It’s April and that means National Poetry Month! While you wait impatiently for those buds to burst open, refresh your brain with some powerful wordplay recited by some talented high school students!
WVIA’s broadcast of the 2025 Poetry Out Loud regional competition is streaming online. I was happy to volunteer at this event again, this time as the “prompter.” That means my eyes were looking down at the text while the students were reading in case they needed a line. I was happy to be home to catch the event broadcast this year so I could see what I missed!
Congratulations to all the students who participated in their schools and this regional competition. It takes courage to stand up and use your voice with such intention. I’d love to see more NEPA students participate in this program. One of my recent fears with all the federal government cuts is that programs like this will end at the state level. If there are no federal programs, no state champions are traveling to compete at the national level. Not going to go on a political rant here, but we need more investment in programs like this, not less. As a public speaking professor, I assure you more poetry recitation in high school will help students become better communicators.
I’m sharing this screenshot even though I look like an exhausted zombie in my 30 seconds on screen – I’m afraid it’s fairly accurate minus an extra chin (angles are everything!). We recorded this in early December just as the fall semester was coming to a close. I was clearly ready for my long winter’s nap.
-ag
Gregarious Expressions 