A little louder please...T-shirts at the Poetry Out Loud recitation contest.

Poetry has been around long before it was reduced to words on a printed page. And the national Poetry Out Loud competition aims to return poetry to its spoken word origins.

On Saturday afternoon at The Linda in Albany, a capacity crowd watched, listened and cheered as 14 high school students from all around the state participated in the final rounds of the New York State recitation contest, emceed by WAMC-FM’s Joe Donahue.

Among the finalists were several Capital Region students – Shenendehowa High School sophomore Maria Albrecht, Niskayuna High School sophomore Jason Kasman, Shaker High School junior Shauna Stack and sophomore Breanna Medina of the John Sayles School of Fine Arts at Schenectady High School.

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