Meziah Smith is a sophomore at Knightdale High School, in Wake County. She is a student, a reciter, and a poet, and will represent North Carolina in the national Poetry Out Loud semifinals, taking place on Sunday, May 2. She has been writing poetry since the seventh grade, and this is her second year participating in the Poetry Out Loud competition.

Poetry Out Loud: National Recitation Contest is a program sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation that encourages students to learn about great poetry through memorization and recitation. This program helps high-school students master public speaking skills, build self-confidence, and learn about writers past and present. This year Triad Stage hosted the state finals, which took place virtually. Students statewide submitted recordings of their recitations of classic and contemporary poems.

We asked North Carolina Poet Laureate Jaki Shelton Green to pose some questions for Meziah to answer, so you can get to know this student ahead of her trip to the Poetry Out Loud semifinals. You can read that interview on the North Carolina Arts Council blog.

Tune in to the virtual broadcast and cheer for Meziah on the National Endowment for the Arts website ([ Ссылка ]) at noon EDT on Sunday, May 2.

свернуть