Valley Stream South Hosts Poetry Competition

VALLEY STREAM, NY. — Valley Stream South students Erika Mendoza Rosa and Alisha Akim went home with honors this week after taking first and second place in the school’s annual “Poetry Out Loud” competition.

The competition is an annual occurrence at Valley Stream South, district officials said, meant to help students develop their public speaking skills while fostering a love and appreciation for poetry. As part of the competition, students memorized and performed poems, with judges scoring their performances on criteria like articulation, emotional interpretation and physical presence.

Mendoza, an eighth grader in Valley Stream, performed E.E. Cummings’ “Little Tree” and Robert Frost’s “Fire and Ice.” For Akim, a freshman in the high school, performances of William Wordsworth’s “She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways” and Evelyn Scott’s “From Brooklyn” were enough to win second prize.