ELA Department Teacher Leader Yahaira Márquez welcoming the audience to the 2024 POL Semi-Finals. SHUYI CHEN from the Blue and Gold archives.
In a community where diversity is celebrated, the exploration and acknowledgement of different experiences and voices is always the top priority; within Malden High’s annual participation in the Poetry Out Loud (POL) competition, the mission of emphasizing diverse voices through poetry recitation holds no exception. Therefore, amidst policy changes that were deemed detrimental to Malden’s mission, the English department decided to withdraw from participating in the national POL competition this year.
Originating as an optional activity, during her time as the English Department’s Teacher Leader 18 years ago, Jennifer Clapp facilitated the transition to a schoolwide competition that would embed poetry recitation within the English curriculum and require annual participation throughout all grades.
Years of devotion to the organization resulted in Malden becoming the “poster child” for POL, Clapp explained as she shared how dating back to “since the contest was invented, it might even have started the first year they had it, we have been doing it for 20 years.”
Current English Department Teacher Leader Yahaira Márquez described the purpose of making POL participation mandatory within the curriculum, “We wanted to have a different type of assessment for students to show their understanding of texts, not merely through their writing but within the domain of speaking and listening through their recitation as well.”
To honor the 250th anniversary of the country, the POL 2025-2026 program has been adapted to solely focus on poems that encompass American history, culture, and identity. In addition, the Poetry Foundation that formerly supplied the rights to the variety of poems on the POL website pulled away from their role this year, resulting in only poems part of the public domain to be available within the competition. An author’s work is in the public domain 70 years after their death due to their copyright expiring.
These new restrictions within the organization’s poetry selection led to the English department’s ultimate decision to withdraw Malden’s participation, Márquez emphasized how the policy changes and suppression of diversity “did not sit right with us.”
“I agree with the decision that we made as a department because what we value here is being able to have students select stories, voices, poets, and perspectives that are in line with their lived experiences or even show them perspectives they are not used to,” English teacher Tia Buonfiglio echoed the harms the reduction in poem diversity could have caused students.
Not only is the organization’s emphasis on American identity limiting students from exploring their own identities and experiences, but it is actively suppressing contemporary voices by only including poets in the public domain.
Clapp declared that celebrating modern voices is “how we learn who America is today. Yes, there’s valuable poetry in the past, but historians and poets sort of view the past as a foreign country. For people to find things they connect with, we need contemporary voices as well as the voices of the past.”
Malden High’s English Department educators refused to allow individuality to be suppressed as diversity stands as a vital pillar in the school’s community. “One thing we work on continuously within our classrooms and the curriculum is making sure that content is representative of our students and their experiences. We wanted to ensure that the differences we see in our community are also reflected in the texts…in the poetry,” Márquez detailed.
This outpour of concern over the integrity of student participation in POL by teachers was received warmly by many students, as they agreed with the administrative decision to withdraw from the competition in efforts of highlighting diverse views.
“Poetry at its core is the expression of ideas that cannot simply be said with words, poetry is the raw emotion and feeling of being held down and breaking free, so for poems that have shaped the world to be removed simply due to their association with policy that is discriminatory in nature is disgusting—I think they made the right and only decision they could,” senior and 2025 POL Massachusetts State Finalist Thomas Conti expressed.
Despite withdrawing from the POL competition, the English department decided to continue poetry recitation schoolwide because the practice has left an indelible influence on students’ perceptions of themselves and each other.
Clapp highlighted how “in a diverse high school like ours where kids take all kinds of different paths and tracks, there’s few truly shared experiences that everyone in the high school has and I think it’s a valuable one.”
Junior Ema Xhindi exclaimed how “reciting poetry, while anxiety inducing, is a good way to practice public speaking with the welcoming idea that ‘everyone has to do this and not just me’ in the classroom, instilling that the recitation might not be that bad and therefore making it easier for kids to speak out loud.”
The purpose of the competition is for students to grow an appreciation for poetry recitation, not only for the community it builds among them, but for the confidence it fosters in them. Instead of focusing on the competitive aspect of recitation, POL introduced the intricacies of poetry to students and allowed them to interpret it for themselves.
“Like any form of public speaking, it encourages growth; the ability to be open and honest in your emotions with an audience, to get on a stage and share your words, which is why I hope that MHS begins to allow more diversity in the poems since it is distancing itself from the competition, let people share their own work if they have any, or that one poem that really resonates with them, it’s not about competition; it never was. It was about understanding the complexities of this form of emotional medium and allowing anyone to fall in love with it,” Conti illustrated.
The English Department shared their concerns over the policy changes with the Huntington Theater Company, Massachusetts’s sponsor of POL, and ‘they assured us that they are currently doing what they can to get rights to other poems, so hopefully next year they’ll have a richer variety,’ Márquez added.”
As for the future of poetry recitation at MHS, teachers will continue embracing students expressing themselves creatively while keeping the beloved tradition in the curriculum.
“You know that adrenaline you get when the teacher keeps calling names and it gets closer to yours? I’ll miss that because I always felt like I just have to go up and do it. I’m able to put my best performance out there and it’s something that I’m proud of at the end of the day,” senior Leica Naceus stated.
Whether returning to the POL organization or not, winter will remain a celebratory time where the school unites under a passion for poetry. “It wouldn’t feel like December without POL,” Márquez concluded.
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