(Mya reciting in Spanish) Bi-cultural systems, scientific lexicographical, inter-textual integrations.

Two expressions existentially wired.

I am mostly involved in the music programs.

I play tenor saxophone and my favorite thing to do is jazz because the improvisation that goes with it, everyone shows their uniqueness in it.

And it's fun because you're really going off the page and that's what I like.

Kind of like with poetry, you have to interpret what the author was trying to say.

"Poetry Out Loud" is a competition where students recite poems that we have to choose from the anthology of poems on the Poetry Out Loud website.

The first stage is the school competition, and then it was state competition.

It was similar to the school competition where there's one round of poems, then there's a second round.

And the only difference is they pick five finalists and those finalists have to recite a third poem.

The judges are judging us on a few sets of criteria.

One of the criteria that we're judged on is how accurate we interpret the poem.

We can't be overly dramatic but they don't want us to be stoic.

They're judging us, of course, on the accuracy.

We also get judged on our voice and how our voice carries the poem into the audience.

My own dear love, he is sweet and bold and he cares not what comes after.

His words ring sweet as a chime of gold and his eyes are lit with laughter.

I was definitely nervous as most of us were.

It's just you and the audience and of course the judges.

I cannot see anything, I have to wear glasses, so I took them off while I was on stage so that I couldn't see the audience and it did help a lot.

I'm sure I was making eye contact with people but I couldn't see any faces just forms.

So, that made it a lot easier for me.

(crowd clapping) - [Announcer] ] Congratulations, the North Dakota, 2022 Poetry Out Loud state champion is Mya Tena, Bismarck High School.

(crowd clapping) (crowd cheering) - From Poetry Out Loud and competing in the competition, I've gotten a lot of support.

I love seeing that my family really cares about me and my friends and my teachers.

My English teacher, Mrs. Lord Olson, she helped me, she did such a great job of coaching me and guiding me.

She always had something new to contribute that eventually led to me succeeding in the state competition as I did.

Ay, gaze upon her rose-wreathed hair, and gaze upon her smile.

Seem as you drank the very air, her breath perfumed the while and wake for her the gifted line that wild and witching lay.

Before I started critically analyzing the poems for Poetry Out Loud, I didn't pay much attention to poems.

I didn't realize the amount of critical thinking that has to go into analyzing a poem.

From Poetry Out Loud and participating in the competition, I've gotten a greater appreciation for poetry and writers and all that they have to do to put their words artistically on the page.

It's an art and I see it as that now I fully appreciate what poetry is and there is a lot of technique that has to be involved.

"Spanglish" is by Tato Laviera.

And I chose that poem because there is some Spanish in the poem that you have to recite.

And I thought that would be a lot of fun because my parents are from Mexico and I grew up speaking Spanish that was my first language.

And I thought it would be a really fun experience to use that in my poem.

"Spanglish" by Tato Laviera.

(Mya reciting in Spanish) Bi-cultural systems, scientific lexicographical, inter-textual integrations.

Two expressions existentially wired, two dominant languages continentally.

(Mya reciting in Spanish) Imperial Spanglish emerges.

(Mya reciting in Spanish) Mixing with radio rock-n-roll.

(Mya reciting in Spanish) Immigrant, migrant, nasal mispronouncements.

(Mya reciting in Spanish) Standard English classroom with computer technicalities.

Spanglish is literally perfect, Spanglish is ethnically snobbish.

(Mya reciting in Spanish) Which US slang do you speak?

(gentle music) - [Narrator] Funded by the North Dakota Council on the Arts and by the members of Prairie Public.