Montevallo High School senior Rachel Moran recently was a winner in the original poetry category of the 2017 Poetry Out Loud District 3 program, sponsored by the Alabama State Council on the Arts.

Poetry Out Loud is a competition that encourages the nation’s youth to learn about great poetry through memorization and recitation. This program helps students master public speaking skills, build self-confidence and learn about their literary heritage. After successful pilot programs in Chicago and Washington, D.C., Poetry Out Loud was launched in high schools nationwide in the spring of 2006 with tens of thousands of students participating. The event has grown every year with over 365,000 students now competing across the nation. 

Moran, a member of the MHS Poetry Players, is now eligible to compete in the statewide competition in Montgomery. The District 3 participants’ original poetry will also be featured in a Slash Pine Press publication to be released in 2018. Slash Pine Press, based at The University of Alabama, produces limited-run chapbooks of poetry and other mixed-genre works, and occasionally hosts off-the-beaten-path reading events, including the Slash Pine Poetry Festival held at the end of April. Through this program, undergraduate students conceive and execute their own notions of book design, imagine and locate their own spaces for engaged performance, and form and upload their own versions of a relevant internet presence.

“We are very proud of Rachel and her accomplishments, as she wrote two original poems and presented them in the competition,” said Montevallo High School Principal Brandon Turner.  “Sponsor Erma Hinton has done an excellent job with her students as we continue to represent both Montevallo High School and the Shelby County School District at the state level.”