POETRY PAYS OFF AGAIN >>>

Hopefully you heeded our advice and checked out Saturday's Poetry Out Loud State Finals at Broadway Center's Theater on the Square.

If you did, you no doubt already know Stadium High School's Will Hamel walked away victorious, this year's Poetry Out Loud state champion. He's surely being hoisted on someone's shoulders or being doused with Gatorade at this very moment.

If this is all catching you by surprise, the official press release is below ...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - March 7, 2011

Contact:  Mark Gerth, Communications Manager, 360-586-8093, markg@arts.wa.gov  

Tacoma High School student wins Poetry Out Loud State Finals? 

Will Hamel of Stadium High School in Tacoma won the state Poetry Out Loud finals with his recitations of Shiloh: A Requiem (April, 1862) by Herman Melville, A Supermarket in California by Allen Ginsberg, and Without Regret by Eleanor Wilner.

As the winner of the state finals Hamel won a $200 prize, his school gets $500 for the purchase of poetry books, and he will receive an all-expenses-paid trip (with a chaperone) to compete in the National Finals in Washington, DC, on April 27-29, 2011. In reflecting on the process of selecting and memorizing his three poems for the Poetry Out Loud competition, Hamel said, "I found new layers of my voice that I didn't know were there."

Fifty-five schools and over 20,000 students in Washington state participated in Poetry Out Loud this year. After classroom-level and then school-wide competitions these schools sent their top students to one of seven regional finals, held in Northwest Washington, Southwest Washington, Central Washington, Eastern Washington, Southeast Washington, and the Puget Sound region, which was split into two regional finals.

Twelve students then advanced to the state finals on Saturday, March 5, at the Broadway Center for the Performing Arts. Through three rounds of poetry recitations they performed works selected from an anthology of more than 600 classic and contemporary poems. Participants were judged by a panel with expertise in various aspects of poetry and performance and awarded points for accuracy, presence, level of difficulty, and other criteria.

The runner-up, Micah Meadowcroft, a junior from Cedar Tree Classical Christian School in Clark County, won $100 and a $200 stipend for his school. Three students received honorable mentions: Bonnie Blanchard, a junior from West Valley High School in Yakima, Chelsea Kupitz a senior from Kamiakin High School in Kennewick; and Langston Ward, a sophomore from Mead High School in Spokane.

Poetry Out Loud is sponsored by the Washington State Arts Commission, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), and the Poetry Foundation. This is the sixth year that high school students in Washington State were a part of Poetry Out Loud, a national arts education program that encourages the study of great poetry. More than 150,000 students across the country were expected to participate this year. The Poetry Out Loud National Finals will award a total of $50,000 in scholarships and school stipends, with a $20,000 college scholarship for the National Champion.

Visit www.poetryoutloud.org for more information on this national program or visit www.arts.wa.gov to learn more about the local competition.

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