Breathing heavily and running through her poems, senior Abby Downey takes the stage at the regional Poetry Out Loud (POL) competition at Southern New Hampshire University.

She delivers her three poems as eloquently as she can then sits down and awaits her score from the judges.

POL is a national competition where students memorize and perform famous poems in front of an audience and judges. At the end, students are judged and ranked, and winners are awarded prizes and scholarship opportunities.

“It’s intimidating for me personally,” said Downey, who is in her fourth POL competition where she has made it to the semifinals each year. “No contest is ever the same. You can’t prepare for each year because you’ve never met any of the other competitors, so you don’t know what to expect.”

For Downey, the performance of poetry can sometimes feel rote.

“I can stare directly into the audience’s eyes, but I’m not registering anything,” said Downey. “The fact that I can’t put authentic emotion into anything I say keeps my wins limited.”

This year, the Pembroke-Academy-wide competition was held Jan. 30 in The Four Girls Library.

Downey said that the PA competition was unusually small this year, and no one had to use the prompter.

The regional competition was then held March 15 at Southern New Hampshire

As Downey watched the competition from her seat in the audience, she witnessed a harrowing recitation by a fellow contestant.

Downey said she observed someone interpreting a poem in a manner that made it “a questionable performance for us watching.”

“It was like she was [committing a lewd act] in front of everyone,” Downey said.

The competitions are so intimidating for Downey. “I need some freak out time a little before the competitions and a little bit after,” she said.

While Downey didn’t end up qualifying for the state competition, her efforts were laudable. In a climate were some claim poetry is a dying art, the POL competitions and students like Downey help keep it alive and vital.