POETRY SEMIFINALS & FINALS 2022

Kindly hosted by St. George's College on October 27th & 28th

There are areas in our brains that understand earlier (some say better) the gist of what the person we’re watching and hearing is trying to convey to us. We feel it, we comprehend it. Maybe that is what T.S. Eliot meant when he wrote that “genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood.”?

If these words are also intended to be spoken aloud then we also need great communicators, people who can grasp the meaning and emotion embedded in the written page, and through the performance of a recitation touch our hearts and minds. By making a poem their own, these communicators can bridge the lives of the poets with those of their audience. A magical act of transfiguration and rebirth.

And what an astonishing bunch of young communicators we had through these two days of poetry recitation! Young people between Grades 3 and 8, from La Serena to Concepción, marvelled us with their takes on poems funny, thought-provoking and filled with wonder. We even had a surprise love declaration to esteemed thespian Tom Holland…

Participants from the following schools accompanied us during the semifinals: Campvs College, Colegio Internacional SEK, Craighouse, Cumbres, Everest, The Grange School, The International School La Serena, La Maisonette, Orchard College, Pedro de Valdivia (Las Condes), St. Georges’ College, Villa María Academy & The Wessex School ,

Our kind hosts at St. George’s College, through the extremely capable hands of Marcela Lafourcade and her teams of students and workers, made everything go as swiftly and efficiently as we could have dreamed of. Thank you so much!

And of course we would never have been able to do justice to our participants if we hadn’t counted on our volunteer judges, both for viewing the videos sent for our first heat and the in-person semifinals and finals. Our judges were: Loreto Abascal, Christopher Bembo, Louise Campbell, Julia Cogan, Andrea Gaete, Cristina Jeppesen, Fernanda Lara, Lisa Miller, Camila Mora, María Paz Rivera, Sally Thompson, Francisca Torres, Anna Zappa and of course our own Jacinda Forster & Lynnann Lovejoy.

So, without further ado, we present to you our semifinalists and winners!

Bernardita Delpino, 3rd Grade 1st Place, Colegio Cumbres
Pilar Claro, 4th Grade 1st Place, Colegio Cumbres
Antonia Larraín, 5th Grade 1st Place, Orchard College
3rd Grade Finalists (L to R): Bernardita Delpino 1st Place; Amanda Alcalde 2nd (Craighouse School); María Emilia Cuevas, 3rd Place (Orchard College); Lucía Donoso, 4th Place (Villa María Academy)
4th Grade Finalists: Leonor Vera, 4th Place (Colegio La Maisonnette); Sofía Burger, 3rd Place (Craighouse School); Jacinta Guevara, 2nd Place (Villa María Academy); Pilar Claro.
5th Grade Finalists: Antonia Larraín; Matilde Paredes, 2nd Place (Villa María Academy); María Candelaria Allamand, 3rd Place (Colegio La Maisonnette); Aníbal Barroilhet, 4th Place (St. George's College)
María Vargas, 6th Grade 1st Place, Villa María Academy
Maite Maureira, 7th Grade 1st Place, The International School La Serena
Joaquín Saldaña, 8th Grade 1st Place, The International School La Serena
6th Grade Finalists (L to R): María Vargas; Natalia Pereira, 2nd Place (Villa María Academy); Matilda Moreno, 3rd Place (The Grange School); Josefina San Martín, 4th Place (The Grange School)
7th Grade Finalists: Luz Carrasco, 2nd Place (Villa María Academy); Maite Maureira; Kyle Yorston, 3rd Place (The Grange School); Sofía Alverdi, 4th Place (Colegio Cumbres)
8th Grade Finalists: Julieta Ossa, 2nd Place (Colegio La Maisonette); Joaquín Saldaña; Derek Prins, 3rd Place (Colegio Pedro de Valdivia, Las Condes); Catalina Naylor, 4th Place (The Grange School)

TRAVELLING TROPHY FOR POETRY

The Travelling Trophy for Outstanding Performance in Poetry is given each year after the finals to the school that has the most points according to how many participants they sent and how many 3rd, 2nd and 1st places they have. According to our Handbook we allocate points in the following manner:

1st Place: 5 points

2nd Place: 3 points

3rd Place: 2 points

All participants that enter their video in our First Round: 1 point.

This year, and for the first time in our competition’s history, the Travelling Trophy is awarded to Villa María Academy, who reached 29 points. Congratulations to them! Closely behind them were Colegio Cumbres and The International School of La Serena, who came in 2nd and 3rd place respectively. Photo to be posted shortly!

SOME OF OUR JUDGES AND HOSTS