In the weeks before the Winter Holiday Break, the Palm Valley School English Department hosted the annual Upper and Middle-School Poetry Recitation Finals. The Poetry Recitation is a long-standing Palm-Valley tradition. All Upper and Middle-School students participate at the classroom level. Judges are invited in to select two or three students per classroom to advance to the division-wide finals.
The Upper-School Finals took place December 1 before an audience of Upper-School students, teachers, and parents. Junior Mirabelle Lee, after reciting Toi Derricotte’s “my dad & sardines,” was chosen as Upper-School winner by Judges Maguire, Sarkis, and Wallach. Mirabelle will advance to Riverside County Poetry Out Loud competition. Our POL alternate and second-place winner is junior Kristina Panagiotaros. The audience also selected Kristina as Audience Favorite with her recitation of “Self-Help” by Michael Ryan. Third-place winner is freshman Louisa Richardson with her recounting of “What to Say Upon Being Asked to Be Friends” by poet Julian Talamantez Brolaski.
The Middle-School Poetry Recitation followed a week later. Judges Griffin, Nayfack, and Wallach selected three winners: Sophia Bottine, grade 6, with her recitation of James Dickey’s “Heaven of the Animals”; Jackie Padgett, grade 8, with her recitation of Sara Teasdale’s “There Will Come Soft Rains”; and Benjamin Rouche, grade 6, with his recitation of Mary Karr’s “All This and More.” We had a tie for Audience Favorite: 8th-grader Kimberly Sayers with her recitation of “The Raven” and 6th grader Jaxon Pacilio with his recitation of “Football.”
Poetry Recitation winners are selected based on the Poetry Out Loud criteria of physical presence, voice and articulation, interpretation, and evidence of understanding. We wish to applaud all finalists who continue–with poise and thoughtfulness–our poetic tradition: in the Upper School – Indiana Behr, Lily Jones, Kyle Knight, Riley Jorgensen, Pip Watson, Simee Patel, Gabe Rodriguez-Portugues, Landon Elder, Rylie Conway, and Luke Sonderman; in the Middle School – Lorelei Behr, Alexander Kirov, Moses Gizaw, Addison Uhlhorn, and Maxwell Pretorius.
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