Rider freshman Cheran Hooper advanced to the finals of the UIL state poetry competition, finishing in sixth place Wednesday in Austin.
It’s quite an accomplishment for Hooper, who has been doing poetry since the second grade.
“I’m extremely excited,” Hooper said. “This is my freshman year and I’m already going to state, so I qualify for a scholarship and that was the main goal so now that I’ve made it, I only go up from here.”
To get ready for competitions, Hooper tries to drown out the noise and put herself in the audience’s shoes.
“At least about 15-to-30 minutes before, I like to go read to myself in a corner and try to play out all the actions I’m going to do in my piece and try to really calm down and feel how the audience will feel in that room,” Hooper said.
UIL coach Erin Dillard is often the one to help Hooper practice after school.
“She reads and warms up and goes over these pieces,” Dillard said. “It’s really about pronouncing things correctly. How you actually say a word compared to how people always say it, trying different movements with her body and her arms, working on the tone of her voice.”
Hooper earned her state trip by finishing third at the Region I-5A Meet in late April in Lubbock. She was the only Rider academic student to make it to state, and in poetry, you read in front of an audience.
“You get two poems to choose from, and they’ll give us the correct pieces to read and I’ll have to perform whatever poem they give me,” Hooper said. “I read in front of multiple people, three judges and whoever’s in the room I perform in. Then you sit down and watch others perform and we see who advances in the room.”
Hooper originally discovered her appreciation of poetry through performing in theatre.
“I absolutely loved performing for people and putting a smile on people’s faces,” Hooper said. “So getting to perform a specific piece, whether it’s a sensitive subject, is just really fun to get the audience’s reactions and play it by ear.”
While Hooper was already satisfied to make it to state, she was pleasantly surprised when she made it into the top six after Tuesday’s round and was able to compete Wednesday.
“When I got top six, it was like I could take a breath,” Hooper said. “It was really shocking, but I was really proud. When I made it to the state level, I thought that was enough, but when I learned I made it to the top six, that really just felt like all the work I put in was worth it.”
Of course it is impossible to do a performance without flaws, but Hooper felt like she put everything into her last performance.
“I really think it was one of my best ones,” Hooper said. “Even if there were some things that could have been wrong with it, I’m still going to be happy because that was my best self.”
No matter what the results were, Hooper had already achieved a major accomplishment.
“When she made it in the top 12, it was amazing,” Dillard said. “We were proud of her from the beginning and we’re even more proud now, and regardless of what happens, she’s done amazing things.”
