Juniata High School

Although the Covid-19 pandemic has caused many disruptions in this year’s school activities, JHS was luckily able to hold its annual Poetry Out Loud competition in an online format. In this competition, each student was tasked with submitting videos of themselves reciting, from memory, two poems of their choice. A group of four judges from our school analyzed and scored each entry based on 5 categories; physical presence, voice and articulation, dramatic appropriateness, evidence of understanding, and overall performance. Zachary Marshall was awarded first place in the competition with his recitations of Rita Dove’s “American Smooth” and Larry Levis’ “The Oldest Living Thing in LA”. Following him in the competition was Abena Brantuo in second place, Valorie Fisher in third place, and Jack Strawser being an honorable mention. Zachary will now continue on to the regional round of the competition, where he will compete against students from a variety of different schools in the state.