Drew Pirtle, a senior at the Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences and the Arts, won the Poetry Out Loud Arkansas State Championship.
Pirtle was one of seven competitors from schools statewide to participate in the competition, which was sponsored by the Arkansas Arts Council, an agency of the Division of Arkansas Heritage. The contest was held March 11 at the King Opera House in Van Buren. Her win also qualified her to participate in the national competition, sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation, which will be held May 8-10 in Washington, D.C.
Poetry Out Loud is a national arts education program that encourages the study of great poetry by offering free educational materials and a dynamic recitation competition for high school students across the country, according the program’s website. Students recite selected poetry before a group of judges who score the students’ performance and recitation accuracy.
Pirtle, a senior from Blytheville, earned a spot in the state competition by winning the school’s Poetry Out Loud competition earlier this spring. Layla Lammers, a senior from Blytheville, also competed in the state competition as one of two alternates after placing second in the school competition.
Pirtle said her passion for speaking inspired her to enter the contest.
“I have participated and performed in speech and poetry since I was eight. It would be awesome to share that talent with my peers here,” she said.
Pirtle recited “You, If No One Else” by Tino Villanueva and translated by James Hoggard, “Before the Birth of One of Her Children” by Anne Bradstreet and “Always Something More Beautiful” by Stephen Dunn. She chose the poems for a variety of reasons.
“I chose the first poem because I liked the message it gave,” Pirtle said. “The style of the poetry was similar to the speeches I would give for competitions at home, making it easier for me to connect with the poem.
“I chose the second poem because it shocked me. One of the criteria is that we had to choose a poem written before the 20th century. Most poems that I found in that category didn’t resonate with me, and I needed to figure out how to make myself sound convincing in this poem. But ‘Before the Birth of One of Her Children’ made me cry.
“I chose the third poem because I liked the hidden message. The poem starts with a runner discussing a race they ran and how they would often become distracted. Even though they would become distracted, they stuck with the course, learning to do the same with any course in life.”
Preparing for both the school and the state competition required a lot of time reading the poems to develop a narrative and watching videos from the previous year’s competition to see how the top competitors recited their poems so she could get a sense of what the judges used as criteria.
“I learned all of the winners and runners-up had great chemistry with the audience, so I strived to ensure I could do the same,” she said.
After last year’s competition, she knew there were specific skills she needed to improve. One of those was speaking more slowly and with more emotion to make that connection. The strategy paid off at a workshop that was held prior to the state competition.
“There was a small workshop before the competition, and I met a girl and her family. They seemed sweet. After the competition, her mother approached me and asked for a hug because I made her cry. I knew that this was the moment my hard work had paid off.”
Pirtle said her emotions were running high on the days before the state competition. The audience at the school competition included familiar faces who were going to support her. At the state event, the audience is filled with people she didn’t know. When her name was announced as the winner was a relief of sorts.
“I remember freaking out the days before the competition because I feared I wouldn’t do my best. Once they called my name, I felt the pressure off my shoulders. I couldn’t stop smiling. I remember calling my parents after the competition. I didn’t realize that they were having a meeting with our social arts club at home, so every one of my closest friends and supporters found out at the same time,” she said.
Now the work for the national competition begins. Pirtle said she recites each poem at least once a day to keep them fresh in her memory and watches videos of her performance to see where she can still improve. She is also going to receive the help of a coach provided by the state.
She encourages others to not let their fear of public speaking keep them from participating in speaking competitions such as Poetry Out Loud or others.
“A lot of people think that what I do is scary. I remember when (James) Katowich (a humanities instructor at ASMSA) told my class that public speaking is a common fear and that more people fear speaking public [than they] fear sharks. Words are powerful, and I encourage others to become more confident and speak.”