SRRHS’ Papas-Collins and Bogatyrew represented Northern Arizona schools

Sophomore Reymond Papas-Collins won first place in the northern regional division of the Poetry Out Loud competition on Jan. 18 while senior Alexis Bogatyrew, won second place. The duo went on to represent Sedona Red Rock High School and Northern Arizona in the state final, which was held in the International Pavilion at Northern Arizona University on Saturday, March 2.

“Even though we both come from very different backgrounds, it’s nice that we both share a love for poetry or just performing in general,” Papas-Collins said. “In any other context, I don’t think we would be interested in a lot of the same things.”

Papas-Collins later added that the diversity of poetry beyond standards such as William Shakespeare was what drew him more into the written word.

The pair were joined by Coconino High School senior Spencer Boatman in representing Northern Arizona at the state finals.

Poetry Out Loud is a national recitation contest for high schoolers that includes classroom competitions, school-wide competitions, state contests and a national competition in Washington, D.C., where students could win $20,000.

“At the state and national finals, students must have three poems prepared,” the Poetry Out Loud website states. “One must be 25 lines or fewer, and one must be written before the 20th century. One poem may be used to meet both criteria and may be the student’s third poem.”

SRRHS English teacher Karyl Goldsmith, who will be leaving the classroom and promoted to Sedona-Oak Creek School District director of instruction and curriculum, has led the program in Sedona for two decades.

Goldsmith said she is unsure what the future of the program will be at the school; other staff might take it up or she may stay on as its coordinator.

“My most favorite memories are that the kids spew beautiful poetry into the world, which is wonderful,” Goldsmith said. “The poems that they pick reflect who they are, and what they understand about the world or what they want to understand. I really like that and watching them shine from the initial nervousness … seeing that happen over the course of time has been my favorite.”

Papas-Collins

“I had ‘son/daughter’ by Kai Conradi, and my pre-20th century poem was ‘Love Armed’ by Aphra Behn,” Papas-Collins said. “For the third poem, which I did not perform, was … ‘What to Say Upon Being Asked to Be Friends’ by Julian Talamantez Brolaski. The themes in each poem varied, but I wanted to choose more solemn or sad poems. Because it would be easier to mask my voice, kind of shaking.”

Papas-Collins is a lifelong Sedona resident and enjoys drawing, reading and tennis as well as playing the piano and drums.

“I’ve just been doing a lot more extracurriculars recently,” Papas-Collins said. “I initially wanted to do it because I have a bit of social anxiety and stage fright. I wanted to take a step and try to combat it a bit. I have been in place before, but it’s a lot different when it’s just you speaking on stage to a lot of people. I genuinely did not think I would make it this far.”

Papas-Collins expressed that there are a lot more stanzas

in his future and that he plans on returning to Poetry Out Loud in 2025, adding that he would also do theatre if that became an option once more at the school.

“I hope that from the poems I choose, that people have a better understanding of the feelings portrayed in each of them,” Papas-Collins said. “The emotion that was put into each of them that it’s not just someone writing down something on paper, they’re letting their feelings flow into their art essentially.”

Bogatyrew

Bogatyrew’s selections were Alex Dimitrov’s “1969,” Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s “The Arrow and the Song” and the third, which he didn’t get a chance to perform, was Arthur Symons’s “April Midnight.”

Bogatyrew said that “1969” struck a chord with because of his love of the past, both family history and the broader historical context of the 60s counterculture and the escalating tensions of the Cold War.

The juxtaposition between peace and war was also what led to Bogatyrew selecting Longfellow’s work, as he was drawn to contrasting the arrow, a tool of destruction, with a song of peace.

“I’m really focused [on] music right now. Part of the reason why I chose the Poetry Out Loud program [was] to gain experience as a performer on stage and in front of an audience,” Bogatyrew said. “Because I plan on moving on with a music career … right now I’m planning with some friends to start doing gigs around town … Poetry is not that far away from music [because] you memorize the words and music has a rhythm to it, so I saw the similarity.”

Bogatyrew added that he plans to start by doing covers of songs and will be performing pop-rock, his favorite genre of music. “I’m working on my own music right now that I could plan on performing one day soon hopefully,” he said.

“Just hearing different people’s experiences through poems [and] hearing the emotion behind it and not just reading it on a page, [reciting] connects to you more when you’re speaking to someone rather than when you’re reading someone’s story,” Papas-Collins said.

“It comes alive,” Goldsmith said.

Reymond Papas-Collins‘ Poems:

“son/daughter”

By Kai Conradi

In a dream my dad fell

      from the top of a steep       white       mountain

            down       into a blue       crevasse
            like the space between       two waves
            where the light       shines through       just enough
            to tell you
            you will miss this life dearly.

              The falling took years.

              I could hear him moving through air       and then finally nothing.
  

In another dream       my dad was an angel

      his see-through body dangling in the air

              floating above me       face shimmery like tinfoil

                     and I cried and cried when he told me

                     I can’t come back to earth now       not ever.

                                                                                 When my dad told me

                                                                                      You will always be my daughter

                                                                                            maybe it was like that.

                                                                         Will I be allowed to come back to earth

                                                                         and be your son?

“Love Armed”

By Aphra Behn

Song from Abdelazar

Love in Fantastic Triumph sat,
Whilst Bleeding Hearts around him flowed,
For whom Fresh pains he did Create,
And strange Tyrannic power he showed;
From thy Bright Eyes he took his fire,
Which round about, in sport he hurled;
But ’twas from mine he took desire
Enough to undo the Amorous World.

From me he took his sighs and tears,
From thee his Pride and Cruelty;
From me his Languishments and Fears,
And every Killing Dart from thee;
Thus thou and I, the God have armed,
And set him up a Deity;
But my poor Heart alone is harmed,
Whilst thine the Victor is, and free.

“What to Say upon Being Asked to Be Friends”

By Julian Talamantez Brolaski

Why speak of hate, when I do bleed for love?
Not hate, my love, but Love doth bite my tongue
Till I taste stuff that makes my rhyming rough
So flatter I my fever for that one
For whom I inly mourn, though seem to shun. 
A rose is arrows is eros, so what
If I confuse the shade that I’ve become
With winedark substance in a lover’s cup?
But stop my tonguely wound, I’ve bled enough.
If I be fair, or false, or freaked with fear
If I my tongue in lockèd box immure
Blame not me, for I am sick with love.
     Yet would I be your friend most willingly
     Since friendship would infect me killingly.

Alexis Bogatyrew’s Poems:

“1969”

By Alex Dimitrov

The summer everyone left for the moon
even those yet to be born. And the dead
who can’t vacation here but met us all there
by the veil between worlds. The number one song
in America was “In the Year 2525”
because who has ever lived in the present
when there’s so much of the future
to continue without us.
How the best lover won’t need to forgive you
and surely take everything off your hands
without having to ask, without knowing
your name, no matter the number of times
you married or didn’t, your favorite midnight movie,
the cigarettes you couldn’t give up,
wanting to kiss other people you shouldn’t
and now to forever be kissed by the Earth.
In the Earth. With the Earth.
When we all briefly left it
to look back on each other from above,
shocked by how bright even our pain is
running wildly beside us like an underground river.
And whatever language is good for,
a sign, a message left up there that reads:
HERE MEN FROM THE PLANET EARTH
FIRST SET FOOT UPON THE MOON
JULY 1969, A.D.
WE CAME IN PEACE FOR ALL MANKIND.
Then returned to continue the war.

“The Arrow and the Song”

By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I shot an arrow into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For, so swiftly it flew, the sight
Could not follow it in its flight.

I breathed a song into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For who has sight so keen and strong,
That it can follow the flight of song?

Long, long afterward, in an oak
I found the arrow, still unbroke;
And the song, from beginning to end,
I found again in the heart of a friend.

“April Midnight”

By Arthur Symons

Side by side through the streets at midnight,
Roaming together,
Through the tumultuous night of London,
In the miraculous April weather.
 
Roaming together under the gaslight,
Day’s work over,
How the Spring calls to us, here in the city,
Calls to the heart from the heart of a lover!
 
Cool the wind blows, fresh in our faces,
Cleansing, entrancing,
After the heat and the fumes and the footlights,
Where you dance and I watch your dancing.
 
Good it is to be here together,
Good to be roaming,
Even in London, even at midnight,
Lover-like in a lover’s gloaming.
 
You the dancer and I the dreamer,
Children together,
Wandering lost in the night of London,
In the miraculous April weather.