TA News

Over the last thirteen years, Thetford Academy’s Poetry Out Loud competition has become TA tradition. Poetry Out Loud is a recitation contest created by the National Endowment of the Arts and the Poetry Foundation, and administered with the State Arts Agencies of all 50 states, the District of Columbia, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico.

TA’s event on Wednesday featured six student contestants: Finn Liland ’24, Gretta Koppers ’22, Grace Solsaa ’24, Annie Hesser ’24, Sebastian LaBonte-Flye ’24, and Mary Bosco ’24. Sophomore Leo Downey started off the program reading a poem “for calibration,” and English teacher Emily Silver led the group in vocal warm-ups. Joe Deffner kicked off the competition as the event’s emcee.

The contestant’s recitations, memorized from poems they had selected themselves, reflected a diversity of topics, authors, and styles. The judges, alumna Kay Morton and former board member and alumni parent Jim Schley, had the difficult task of scoring the outstanding performances. Each performance was scored on physical presence, voice and articulation, dramatic appropriateness, evidence of understanding, and overall performance.

Congratulations to Mary Bosco ’24, whose performance of “Portrait of My Gender as [Inaudible]” by Meg Day earned the top scoring in the event. Mary’s win at TA secured her a spot at the Vermont State Competition on March 14, 2022 at the Barre Opera House. Congratulations, too, goes to Grace Solsaa, whose performance of “Oranges,” by Roisin Kelly earned her runner-up.

Thank you to all that helped support Thetford Academy’s Poetry Out Loud event this year, including the participants, the judges, Joe Deffner and Emily Silver as organizers, Kate Owen as accuracy judge and Michael Mann as prompter, Fritz Junker ’22 as lighting technician, and Abigail Egner ’23 as photographer.