Mepham hosts ‘Hunger Games’ poetry contest

Fifteen Mepham High School students hoped that the odds would be “ever in their favor” on April 24 at the first-ever Poetry Games.

In honor of National Poetry Month, the school hosted a competition designed to help students appreciate the written word while working on a charity project. “The Hunger Games,” the first dystopian novel in the popular trilogy by Suzanne Collins, inspired the contest’s theme.

The novel centers on a competition in which a boy and a girl, ages 12 to 18, from each of 12 districts in a post-apocalyptic nation are selected by lottery to compete in a televised battle to the death. For the Mepham contest, organizers borrowed concepts and characters from “The Hunger Games.”

Before the Poetry Games, students were selected to represent their English classes as “tributes” –– the term used to describe the “Hunger Games” competitors in the novel. Tributes were responsible for preparing original poems and studying poetic techniques. English teachers served as “stylists,” coaching their tributes before the contest.

Tributes debuted in the games during the opening ceremony. English teacher Ed Grosskreuz took on the role of the novel’s Caesar Flickerman, interviewing students while the “gamemakers,” or judges, closely watched and scored each tribute.

The first round of competition required tributes to respond to five questions that tested their poetic knowledge. In the second round, tributes read their original poems in the prepared poetry battle.

The third round rewarded students who collected the greatest number of books for donation to Big Brothers Big Sisters. Mepham students gathered more than 600 books for the charitable organization.