(Thursday, January 31, 2013) – The room was filled with tension as the first competitor of the night walked up to begin her poem. After a few moments of the audience struggling to hear what the contestant was saying, she realized the microphone was not working. After a few jokes about this from the host, former Wilson history teacher Kris Kohlmeier, the tension seemed to melt away throughout the room. On Jan. 16, Clark seniors Madeline Sy and Eliza Turdzhyan competed in the Poetry Out Loud competition along with ten other students from Crescenta Valley, Hoover, Glendale and Daily High Schools. Poetry Out Loud is a national competition begun in 2006 and supported by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation. According to the Poetry Out Loud website, the goal of the competition is to get students more excited about poetry and boost their confidence. Sy recited “Ovation” by Carol Muske-Dukes and “The Bad Old Days” by Kenneth Rexroth. Unfortunately, Turdzhyan was only able to recite one poem, “The Lost Land” by Eavan Boland, because she was not placed in the top four. The first round consisted of reciting a poem that the students chose from a list of 820 poems. The second round usually consists of the top four people from the previous round but because of a tie, the top five recited their other poems that they had prepared. The process of selecting a poem was not traditional for Turdzhyan but it was effective. “I pick poems based on their endings, so I was going through the list and I pretty much chucked out everything that I thought didn’t have an impactful ending… and later I just narrowed it down,” said Turdzhyan. After the first round, the judges announced that Turdzhyan would not continue to the following round. On a more positive note, Sy did move on to the following round and won second place in the competition. Even though neither won the competition to move up to the next round, both said they gained valuable tips and life lessons from the experience. “I did learn a lot about performance in general and I felt like this did help me branch out … and I was introduced to more poets,” Turdzhyan said. Sy decided to find the silver lining of the experience as well. “If I still had moved on to the second level on February 6 then I’d be super stressed by now,” Sy said. Both of the girls saw the competition as a humbling experience. “We might not have won but we’re okay with that,” Sy said.