P.O. Box 651
Mount Savage, MD 21545
P.O. Box 651
Mount Savage, MD 21545
Poetry Out Loud county
competition set for Thursday
Winner moves on to regional contest Feb. 4
CUMBERLAND, Jan. 17 -- "The National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation have partnered with state arts agencies of the United States to support Poetry Out Loud, which encourages the nation's youth to learn about great poetry through memorization and recitation. This program helps students master public speaking skills, build self-confidence, and learn about their literary heritage."
Poetry Out Loud is open to all high school sophomores, juniors and seniors across the country. Last year, nearly 325,000 students competed in the competition, which uses a pyramid structure that begins at the classroom level. Here at the local level, Allegany High School and Mountain Ridge High School have chosen to participate in the 2011 program. The Allegany Arts Council and the Allegany County Public School System would like to offer congratulations to all of the winners of the local classroom level competitions:
Allegany High School:
* Kaitlyn Wright
* Chavi Rehani
* Grace Carpenter
Mountain Ridge High School:
* Aleksandra Knepper
* Matthew Benson
* John Treber
These six student winners from the local classroom competitions will advance to the County competition that will take place on Thursday, January 20, at 6PM, in the Allegany Arts Council’s Community Room (located at 9 N. Centre Street in Downtown Cumberland).
The event is free and open to the public. Each contestant will recite two poems, and will be judged on physical presence, voice and articulation, appropriateness of dramatization, level of difficulty of poem, evidence of understanding, accuracy, and overall performance.
The three jurors for the County competition are Kimberly Brown, Jennifer Merrifield, and Curtis Tompkins. The winner of this County competition will advance to the regional competition (to be held on February 4 at a location TBD in Washington County), then to the State competition (to be held on February 26 at 1PM at the Enoch Pratt Library, Central Branch, in Downtown Baltimore), and then ultimately to the National Finals in Washington, DC, on April 29, 2011.
For more information about the Poetry Out Loud competition, please visit www.poetryoutloud.org, or call Sue Hughes, Supervisor of Secondary English and Reading at the Allegany County Board of Education, at 301-759-2016. Or, you may call Chris Stewart at the Maryland State Arts Council at 410-767-6476.