Skagway School will send a veteran contender to the state’s Poetry Out Loud finals in early March. Freshman Mina Yee will compete for the second time, with a one in eight chance of winning. KHNS reporter Melinda Munson interviewed the performer. 

“I like the lady horses best. How they make it all look easy, like running 40 miles per hour is as fun as taking a nap. Or grass,” said Yee. 

That’s the voice of Skagway School ninth grader Mina Yee. For the second year in a row, Yee is headed to state finals for Poetry Out Loud. On March 11, she’ll compete in Juneau against seven other finalists. The winner will move onto the semi-finals, facing off against 54 students, in hopes of advancing to Washington D.C. for the national competition. 

Yee sent in two poems for her audition. She said her English teacher, Kent Fielding, assisted her throughout the process.  

For the event, Yee must have three poems memorized. Her favorite piece is,  “How to Triumph Like a Girl,” by Ada Limón, because it’s “powerful” and full of emotion. 

Yee’s father, Michael Yee, has seen growth in his daughter’s oratory performance. 

“Mina plays the violin,” Yee said. “And she’s at a point where in her music, she’s now interpreting the music and not just playing the notes. So, her emotional interpretation is in the music. And we have really seen that in the last year between the first Poetry Out Loud and this Poetry Out Loud, her growth in the way she uses her voice, and tone and inflection to reflect the emotion and bring out the meaning of the poems that she’s reading.” 

Despite playing the violin since age three, Yee battles intense stage fright. She described how it feels before competition. 

“Before the competition, I don’t really have that good of like, composure,” Yee said. “Normally, I try to breathe a lot. And I try to tell myself that no matter what happens, it will be okay. One thing that I do think about, which is not very good, is while I’m walking up to the stage, I’m like: ‘Don’t trip, don’t trip, don’t trip.’ Because I’m horrible at walking in heels. But when I’m up there, when I say the name of my poem, and then I take a deep breath, and then I go into it — and then it’s kind of like, everything fades away. And I’m in the poem. And I just don’t think about anything except really feeling the emotion in the lines.”  

Yee, who appeared perfectly collected, gave a recitation of “How to Triumph Like a Girl.” 

“I like the lady horses best How they make it all look easy, like running 40 miles per hour is as fun as taking a nap, or grass. I like their lady horse swagger, after winning. Ears up, girls, ears up! But mainly, let’s be honest, I like that they’re ladies. As if this big dangerous animal is also a part of me, that somewhere inside the delicate skin of my body, there pumps an eight-pound female horse heart, giant with power, heavy with blood. Don’t you want to believe it? Don’t you want to lift my shirt and see the huge beating genius machine that thinks, no, it knows it’s going to come in first,” performed Yee.

Poetry enthusiasts can cheer for Yee on March 11 starting at 5 p.m. on ktoo.org.