadow in a field and i put my shadow in it you can't hear me but i'm there [Music] okay i don't know if you're getting tired of limericks but here's some more the incredible wizard of oz retired from his business because due to up-to-date science to most of his clients he wasn't the wizard
044he was [Laughter] another there was an old man with a beard who said it is just as i feared two owls and a hen four larks and a wren have all built their nests in my beard one more is it me or the nature of money that's odd and particularly funny but when i have dough it goes quickly you know and seeps out of my pockets like honey with his second reading we're going to call back sean martin he chose his first poem because it portrays the vast emotions that are experienced when playing sports especially when things are going well which as a basketball player himself is something he can relate to and felt he could provide insight to through his recitation sean also chose to recite his second poem because he particularly enjoyed the
045form and rhythm of the poem with very descriptive and longer lines that provide imagery for the situation being discussed while also having a much deeper meaning he found this to be very interesting and here is the interesting man himself sean martin [Music] after the war by rachel galvin when he got to the farmhouse he rifled through the cabinets jars and cupboards and his buddies did too the police was abandoned or so he thought and his buddies did too he tried to talk to people in town and his buddies did too but he was the only one whose yiddish made it across into german they took his meaning he in the farmhouse took a camera and a gun and his but his buddies who knows about the gun it's also hard to say but after the
046war he took up photography why not and shot beautiful woman for years got good at it and how won prizes and engraved plates put them in a drawer forgot the war forgot his buddies forgot the woman forgot the drawer [Music] okay you thought i ran out of these but i did not here's a limerick i met her in chat she was neat her photo was pretty petite we met for a meal i saw her for real i screamed and then ran down the street there once was a man from york who picked his nose with a fork he went for a pluck when it got stuck and walked around looking like a dork one more there once was a man from peru who had a lot of growing up to do he'd ring a doorbell
047then run like hell until the owner shot him with a 22. [Laughter] those first two sound like my dating history before my husband my goodness all right with his second poem we are going to call back phoenix campbell phoenix chose won't you celebrate with me as it depicts the struggles of a minority woman in a time when those struggles were not always heard it is powerful and a great representation of how everybody can express themselves through poetry phoenix chose prince which he's about to recite because he has always had an interest in his ancestors and how they provided him the life he has now while reflecting on all of the work they have put in for a better life here is phoenix campbell this is prince by joseph bukak seeing photos of ancestors a century
048passed is like looking at your own fingerprints circles and lines you can't recognize until someone else with a stranger's eye looks close and says that's you thank you [Music] yes i do have more a fellow jumped a half i'm sorry a fellow jumped off a high wall and had a most terrible fall he went back to bed with a bump on his head that's why you don't jump off a wall [Laughter] here's another there once was a farmer from leeds who swallowed a packet of seeds it soon came to pass he was covered with grass but has all the tomatoes he needs [Laughter] one more there once was a man named bryce who had a nasty head full lice he said if i eat them then i'll have beat them and besides they taste very
049nice lice is a school teacher's nightmare my gosh okay uh for her second poem we have holly raposo returning to the mic she chose these poems because she feels that she can portray them and have that emotional value behind them and have a similar connection to each here is the very talented holly raposo [Music] i felt a funeral on 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 were all 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 the same boots and lead again then space began to toll as the heavens
050were a bell and being but an ear and eye in 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 okay i'm going to try to regain some credibility as a teacher here by reading a real poem this is titled christmas tree lots by chris green christmas trees lined like war refugees a fallen army made to stand in their greens cut down at the foot on their last leg they pulled themselves up arms raised we dropped them like wood tied they are driven through the streets dragged through the door cornered in a room given a single blanket only water to drink surrounded by joy forced to wear a gaudy gold star to surrender their
051pride they do their best to look alive with her last reading today i'm going to reintroduce anna oliveira and since mr higgins wrote her bio the first time i thought i would give you something true about anna though i've never had her in class i know she's an excellent student but i was able to be her coach for volleyball and this year got to watch her on varsity as her assistant coach anna's the best of all of us she is the person you want on the team because she's going to make all of us better whether it's her spirit cheering on the court or off the court the effort she puts in the smile on her face anna just makes everything better so with her second reading on oliver [Music] this is the chimney sweeper
052a little black thing among the snow by william blake a little black thing among the sm snow crying weep weep in notes of woe where are thy father and mother say they have both gone up to the church to pray because i am happy upon the heath and smiled among the winter snow they have clothed me in the close of death and taught me to sing in notes of woe because i am happy and can sing and dance they think they have done me no injury and gone to praise god and his priest and king that make up a heaven of our misery all right i have one last limerick for today um i'll read this last one we're going to pause for a few minutes at the end of this to to tally the
053scores and we'll be back to announce the winner of poetry out loud all right my last limerick for today a man and his lady loved men skated out where the ice was quite thin had a coral no doubt before i hear they fell out what a blessing they didn't fall in i just want to add too though it's very possible that anna may have a future in knitting sweaters for kittens suggestion may be enough possibly all right we'll pause and be back in a few minutes [Music] hi everybody and welcome back to poetry out loud so we do have a list of the the top three finishers for this year's poetry out loud before i do that i'd like to thank all of the performers contestants uh who came here today to do this on
054the day before our break uh it's challenging to do this it really is it's not easy to memorize a poem in the first place you notice there aren't any teachers up here memorizing poems right in front of the mic it's very very difficult and i think that you know we double that triple that when you stand in front of a mic in front of a camera so applause thanks to all those students who um who participated today thank you very much i want to thank again uh all the teachers who helped out with us especially miss lassie who didn't get her own introduction but who is a constant source of happiness i think for both students and teachers in the english department so thank you miss lassie we appreciate it so i'd like to announce
055the top three and if each one of you could come up uh quickly here uh we'll start with third place and uh we'll move on down to our champion all right in third place for the 2021 poetry out loud contest phoenix campbell all right phoenix yeah come on up good job you can sanitize after this in second place hannah lima congratulations hannah and this year's 2021 poetry out loud grand champion lauren lima [Music] [Applause] great job lauren and we have a small gift for you 100 years of the best american short stories if you could have these all read by the time you come back from vacation that'd be great congratulations i also want to thank mr peratti and his crew as well he did such a great job today putting this together streaming it
056um we are we're really lucky to have mr peratti and um and the the equipment that he has in play here and the students are working on this is just you know i don't think every school has something like this so thank you mr peretti and your crew and that's it for today thank you everybody have a great vacation we'll see you january 3rd right in bushy tail congratulations everybody [Music] you