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Finding a voice

By Brent Stewart, The Southern

Saturday, March 8, 2008 11:33 PM CST

Caleb Dehne looked out into the audience with a devious glint in his eye as he took on the character of the spider inviting the fly into his parlor.

Performing the famous poem, "The Spider and the Fly" by Mary Howitt, Dehne contorted his body and changed his voice to interpret the characteristics of each persona.

He stumbled over a couple of lines, but moved on without letting it detract from his performance.

Though Dehne was taking part in the second Southern Illinois regional "Poetry Out Loud" competition at Carbondale Community High School, his interpretation was more of a piece of theater than a simple reading.

Dehne finished and there was a pause as the judges took a little time to finish scoring. He then began reciting his second poem, "At the Vietnam Memorial," by George Bilgere. This time, his performance was much more straightforward and somber, befitting the subject matter of the poem.

"I really liked the way it read and felt," Dehne said of his second poem.

The junior was one of three students from Benton chosen to represent his school.

Pam Kimball, a speech and theater teacher at Benton High School, brought her students to the event for the first time this year. Her advanced drama class had a preliminary competition to determine who would be sent to Carbondale. Those twenty students learned and performed one poem. The three who were entered in the competition memorized a second.

"It helps the students to actually hear the poems they read in English class," Kimball said. "A lot of the poems they read don't come alive for them. To be able to perform a piece, you really have to analyze every word of the poem."

Kimball said with some of the difficult and unfamiliar language of the poems, it wasn't an easy task.

"I think that's a good lesson to learn, to bring it alive and to understand the words," she said.

This is the second year Carbondale Community Arts has hosted the event, and is one of seven regional hosts of Poetry Out Loud in Illinois; all seven events are funded by the Illinois Arts Council.

In addition to Benton, there were students from Carbondale, Harrisburg, Herrin, Clay City and Cairo.

The poems were chosen from an anthology of poems provided by the Poetry Out Loud national sponsors, The National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation. In 2007, more than $100,000 in scholarships was given out nationally.

The winner from Southern Illinois last year, Robi Mahon of Harrisburg High School, won the state competition and finished among the top twelve competitors in the nation.

This past Thursday, the two winners from Southern Illinois, Suhalia Meera of Carbondale and Laila Abdo of Harrisburg advanced to the state competition in Springfield. Mark Schmidt of Wheaton was selected to represent Illinois at the national competition in Washington, D.C.; however, Abdo was one of the top five.

Nancy Stemper, executive director of Carbondale Community Arts, said she was very pleased with all the entrants.

"It's a daunting task to get up in front of people and say something," she said. "Everyone who participated should have been proud of the work they did."

brent.stewart@thesouthern.com / 351-5074