February 26, 2013
02/27/13 Plymouth High School Sophomore Emma Libersky won top honors at the Indiana Poetry Out Loud Competition and will represent Indiana at the National Finals on April 29-30, 2013 in Washington D.C. Not only is Libersky the first Plymouth High School champion to advance to Nationals, but she did so against the largest pool of competitors at the state level since the competition’s inception. Twenty-four other schools competed on February 23, in Clowes Auditorium at the Indianapolis Central Public Library with hopes to advance.
Libersky receives a $200 cash prize and an all-expense paid trip to Washington D.C. to compete at the National Finals, where a total of $50,000 in scholarship awards and school stipends will be awarded with a $20,000 college scholarship award for the National Champion.
Contestants must memorize and recite three poems for the competition and are scored on the following categories: physical presence, voice and articulation, dramatic appropriateness, level of difficulty (poem), evidence of understanding, and overall performance. Libersky recited Lisel Mueller’s “Monet Refuses the Operation,” Robert Frost’s “After Apple-Picking,” and George Eliot’s “In a London Drawingroom.”
Poetry Out Loud is sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and the Poetry Foundation.