I guess I should start by saying that I do have a lot of bias against the competition because of things that have absolutely nothing to do with the contest or the way it was judged. They got my poems wrong. This basically meant that I was going to be playing with a large handicap of some sort. As it turned out, they let me perform the two poems I had prepared, but for the one that they didn't count on me performing, I would not get an accuracy score. Each poem could earn up to 20 points: 12 are on your performance, and 8 on accuracy. I would not get those eight points, or otherwise, 20% of the possible score I could earn in the contest. To put it simply, I had been disqualified.
So with this heavy thought on my mind I performed my pieces. Despite an air of confidence (which was severely diminished for once) I performed badly, terribly in fact. I could very well say that both pieces were at the worst they had ever been. I went up on stage at the end and had to fake a smile as the awards were given out and it took every ounce of my being not to throw away the "congrats, you participated" diploma they gave to everyone. I did not have fun. The second I found out my poems were wrong, I turned to mother and asked to leave. My mom and the people running the contest convinced me not to go, but I'm still not sure if that was a good idea or not. In all seriousness, I could not have fun. All that work, all that effort, was for nothing. It wasn't anybody's fault and that's perhaps the most infuriating thing of it all. There was no way to prevent this. It just happened. I got ******* over. Good, long, and hard. So what was I to do? My mom commented that I was doing the right thing by staying, and I suppose that's true. My school has never participated in Poetry Out Loud before, and even if I don't compete again, just knowing what it's like will be incredibly useful for the person that goes on next year. This is where I stop apologizing for myself and start making actual criticisms because I want you to understand that most of these negative points came long after I was done feeling sorry for myself/pointed out by my mother. And the first and most crucial of them all is that I would've never won.
Even if they hadn't ******* up my poems, even if I performed them perfectly, even if I made every eye in the house swell with tears and every mouth grin with laughter, I would've never won. They weren't looking for any of that. They weren't looking for emotion, they weren't looking for original interpretation, they weren't looking to get a response from the audience. They just wanted us good little boys and girls to go up on stage in our nicest clothes and recite famous poems in as traditional, unoriginal, and boring way as possible. Two of the winners, the guy who won third and the girl who won first, were, by my and my mother standards, some of the worst acts of the entire show. The boy recited "Charge of the Light Brigade" with his hands folded at his stomach and his voice in a monotone to make deaf preacher snore, and yet, somehow this is of merit! There was a mexican guy who put so much feeling and emotion into poems, that, normally seem like dreary contentious ramblings of arrogant poets, but now jump off the page and offer meaning that you didn't even realize were there. He got nothing. In short, I felt like the winners, and the overall values the contest propagates, are not what this competition should be about.
Poetry in the modern age is viewed as a dusty, unimportant art form that once meant something but now is something you read in English class as a child and never take outside of the classroom into the real world. Poetry Out Loud furthers this belief. Instead of embracing the fledgling arts of Slam Poetry and Dramatic Reading, Poetry Out Loud squashes it in favor of continuing a more "traditional" interpretation of poetry recitation. They put emphasis on meter, plainness, and calm; traits that, in all honesty, puts audiences to sleep and reminds them of boring days spent in English listening to the dronings of their teacher. Poetry is not dead, and while the people running Poetry Out Loud may know this, the methods they use to try and make the world realize this are unproductive at best. I am ashamed to say that this is how such a great opportunity is squandered. The fact that such a large (and growing) organization, with as much fame and ample rewards as it possesses, turns on the very art form its trying to protect is shameful, but I doubt it would want to change if it were to hear my cries.
Poetry Out Loud isn't about furthering the art of poetry, it's about forcing the works of so perceived "great poets" on kids. They offer a $20,000 scholarship as the grand prize, but really, if you wanted to bring truly great poets into the fold the joy of competing would be reward enough. This contest shouldn't be about other people's poems, it should be about our own. The original work of this generation, performed the way the we intend, will produce performances infinitely more meaningful and insightful than anything that is being done now. During this whole competition, I viewed it not as a measure of my poetic ability but instead of my acting talents. Theater kids dominate this competition, but as the title suggests, this is not "Thespians Out Loud", and emphasis needs to return to the creation of original poems and the entertaining performance there of.
Poetry is something completely unique to any other art form, it is nearest anyone has ever come to exactly writing down real language, with its many idioms, tricks, habits, faults, and mannerisms; and Poetry performed aloud is a near perfect as written art can get. I submit that Poetry Out Loud is not what it claims to be, and although I cannot fault it for poor ambition or malicious intent, I cannot say that I will be condoning it any more, especially the message it sends to young poets, their teachers, and society as a whole.