DAPHNE, Ala.—Nerves were on display at Daphne High Wednesday as André LaPalme’s English class recited poetry for the school’s Poetry Out Loud competition. The program offers scholarship funds to high-school students for excellence in poetry recitation; students compete for places in the school, regional and national competitions with dreams of reaching the final stage in Washington, D.C., where the winner will receive a $20,000 scholarship.

Four DHS winners selected out of 23 competitors are as follows.

*Laura Kennedy, 1st place

*Erik Hicks, 2nd place

*Anissa Rios, 3rd place

*Skye Adaire, 4th place

Laura’s performances hushed the crowd; she recited “Solitude” by Ella Wheeler Wilcox and “Sanctuary” by Jean Valentine with empathy, inflexion and poise.

“Solitude” was spoken with a cocky, knowing voice that fit the poem’s satirical tone. Lines like, “Rejoice and men will seek you/ Grieve, and they will turn and go/ They want full measure of all your pleasure/ But they do not need your woe” were spoken with a smirk and a confident gaze.

“Sanctuary” — a 29-line poem — earned Laura points for difficulty in addition to points for her thoughtful pauses and facial expressions. She began the poem in a loud voice and trailed into a softer voice for lines such as, “To imagine other solitudes/ But they will not be mine/ To wait, in the quiet, not to scatter the voices/ What are you afraid of?”

She stretched the length of certain words for emphasis. “To run like water” was one such occasion, expressed so her voice seemed to run like water.

Erik recited “Anecdote of a Jar” by Wallace Stevens and “I Felt a Funeral in my Brain” by Emily Dickinson.

He smiled through the recitation of the humorous, “Anecdote of a Jar” as he embellished lines such as, “It took dominion everywhere/ The jar was gray and bare/ It did not give of bird or bush/ Like nothing else in Tennessee.”

He gave a solemn performance of the Dickinson poem, looking down with a soft facial expression as he spoke lines like, “And then a plank in reason, broke/ And I dropped down, and down/ And hit a world, at every plunge/ And finished knowing — then.”

Anissa chose “When You Are Old” by William Butler Yeats and “Dulce et Decorum Est” by William Owen.

Yeats’ poem slipped from her lips with a forceful, yet subdued voice — “When you are old and grey and full of sleep/And nodding by the fire, take down this book.”

She recited Owen’s poem with a deep, calm and empathetic voice: “As under a green sea” — she nodded her head — “I saw him drowning.”

Sky performed “Happiness” by Jane Kenyon and “Lift Every Voice and Sing” by James Weldon Johnson.

“Happiness” was spoken with plenty of facial expression, yet a still, respectful presence, “…and you weep night and day/ to know that you were not abandoned.”

Johnson’s poem was spoken with a strong voice and a certain emphasis as it called to arms, “Let us march on till victory is won.”

“We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered/ Out from the gloomy past/ Till now we stand at last/ Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.”

The four finalists will compete at the regional competition in February 2011 at 5 Rivers Delta Resource Center in Spanish Fort.

Other competitors were Joyce Barnette, Kayla Bowman, Cheyenne Brouillette, Zach Brown, Hayley Clark, Hannah Findley, Lauren Kinsey, Karley Laycock, Hayleigh Lazzari, Jessica Leandro, Sawyer Michael, Sarah Nix, Oliver Ocasio, Kayla Olson, Nick Puig, Alex Rathle, Christi Scott, Anna Marie Strasser and Daniel Swanson.