Eighteen Paget Primary School students will compete in their third Annual School-wide Oratorical Competition today.

The entire school participated last week in a class competition. The finalists will compete this week.

The students will be judged in the following criteria: accuracy; voice clarity; voice projection; eye contact; posture and expression. The guest judges are Selwyn Woolridge; Thaoo Dill; Laurel Burns; Shangri-la Durham Thompson. There are 18 finalists.

The students will be reciting poetry such as “Life Doesn’t Frighten Me” by Maya Angelou and “Our Deepest Fear” by Marianne Williamson.

“Life Doesn’t Frighten Me”

By Maya Angelou

Shadows on the wall

Noises down the hall

Life doesn’t frighten me at all

Bad dogs barking loud

Big ghosts in a cloud

Life doesn’t frighten me at all

Mean old Mother Goose

Lions on the loose

They don’t frighten me at all

Dragons breathing flame

On my counterpane

That doesn’t frighten me at all

I go boo

Make them shoo

I make fun

Way they run

I won’t cry

So they fly

I just smile

They go wild

Life doesn’t frighten me at all

Tough guys in a fight

All alone at night

Life doesn’t frighten me at all

Panthers in the park

Strangers in the park

No, they don’t frighten me at all

That new classroom where

Boys pull all my hair

(Kissy little girls

With their hair in curls)

They don’t frighten me at all

Don’t show me frogs and snakes

And listen for my scream

If I’m afraid at all

It’s only in my dreams

I’ve got a magic charm

That I keep up my sleeve

I can walk the ocean floor

And never have to breathe

Life doesn’t frighten me at all

Not at all

Not at all

Life doesn’t frighten me at all

“Our Deepest Fear”

By Marianne Williamson

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us most. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and famous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that people won’t feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in all of us. And when we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”