Riley Mayes Poetry Out Loud Winner

Riley Mayes has won first place in Waynflete’s Poetry Out Loud Contest. Her moving recitations of “In a London Drawing Room” by George Eliot won Riley top honors in the school-wide competition held during the Upper School assembly on January 8.

As the winner of the school competition, Riley advances to the Regional contest to be held at City Theater in Biddeford on February 11, 2015 where she will compete with students from other southern Maine schools.

Hana Delaney finished in second place and will be the alternate.

Other participants in Thursday’s school-wide competition include: Andrew Clark, Cole Gagnon, Nick Hagler, Dana Hirschhorn, Laura MacLean, Zander Martin, Abdirahman Mohamed, and Leeza Kopaeva.  The poems they read are linked here.  The judges for the contest were poets Linda Aldrich and Gary Lawless and actor, acting teacher, and theater director Michael Howard.  Brief biographies of the judges are linked here.

Each student recited a poem chosen from the Poetry Out Loud website, which provides a compilation of poems from different eras and traditions. Students participating in Thursday’s school-wide contest had advanced from classroom competitions.

The Poetry Out Loud National Recitation Contest is sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation. Maine’s program is fostered by the Maine Arts Commission.