Tulare Union’s Gabrielle Trapse wins her fourth-straight Poetry Out Loud competition
TULARE COUNTY – Gabrielle Trapse has won the last four Poetry Out Loud competitions held by the Tulare County Office of Education. She would have made a perfect sweep of the five-year-old competition, but she wasn’t old enough to compete the first year.
The Tulare Union High School senior won her fourth straight Poetry Out Loud competition last week. Kate Stovall, TCOE’s visual and performing arts curriculum specialist, reports that Gabrielle will be filmed performing her three poetry selections. The video will be submitted to the state competition in early March.
Trapse beat out the county’s top finishers from Central Valley Christian, Tulare Union, and Mission Oak high schools to complete her back-to-back-to-back titles. This year’s runner-up was Ximena Guzman Tapia of Mission Oak High School in Tulare.
Poetry Out Loud is the nation’s largest youth poetry recitation competition, which promotes the development of public speaking skills, improved English-fluency and comprehension, and self-confidence. In California, over 40,000 students from 40 counties compete annually. Unlike other poetry competitions, there are no costumes, props, or sets allowed in Poetry Out Loud. Students must select their poems from an anthology of over 900 classic and contemporary poems, spanning a variety of cultures and genres. Participants recite their chosen poems, using only their voices to convey all of the emotion and energy of the printed word.
