SPANISH FORT, Ala.—When many think of a school library, they think about a quiet setting. However, Spanish Fort High School’s library was loud with poetry Monday.

Students participated in Poetry Out Loud—a program that encourages high-school students to memorize, compete with and perform poetry—to allow them to gain more knowledge about the National Recitation Contest.

The state winner will receive an all-expenses paid trip to Washington D.C. to participate in the national contest. Winner of the national competition will receive a $20,000 scholarship, according to P.T. Paul, graduate student in the English Department at the University of South Alabama. The national competition will be held April 27 and 28, 2009.

Paul, the guest speaker for Poetry Out Loud, visited the school to discuss poetry with the students, as well as teach them ways they can make the best out of their poetry.

Students read poems such as Adelaide Crapsey’s “The Properly Scholarly Attitude,” Walt Whitman’s “O Captain! My Captain!” and David Kirby’s “Broken Promises.”

Students listened to Paul’s lecture and read poetry out loud to learn how to better their skills.

Paul went over voice and articulation techniques, how to dramatize and act out the poem and how to breathe, push their voices and overcome reciting poetry in front of a crowd.

“The fear of public speaking is one of the most prevalent fears that human beings share, and just the act of standing up in front of their classmates and trying to overcome that fear is an act of courage,” Paul said.

“There’s no reason the winner shouldn’t come out of this room,” Paul said of students’ chances in the national competition.

“I was very impressed with the initiative that some of the students took and those are the students most likely to succeed in this competition, because they went beyond a rote recitation and attempted to animate their poem,” she later said.

The National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation partnered with state arts agencies to expand Poetry Out Loud. The program helps students learn about poetry through performance and memorization, according to poetryoutloud.org, the program’s official Web site.

The program was designed to help students improve public speaking skills, build self-confidence and learn about their literary heritage, the site said.

“I think I made a difference today, because my goal was to create an energy that the students could not ignore, and to goad or encourage them to respond with their own energy, Paul said. “I was especially pleased with the response of the teachers, whose enthusiasm was contagious, and whose encouragement will carry their students through this program.”