Poetry Out Loud

EATING POETRY

QUEENS CEMETERY, SETTING SUN

CARMEL HIGHLANDS

GOOD PEOPLE

I DREAMED THAT I WAS OLD

Of these five poems, I most enjoyed "Eating Poetry". I thought it was humorous and although it had a small message that this man absorbed poetry and was a better man for it. Would I want to recite this poem? Probably not, I feel as if it would be on the side newspaper column for one's small self enjoyment.

I did not like "I Dreamed That I Was Old". This poem was very sad and depressing to me. I do not like thinking about my death and longing for my youth.

Of these six poems, I am most interested "Good People". Although I'm not confident this is the poem I will be further studying.

I personally connected with "Good People" because it talks about parents and children. Obviously I can relate being that I am a child and I have parents.

The criteria that will be easiest is to make a connection with the audience. I feel like this will be easiest because I find it very simple to generally scan and make somewhat of eye contact with the audience as I am reading.

The criteria that will be hardest for me will be to "relax and act natural". This will be a problem because when reading I will want to get into a character.

Another criteria I will struggle with is to "not say rhyming poems in a sing-song manner". That will be difficult because I find myself wanting to just kind of let it flow instead of breaking it up so that it does not sound like a song.

Videos:
I watched "I am Waiting" by Lawrence Ferlinghetti. This was a successful performance to me because the way the girl recited it made me think that she was actually thinking those words and that she was a part of it. Her small hand gestures fit great while she was speaking and were not too big so that it was not distracting.

I also watched "Man-Moth" by Elizabeth Bishop. This was successful because the guy reciting it was very well paced and his pauses in between words gave a dramatic effect. His gestures and flow through the poem were great.

I feel like this competition will be very competitive and there will be kids who are very serious about winning. I think I will do fine, I'm not expecting to win obviously. I have not yet decided the poem I want to memorize yet but I will in due time. I think this is a great website if you are studying or learning about poetry. It very resourceful to say the least.