WESTON — William “Wm” Leete is new to poetry. He only really got into it last year, but he’s already on the national stage for the art form.
On Sunday, Leete, a Weston High School sophomore, will represent Connecticut in the national Poetry Out Loud competition, going up against students from all 50 states, American Samoa, Washington D.C., Guam, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
“It’s really cool to be in this community and representing the state,” he said.
Though many of the elements of the competition are virtual, he said he’s still able to get to meet a lot of other poets out there. It’s also helped him get a better appreciation for the state outside of Fairfield County.
Each of the 55 contestants have submitted videos of themselves reading classic poems that will be livestreamed on Arts.gov/Poetry-Out-Loud as three semifinals on Sunday. Leete’s will be broadcast at noon as part of the first group. The nine winning students go on to nationals where they can submit new videos for the chance to win $20,000 in June.
Leete also had a chance to share his own words as part of a parallel competition, National Poetry Ourselves. That competition stops at the state level, where he placed second, but each of the state winners in the Poetry Out Loud competition can submit their own poem at the national level.
“I kind of got in the backdoor with that one,” he said.
Leete said the competition — both performing the established poems and his own work — lets him tap into his true nature.
“I think that’s who I am at my core — I’m a storyteller,” he said. “With writing, I reveal things to myself I didn’t really know myself.”
His original piece, “The Great Pretender Part Two,” looks at his feeling that he’s always acting and reevaluating who he is.
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