Senior Cody Keener has advanced to the state Poetry Out Loud competition. Poetry Out Loud is a nationwide poetry recitation contest that is sponsored by the national endowment for the arts. Each year, hundreds of thousands of students across the country compete in their school and regional contests in hopes of making it to nationals.

“We were all from different schools and we reflected that,” Keener said. “The competition was very diverse.”

The purpose of Poetry Out Loud is to encourage students to learn about poetry and use it to enhance their public speaking and memorization skills.

“I had to memorize two poems,” Keener said. “One had to be pre-20th century and one under 25 lines. However, I did one that was both so the other one could be whatever.”

There is a lot of work that goes into competing. Those who participate spend large amounts of time practicing and learning the techniques that are needed to compete.

“I’ve spent four years developing the skills that all accumulate into this competition,” Keener said. “When I perform at state, it’s going to be everything I’ve learned these past four years brought together into three two-minute performances.”

Poetry Out Loud is open to any high school student that wants to get involved. It begins at the school level. Keener agreed that all students can benefit from taking part in this competition.

“Poetry is really about getting emotion out without much time to get it all out and you run into a lot of that when you’re young,” Keener said. “I don’t really understand why it’s not more popular, but I would recommend that people at least try it.”

Keener will perform at the state competition on March 31 at the Lawrence Arts Center.