Sherry Chandler » Poetry Out Loud
Poetry Out Loud
from a Kentucky Arts Council press release:
FRANKFORT, Ky. – Kendra Holloway came out on top after competing against 18 other students from across the Commonwealth at the Kentucky State Finals Poetry Out Loud poetry recitation contest sponsored by the Kentucky Arts Council at Kentucky State University on March 30, 2006. The Kentucky Poetry Out Loud initiative is part of the national competition presented by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and the Poetry Foundation.
Holloway’s passionate and well-studied recitations of “Ballad of Birmingham” by Dudley Randall and “To the Ladies” by Lady Mary Chudleigh won her an all expenses paid trip to Washington, D.C. to compete in the national finals on May 17, 2006 at the Lincoln Theatre, a $200 cash prize, a trip for her chaperone and $500 to her school library, Christian County High School, for the purchase of poetry. The national winner will receive $20,000 of the $50,000 in scholarship funds being awarded by the National Endowment for the Arts at the Poetry Out Loud National Recitation Contest.
Dean Muir from Trimble County High School was the state runner-up with his lively recitations of “O Captain! My Captain!” by Walt Whitman and “Ma Rainey” by Sterling A. Brown. He won a cash prize of $100 and $200 for the purchase of poetry for his school library.
Holloway and Muir have also been invited back to Frankfort to recite their poems and be honored at the Kentucky Writers’ Day Celebration presented by the Kentucky Arts Council on April 24, 2006 in the Capitol Rotunda. Kentucky Writers’ Day promotes the literary arts in Kentucky and is celebrated on the birth date of native son, author, poet and first U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Penn Warren.
Judges for the Kentucky State Finals of the National Poetry Out Loud Recitation Contest were Kentucky Poet Laureate Sena Jeter Naslund; Ken Jones, playwright and Chair of the Northern Kentucky, University Department of Theatre and Frank X. Walker, Eastern Kentucky University, Department of English and Theatre faculty, author and Affrilachian poet.
Poetry Out Loud encourages high school students to learn about great poetry through memorization, performance and competition. Kentucky’s participating schools were Christian County High School, Hopkinsville; Danville High School, Danville; Deming High School, Mount Olivet; Doss High School, Louisville; George Rogers Clark High School, Winchester; Greenup County High School, Greenup; Madison Central High School, Richmond; Mercer County High School, Harrodsburg; Simon Kenton High School, Independence; and Trimble County High School, Bedford.
For more information about Poetry Out Loud, visit www.poetryoutloud.org. For more information about the Kentucky Arts Council, visit www.artscouncil.ky.gov .
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1 Comment
1. MW replies at 4th April 2006, 12:00 pm :
This sounds like a great program. It would have been nice if we’d had something like that when I was in high school. Whitman’s poem is the only one of them I’m actually familiar with, though. The poetry classes I took in college really could have been better, I guess.
That’s also the third or fourth person named Kendra I’ve heard of. I guess the name is getting popular.
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