Poetry Out Loud Website Activity

Part 1: Website Cruising

1. A Blessing, by James Wright
2. Under the Vulture Tree, by David Bottoms
3. When You Are Old, by William Butler Yeats
4. Fairy-Tale Logic, by A.E. Stalling and Boy and Egg by Naomi Shihab Nye

Part 2: What do you think?

• Of the poems above, one of my favorites is "A Blessing" by James Wright because it is made up of mostly imagery that gets the reader and the listener to imagine the scene of the poem.
• "Under the Vulture Tree" by William Butler Yeats is not quite my style of poetry, it has a very serious tone to it and because it was written in the 1940's, it is a little bit outdated.
• If I had to choose one of the poems above, I would choose "A Blessing" by James Wright.
• I don't have a real connection to this poem, but I do feel like when I'm reading it, it feels as if I'm walking in a dream with a farm, animals, and a soft breeze on my face.

Part 3: Scoring Criteria

• I think that "Dramatic Appropriateness" would most likely be the easiest for me to gain points on because I understand that acting out the poem would not be the best way to present the poem, but instead adding subtle hand gestures that fit with the poem's content would be a better approach.
• "Voice and Articulation" would probably be the part where I would score less points because I tend to speed up (therefore does not keep an appropriate pace) what I am saying if I get nervous. I also don't always realize how loud or soft I am speaking in front of a group because I am so concentrated on not forgetting the content.

Part 4: Videos

1. The first video that I watched was "Bilingual/Bilingue" by Riana P. Esphallat. I thought that she recited the poem very well, she put emphasis on the right places and it went very smoothly. The accuracy was also something that was very well portrayed because there were some words in a different language that she said with the country's accent.
2. Another video that I enjoyed watching was "The Man-Moth" by Kareem Sayegh. From the way that he was reciting it I could tell that it was very well practiced. There were noticeable climax's that he portrayed by the tone and emphasis he was putting at certain parts of the poem. The movements he made with his hands went with the poem's content and the whole thing flowed. Even though there was a tiny mistake in one of his words, he bounced back and did not seemed fazed about it.

Part 5: Summary
     Poetry Out Loud seems like a good experience for everyone to come out of their shell when it comes to speaking in front of a crowd. I also think it would be fun to listen to how different people took different approaches to memorizing and presenting the poems. The competition seems a bit nerve racking and competitive from my point of view right now, but I will try my best and hopefully do well, though I do not expect to win. I am planning to memorize "A Blessing" by James Wright because it was very well written in a unique writing style that I like. The website was very informative, I enjoyed having the sample speaker poets that gave me a general idea of the expectations. I feel more excited about this project after doing this blog post because it gave me an idea of how the competition is going to be.