Elizabeth Holmes, a freshman at TMI – The Episcopal School of Texas, is the winner of the school’s Poetry Out Loud recitation contest and will advance to the state finals to be held Feb. 22 in Austin. Second-place winner is sophomore Sofia Miranda-Fred, who is also the alternate if Holmes is unavailable to compete at the state level.

The TMI competition was held Dec. 2 in the school’s Margaret M. Alkek Theater with eight contestants representing all four Upper School grades. Seniors Victoria True and Susannah Wright, juniors Alexis Jourdan and Isabel Miller, sophomores Sofia Miranda-Fred and Gabriella Largoza and freshmen Elizabeth Holmes and Alexandra Prado were chosen by their English teachers in classroom competitions. Students recited from memory one poem in each of two rounds, including the work of a diverse selection of poets including Margaret Atwood, Lewis Carroll, T.S. Eliot, Dorothy Parker and Edgar Allan Poe.

Judges were local poets Jacinto Jesus Cardona, Bonnie Lyons and James R. Adair. Graham Bates ’10, a student at Trinity University, served as accuracy judge, while Fine Arts Department Chair Mary Scudday served as prompter and TMI teachers Catie and Michael Haveman were score tabulators.

A copy of the Poetry Out Loud anthology was given to TMI’s Jones Library in Holmes’ honor.

Poetry Out Loud is a national program that encourages high-school students to learn about great poetry through memorization, performance and competition. Founded in 2005 by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation, the program has competitions in 2,255 high schools across the country.