TY student achieves second place in National Poetry Aloud competition

Poetry Aloud continues to grow in popularity and build on the successes of previous years.  This year, 29 students from 1^st year to 6^th year volunteered to learn two poems off by heart and to ‘speak’ them in front of an audience and adjudicators in the National Library in Kildare Street, Dublin 2.  On the 21^st and 23^rd October, our students competed in the Leinster regional finals.  They enjoyed listening to students from other schools and confidently spoke their own prepared poems. As usual, the standard was high and we were pleased that some of our group were selected to go forward to the National semi-finals.Jasmine Adams (2^nd year – Junior) Narcisa Toma (2^nd year – Junior) Jodie Milne (TY – Intermediate) and Serena Dervishi (6^th year – Senior) spent the next four weeks learning new poems and preparing for the National semi-finals on the 20^th and 21^st of November.  Students from all over the country gathered in the National Library and participated in an event that brought poetry to life.  All four of our students were brilliant and clearly deserved their places in the semi-final.   It was an incredibly difficult task for the adjudicators to select the finalists and we were delighted when Narcisa and Jodie were chosen to go forward to the National final.

By Friday 5^th December, Jodie (19 mins 50 secs in) and Narcisa (11 mins 20 secs in) were ready for the final. They had put a lot of effort into fine-tuning their performance of two new poems. On the day, thirty students – ten students in each category – gathered to ‘speak’ their poems.  Over the next five hours, an eclectic mix of poems and styles of delivery ensured a compelling competition.  Once again our two students were flawless and confident in their delivery.  In a competition where we had previous winners, we dared hope that once again students from St. Michael’s might be in the adjudicators’ deliberations as they decided who would come first and second in each category.  When the results were announced, Jodie Milne (TY) was awarded second place in the intermediate category.  Given the standard of the competition, this was a feat to be celebrated.

I would like to pay tribute to all the students who participated in this year’s Poetry Aloud competition. The idea of learning poems off by heart and saying them in front of an audience in the National Library is daunting and yet 29 girls decided to give it a go.  This personal challenge is what the competition is really about and going further in the competition is just icing on the cake.  All of you were wonderful ambassadors for our school.

Mr Noel Bannon