Kingswood Regional High School’s Emily Matos named 2022 NH Poetry Out Loud Champion; Hopkinton High School’s Annalise Locke selected as alternate

The N.H. State Council on the Arts has announced that Emily Matos from Kingswood Regional High School is the winner of the 2022 New Hampshire Poetry Out Loud High School Championship. Annalise Locke from Hopkinton High School was selected as alternate champion. 

As state champion, Matos receives $200 and Kingswood Regional High School receives a $500 stipend for the purchase of poetry books. Locke will receive $100, with a $200 stipend given to Hopkinton High School for its poetry book collection.

Matos will represent New Hampshire at the national finals. Should Matos be unable to participate in the finals, Locke will represent the Granite State.

Since Poetry Out Loud’s founding in 2005, tens of thousands of students from across New Hampshire have participated in the program, choosing poems to memorize and recite from a roster curated by the Poetry Foundation. Their recitations are judged on several criteria, including physical presence, voice and articulation, dramatic appropriateness, evidence of understanding and accuracy.

Each year, competitions begin at the classroom level, advance to school championships and then to semi-finals prior to the state championship. 

For New Hampshire’s 2022 Poetry Out Loud semi-finals, twenty-six high school champions recorded their recitations “live to tape,” supervised by the Arts Council to ensure continuity. The recordings were then submitted to be scored by judges who used the same criteria that are applied when competitions take place in person.

Eight finalists then advanced to the 2022 New Hampshire state championship on March 11 where, in the two qualifying rounds, each student recited a poem they had selected from a roster curated by the Poetry Foundation. The four students with the highest scores then recited a third poem that was evaluated by the judges.

The state championship was recorded and will be available on the N.H. State Council on the Arts’ YouTube channel, which can be accessed from the Poetry Out Loud section of the Council’s website, nh.gov/nharts.

In addition to Matos and Locke, the other students competing in the final round at the championship were Savannah Davis from the Derryfield School and Lam Kellye Nguyen from Brewster Academy. 

Administered in New Hampshire by the N.H. State Council on the Arts, Poetry Out Loud is a partnership of the National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation.

New Hampshire’s Poetry Out Loud supporters include the New Hampshire Learning Initiative and the Putnam Foundation – a donor-advised fund of the N.H. Charitable Foundation. Other partners include Brightspot Consultants, Currier Museum of Art, Granite State Ambassadors, New England College, New Hampshire Public Radio, the Poetry Society of New Hampshire, the New Hampshire Writers’ Project and Slam Free or Die.

To learn more about 2022 New Hampshire Poetry Out Loud, visit nh.gov/nharts and click on the Poetry Out Loud button.

The New Hampshire State Council on the Arts is a division of the New Hampshire Department of Natural and Cultural Resources. It began in 1965 with legislation designed “to insure that the role of the arts in the life of our communities will continue to grow and play an ever more significant part in the education and welfare of our citizens.” Funding for programs is provided through state appropriations, a partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts and the Conservation License Plate fund. Learn more about the New Hampshire State Council on the Arts at nh.gov/nharts.

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