Mississippi School of the Arts is a place designed to allow young artists to grow and expand their horizons, and one student has earned the opportunity to participate in a state poetry competition.

Roney Jones, a theatre student at MSA, will participate in the Mississippi Arts Commission’s Poetry Out Loud Mississippi contest. The contest has been scheduled for Thursday at 1 p.m. However, officials are monitoring weather conditions, and the competition may be postponed.

In the competition, Jones will be doing a dramatic presentation of three poems: “Refusing Silence” by Tesh Gallagher, “I’m trying to break your heart” by Kevin Young and “Sonnet 29” by William Shakespeare.

“They say that the best way to choose your poems is to choose ones you connect with,” Jones said. “I chose the first one [“Refusing Silence”] because I feel like it’s a call to arms, especially with the political stuff going on.”

Jones said Young’s poem is meant to be humorous. The poem is about a narrator who is leading a girl on.

“I thought it would be fun to do it as a girl,” she said.

She will end with Shakepeare’s sonnet, which brings together her combined background in literary arts and drama. Sonnet 29 is about a man or woman in love, so Jones thought it would be a nice contrast to “I’m trying to break your heart.”

Jones said she found out about the competition through her poetry class. She won the competition at MSA, and that is what put her in a position to compete at the state level. Although most students do not get the opportunity to cross disciplines, she was accepted to both the literary and drama disciplines. It’s this combination of fields that makes the competition perfect for Jones.

“I enjoy public speaking, so getting to do it in different ways – it’s a nice way to get some experience,” she said.

Jones is a senior from Biloxi.