After winning both the school wide and county Poetry Out Loud competitions senior Ethan McSwain competed in Sacramento for the statewide competition. McSwain finished in third place out of forty contestants from all over the state.

Poetry Out Loud is a spoken word contest where high school students memorize poems and recite them in front of others.

“Poetry Out Loud is a very important piece for high school english,” said McSwain “to study a poem is a great teaching point, but even more than that is the public speaking side.”

McSwain loves that Poetry Out Loud gives students the perfect opportunity to step outside their comfort zone. Even he gets nervous before he goes up to recite.

To calm the nerves, “I look around around; I see the amazing people I get to recite with, and feel the energy,” McSwain said.

The audience is the most important aspect when McSwain is performing. His favorite part of the state competition was seeing people respond to his poem.

“A woman came out to me after[the state competition] and told me that she felt so moved by my recitation that she cried,” said McSwain.

McSwain advanced farther than any other SLOHS student has in the past years.