The 2024 Poetry Out Loud Delaware State Champion is a familiar voice.
Eleven high school students from Delaware competed in this year’s state Poetry Out Loud contest and Hodgson Vo-Tech senior Maiss Hussein emerged victorious for a second straight year.
She is only the third participant in Delaware’s 18-year involvement with the contest to secure consecutive wins.
Hussein says she enjoys the opportunity to amplify the power of poetry.
"Do you have some sort of connection to it - and that’s what I really loved about it. I was able to be the voice for someone else’s words. ”
Hussein says she continues to find her own voice through the experience.
"You know, being familiar with other people’s work, and then I started getting familiar with my own, and take that inspiration, and start to form my own words and form my own stories to tell people.”
Smyrna High School’s Joelle Caternor was this year’s first runner-up, while Jono McGarvey from Delaware Valley Classical School claimed the second runner-up.
As the Delaware State Champion, Maiss moves on to compete at the National Poetry Out Loud Finals in Washington, D.C., April 30th to May 2nd.
Delaware Public Media' s arts coverage is made possible, in part, by support from the Delaware Division of the Arts, a state agency dedicated to nurturing and supporting the arts in Delaware, in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts.
