Tuesday, Jan. 27, update: The recitation contest will continue on Wednesday. Eight students competed today, and two more will compete tomorrow. A winner and runner-up will be announced soon thereafter. Both will represent Uni at the regional contest, which is scheduled for 9:30 a.m. Feb. 7 at the Champaign Public Library.

URBANA — On Tuesday, the Uni English department will host a schoolwide recitation contest as part of this year's Poetry Out Loud competition, sponsored by the Poetry Foundation and the National Arts Endowment.

Poetry Out Loud celebrates the art of delivering memorized poetry to an audience.

Tuesday's event, to be held in Room 106 South during lunch, will determine which Uni students will compete in the Feb. 7 Eastern Illinois regional contest, sponsored by the 40 North/88 West arts organization. A winner and runner-up will represent Uni.

The winner of the regional competition, which will take place at the Champaign Public Library, will advance to the March 10 state finals in Springfield.

The state winner will receive $200 and an all-expenses-paid trip to Washington, D.C., for the April 26-28 national finals. The national winner will receive a $20,000 scholarship.

For the Uni contest, students (freshmen through seniors) will recite one poem they have memorized from the contest list, and they must bring a copy of it for the judges and for prompting.

"This is an opportunity for students to bring poetry to life," says English department executive teacher Elizabeth Majerus.

"We're all enriched when we memorize a poem. So everybody who participates in the competition will come away with a poem that they own, essentially, and an opportunity to compete in a wonderful contest that has been doing great things for several years now."

Students will be judged based on seven criteria exemplified in their performance: physical presence, voice and articulation, appropriateness of dramatization, level of difficulty, evidence of understanding, overall performance, and accuracy.

Majerus is the coordinator for Poetry Out Loud at Uni. Students interested in competing should contact her. She will be one of the three judges, alongside teacher Steve Rayburn and retired teacher Rosemary Laughlin.

Last year, only six Uni students competed. This year, the English department is hopeful that more students will participate. A returning participant will be senior Kareem Sayegh, who represented Uni at the 2008 regional contest along with classmate Cheng Luo.

Sayegh advanced to the regional level after reciting Carl Sandburg's "Chicago" at the Uni contest. He won the regional competition, where he recited "Chicago" and Aphra Behn's "Love Armed."

At state finals, Sayegh added a third poem to his list: Wilfred Owen's "Dulce et Decorum Est." Sayegh placed in the top five at state.

Majerus is particularly hopeful that Sayegh will advance even farther this year.

"He has a feel for poetry," she says.

For Tuesday's audition, Sayegh will recite "A Supermarket in California" by Allen Ginsberg.

"I want to go to nationals this year," he says. "I watched my video from last year at state. I had pretty bad posture."

He believes he can correct whatever shortcomings prevented him from winning state as a junior: "In an aesthetic manner that will be fixed this year. Although I have confidence in my voice, my body language wasn't that great."

Majerus believes this kind of competition, focusing on great poetry and the spoken word, is beneficial to everyone, particularly high school students.

"It's a really exciting opportunity," she says. "I think there's nothing as exciting as hearing a poem out loud. Reading a poem is great, but hearing it spoken really brings the poem to life."