“Contestants—take a deep breath,” English teacher Ms. Cara Lane said to the Poetry Out Loud participants as they filled their seats.

English department chair Ms. Heather Haskins organized EHS’s POL competition in the media center last Wednesday. POL is a poetry recitation contest in which students choose two poems from a list the POL organization provides, and recite their interpretation of them.

Selected teachers judged the students on several factors. To score well, students must exhibit qualities such as understanding of the poems, appropriate dramatization and good voice and articulation. Other factors include each poems’s level of complexity.

At the school competition, 15 students competed, but only two qualified for the regional tournament in Belleville.

Returning school champions seniors Mollie Cook and Taylor Robinson will represent EHS this year.

It was Robinson’s second time winning, but hearing his name called still remained exciting. “It was really a shock when they announced my name…It’s still a thrill to hear your name be called as someone moving on,” Robinson said.

Robinson enjoyed “brining literature to life” while he performed “An Abandoned Farmhouse” and “Cartoon Physics,” because they “spoke to [his] imagination the most.”

As a POL veteran, he has developed strategies to perform his best. “I try not to think about it after I’ve memorized my poems…,” Robinson said. “I just recite them the night before and go for it.”

Cook agrees with this strategy; “[if you] think about it too much, you get to nervous and mess up.”

Though Robinson did not advance after regional tournament last year, he plans on working harder this year to achieve this goal.

Scholarships await winners at different competition levels. The first place winner at regionals wins $250. The amount raises the further the competitors progress, with the ultimate prize being $20, 000 for first place at Nationals.

Cook and Robinson will perform at the Regional competition on March 13.