Indiana Humanities officially named the winners of the 2024 Poetry Out Loud state contest. The winners are Aalihya Banks – Indianapolis Pike High School student – in first place, and Kylah Hockemeyer – Columbia City Eagle Tech Academy – in second place.

“I feel speechless,” said Banks in a statement released by Indiana Humanities. “I didn’t think it would be me, but I was very excited that it was. I feel like all my hard work paid off.”  

The Poetry Out Loud event was held March 2 in Downtown Indianapolis and hosted 14 high school students. During the competition, students recited poems from an anthology book of more than 1,200 poems. Judges evaluated the students using multiple criteria, including voice and articulation, evidence of understanding and accuracy. This year’s judges were Indiana State Poet Laureate Curtis Crisler, Mitchell L.H. Douglas, Siren Hand, Hiromi Yoshida and accuracy judge Tony Brewer.

For her first-place win, Banks will receive $200 and Pike High School will receive $500 for poetry materials. As runner-up, Hockemeyer will receive $100 and Eagle Tech $200 for poetry materials. According to Indiana Humanities, Banks will also move on to the national Poetry Out Loud National Finals in Washington, D.C., between April 30 and May 2, where $50,000 in awards and school stipends will be distributed.

“There was a lot of energy, and you could feel the nervousness, but you could also feel a lot of confidence and a lot of passion for the competition,” said Ana Bowman, communications manager for Indiana Humanities. Bowman also said she enjoyed seeing the camaraderie among the students, “They all seemed very supportive of each other and really just were happy to be together.”

The state contest is the culmination of months of work reading and analyzing poetry during the Poetry Out Loud (POL) education program.

“Poetry Out Loud is a national arts education program that encourages the study of great poetry by offering free educational materials and a dynamic recitation competition for high school students across the country,” Indiana Humanities said in a statement.

The POL education program in Indiana is presented in partnership with the Indiana Arts Commission (IAC), the National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation. Since it began in 2005, more than 4.4 million students nationwide have participated in Poetry Out Loud.

“Each year, Poetry Out Loud serves as a reminder of the powerful role that creativity plays in the classroom,” said IAC Executive Director Miah Michaelsen. “We are grateful for Indiana Humanities’ stewardship of this program and their work to provide a platform for young Hoosiers to share their voices.”

Sarah Vilensky, a Pike theater teacher and Banks’s instructor for the POL education program, talked about how much she has seen Banks grow during the program. This was the third year Banks participated in POL, and, according to Vilensky, it showed. Vilensky said Banks has continuously improved her skills, eventually learning to analyze poetry without much guidance.

“She has grown as a person and an actor over the past four years, and even the first time I saw her do one of these poems was such a different woman than the girl who sat in my classroom as a freshman. The maturity that she brings to them, she’s really telling a story. She’s not getting up and reciting lines, she’s found the heart of the piece,” Vilensky said.

Contact Racial Justice Reporter Garrett Simms at 317-762-7847