How to Use This Video
This "Best Performances" video was created to illustrate the art of poetry recitation for Poetry Out Loud: National Recitation Contest. With the judge's guide, audio CD, and teacher's guide, use the video and this companion guide to foster classroom discussion. Students can watch these award-winning recitations and discuss the strengths (and weaknesses!) of each. Have students act as judges and score each performance (before seeing the companion guide) to prompt discussion and a deeper understanding of the evaluation criteria. (You may download additional score sheets, student FAQs, evaluation criteria, and the judge's guide.) Discuss the merits of the performances, which the students like best and why, how the poems are different when read versus recited, among other activities suggested in the teacher's guide. With this practice, students will be better able to peer-review recitations and refine their own performances.


The Art of Recitation - A Powerful Performance
You'll notice that the performances are as different as the poems and performers themselves—one reason that judging recitation is challenging. All of these performances rated highly in the "overall performance" category. These students were semifinalists in 2006, 2007, and 2008 National Finals, most in the top three. Honoring the poet's intent is central to their performances.

Discuss what makes these recitations especially powerful or delightful; "overall performance" is often more than the sum of its parts. Please keep in mind that there is no definitive recitation or interpretation of any one poem. These poems are used as examples because all of these performances are outstanding in one way or another.

Please note: These poems were eligible at the time they were performed, but aren't necessarily still part of the contest. Poems in the hardcover anthology and currently online are eligible for this year's national contest.



Amanda Fernandez
Unknown Girl in the Maternity Ward
by Anne Sexton
Fernandez successfully navigates the shifting moods of this long, confessional narrative poem. She provides a natural and intimate portrait of the narrator. Her performance is enhanced by a strong stage presence and crisp articulation.

Keys
Physical presence
Appropriateness of dramatization



Jackson Hille
Forgetfulness
by Billy Collins
Hille has a great connection with the audience—probably because he gets the wry, satirical voice of the poem just right. His performance, from the time he enters the stage to when he concludes—his posture, his smile, and the pacing of his voice—relates the resigned, yet warm and humorous tone of the poem. He shares the joy and cleverness of the work with the audience-almost to the point that "forgetfulness" is rather celebrated as a universal human trait.

Keys
Voice and articulation
Evidence of understanding



Sophia Elena Soberon
Bilingual/Bilingüe
by Rhina P. Espaillat
Her polished stage presence and clear voice offset the poem's conflicted subject matter and its themes of alienation and uncertainty. Soberon's interpretation embodies a poised, reflective narrator who is confident in both languages where another may "stumble."

Keys
Physical presence
Voice and articulation



Allison Strong
Sonnet CXXX: My Mistress' Eyes Are Nothing Like the Sun
by William Shakespeare
Strong elegantly relates the mounting tone from astute humor to quiet triumph during this sonnet. She masters the language from another era and represents the strong rhyme scheme well—with no sing-song quality. She appears very comfortable with these challenges; nothing
is forced or artificial about her performance. Her voice has good volume, clarity, and her posture is relaxed.

Keys
Level of difficulty
Evidence of understanding
Voice and articulation




Shawntay A. Henry
Frederick Douglass
by Robert E. Hayden
Henry has a wonderful stage presence—her bright articulation and deliberate pacing provides an authoritative take on this elegy. Her performance is understated yet inspired, not overdramatic. Her emphatic phrasing gives a quiet dignity and strength to this poem's
elemental language and lofty subject matter.

Keys
Physical presence
Voice and articulation




Madison Niermeyer
I Am Waiting
by Lawrence Ferlinghetti
One challenge of this poem is not to make it sound wordy and repetitive with its refrain. Niermeyer skillfully varies her performance enough to avoid monotony and so capitalizes on the refrain. She manages the many allusions and communicates well the tricky tone between earnestness and satire.

Keys
Evidence of understanding
Level of difficulty



Joshua Kelly
Dulce et Decorum Est
by Wilfred Owen
This spare, compelling performance serves the poem's graphic scenes and haunting imagery without overdramatizing it. Kelly plots these extreme elements skillfully to honor the horror of the soldier's narrative. His gestures, dramatic inflection, and volume are used economically to
heighten the impact of the poem.

Keys
Appropriateness of dramatization
Evidence of understanding



Carolyn Rose García
Pied Beauty
by Gerard Manley Hopkins
This is a challenging poem with abstract language and a timeless sensibility. Its sense comes mostly from its unique sound and rhythm. García's inflections, changing pace of delivery and tone strongly communicate this sometimes nonsensical poem of reverence. Her performance confidently interprets this poem, making it enjoyable and digestible, illuminating rather than obscuring the language.

Keys
Level of difficulty
Evidence of understanding



Teal Van Dyck
Siren Song
by Margaret Atwood
Van Dyck's performance has great confidence and authority—she lends pathos and humor to the character in this poem, making the narrator come alive. She uses no unnecessary movement—she doesn't need it with her mastery of facial and vocal expression. She has a strong connection with the audience as she relates the poem's alternately coy and pleading siren song.

Keys
Voice and articulation
Physical presence
Evidence of understanding



Branden Emanual Wellington
Facing It
by Yusef Komunyakaa
Wellington takes a difficult poem—one about trying to grasp an unimaginable reality—and relates its story clearly and defines its introspective mood. He recites the work's dreamlike, abstract imagery and its narrative jumps in time using no unnecessary gestures as a crutch. He voices this interior monologue evenly—even the parts where the narrator is experiencing disturbing thoughts and visions. Performer disappears in the voice of the poem, embodying it.

Keys
Level of difficulty
Appropriateness of dramatization
Evidence of understanding


PERFORMANCES
01 Introduction
02 Amanda Fernandez - Unknown Girl in the Maternity Ward - by Anne Sexton
03 Jackson Hille - Forgetfulness - by Billy Collins
04 Sophia Elena Soberon - Bilingual/Bilingüe - by Rhina P. Espaillat
05 Allison Strong - Sonnet CXXX: My Mistress' Eyes Are Nothing Like the Sun - by William Shakespeare
06 Shawntay A. Henry - Frederick Douglass - by Robert E. Hayden
07 Madison Niermeyer - I Am Waiting - by Lawrence Ferlinghetti
08 Joshua Kelly - Dulce et Decorum Est - by Wilfred Owen
09 Carolyn Rose García - Pied Beauty - by Gerard Manley Hopkins
10 Teal Van Dyck - Siren Song - by Margaret Atwood
11 Branden Emanual Wellington - Facing It - by Yusef Komunyakaa
12 Permissions and Credits


Most poets recite other poets' poems better than they do their own. It seems that most of us let ourselves into the door and the whole house of another's poem; whereas, with our own, we tend to hold back on the front porch and be a bit shy. Memorization helps us to understand a poem. We have to follow the mind of the poet; we recreate the logic, experience, and feelings that put the poem together. No one can ever know the struggle to make poetry out of experience except the poet who did it; nevertheless, memorizing a poem is as close as another person can get to composing one.
-TOI DERRICOTTE, poet