While visiting Robben Island in Cape Town, South Africa last January, senior Ali Foreman was touched by the words she saw inscribed on Nelson Mandela’s cell: William Ernest Henly’s poem “Invictus.”

Mandela used the poem as inspiration during his 27 years of incarceration. Foreman wanted to make her recitation solemn and moving to convey the feelings the poem inspired in her, she said.

Foreman, along with six other students, participated in the school-wide Poetry Out Loud contest Nov. 29. Foreman won first place, sophomore Talia Brenner won second and junior Nathan Liu took third. All three will advance to the county competition next January at the Writer’s Center in Bethesda. If they do well, they’ll have the opportunity to move on to Regionals, States and then to Nationals in May.

“This is only our third year, so I feel like Whitman is still learning the process,” coordinator Michelle Quackenbush said. “But we have learned from our past experiences and we are going to present some very talented people who recite well.”

Every year, over 300,000 students take part in Poetry Out Loud, a national poetry recitation competition sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation. According to the contest guidelines, the program is an outlet for those who love the spoken word and want to improve their speaking skills.

In September, participating students visited the Poetry Out Loud website and pick two poems from their pre-approved list: one that was fewer than 25 lines and one that was written before the 20th century. They could have also selected one poem that satisfied both requirements.

“I was on the website every day, and it took me a really long time just to pick the poems,” sophomore Skylar Mitchel said. “But when I did, I just rehearsed them a couple of times, trying to memorize them. To be honest, I chose my inflections on the spot.”

The judging panel consisted of four English teachers: Eric Ertman, Beth Rockwell, Nick Confino, and Matthew Bruneel. They scored the students based on six main criteria: physical presence, voice and articulation, dramatic appropriateness, level of difficulty, evidence of understanding and overall performance. The accuracy judge added additional points and brought the final score to a maximum of 47 points per poem per person.

“The best performances are dramatic; they are confident; they have that stage presence; they have clear enunciation,” former judge Prudence Crewdson said. “But at the same time, they help people understand the poem.”