State champion advances to National Finals in Washington, D.C.
(DES MOINES, Iowa) ó Fifteen Iowa students, including one from Mason City, will compete next week for a state championship and a trip to the 2011 Poetry Out Loud: National Recitation Contest in Washington, D.C., where $50,000 in scholarships and prizes will be awarded.
The Iowa Poetry Out Loud State Finals will be at 1 p.m., March 5, 2011, at the State Historical Building, 600 E. Locust Street in Des Moines. Admission is free, and the contest will include poetry recitations by each student competitor.
This year’s finalists include three returning participants, including 2009 State Champion Mia Pierson of Roland-Story. Gwen Morrison of Marshalltown, who took runner-up last year, and Kate Riese of Waukon also return this year.
In addition, Iowa will become the fourth state in the nation to have a student using American Sign Language to compete in a Poetry Out Loud contest.
Auna Ferguson of the Iowa School for the Deaf in Council Bluffs will recite “Be Music, Night” by Kenneth Patchen, “The Spider and the Fly” by Mary Howitt and “A Birthday” by Christina Rossetti at the Iowa POL State Finals. Ferguson’s teacher is Susan Trucano and her principal is Rebecca Gaw.
The National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation created Poetry Out Loud as a pilot project in 2005. The program, presented in Iowa by the Iowa Arts Council, has expanded to include all 50 states, the District of Columbia, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico. Students participate at classroom, school and state levels for the right to compete in the National Finals.
This year, IAC partnered with Iowa Poet Laureate Mary Swander, the Des Moines Social Club, Grinnell Area Arts Council/Faulconer Gallery, LAMB Arts Regional Theatre in Sioux City and the Sondheim Center for the Performing Arts in Fairfield to promote poetry in Iowa.
The organizations provided professional development and workshop opportunities for teachers and students, and appointed local professional poets to be available for classroom and school residencies. More than 1,500 Iowa students participated in the program this year.
Iowa’s past state champions are John-Emmett Mahon of Sioux City’s PeaceMakers Academy in 2010, Pierson in 2009, Emily Mortvedt of Roland-Story in 2008, Spencer Gilbert of West Des Moines Valley in 2007 and Ashley Baccam of Des Moines East in 2006.
This year’s list of competitors follows:
(City/Town)
(Student)
(School)
(Poems/Authors)
(Teacher)
(Principal)
Ankeny
Madison Densmore
Ankeny High School
a song in the front yard by Gwendolyn Brooks
It would be neat if with the New Year by Jimmy Santiago Baca
Revenge by Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Kelcy Lofgren
Brenda Colby
Council Bluffs
Auna Ferguson
Iowa School for the Deaf
Be Music, Night by Kenneth Patchen
The Spider and the Fly by Mary Howitt
A Birthday by Christina Rossetti
Susan Trucano
Rebecca Gaw
Des Moines
Sarah Johnson
Central Academy
A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning by John Donne
The Heaven of Animals by James L. Dickey
Snowy Owl Near Ocean Shores by Duane Niatum
Denis Hildreth, Catie Miller
Dennis Johnson
Granville
Anthony Hunt
Spalding Catholic High School
Alone by Edgar Allan Poe
The Maldive Shark by Hermann Melville
Planetarium by Adrienne Rich
Rosalie Falkena
Gary Niichel
Johnston
Callie Coulter
Johnston Middle School
Candles by Carl Dennis
Thoughtless Cruelty by Charles Lamb
It’s the Little Towns I Like by Thomas Lux
Sarah St. John
Brian Carico
Marshalltown
Gwen Morrison
Marshalltown High School
I heard a Fly buzz when I died by Emily Dickinson
Preludes by T.S. Eliot
Beautiful Wreckage by W. D. Ehrhart
Susan Fritzell
Bonnie Lowry
Mason City
Miles Brainard
Mason City High School
A Boat Beneath a Sunny Sky by Lewis Carroll
An Introduction to My Anthology by Marvin Bell
A New Decalogue by Ambrose Bierce
Mary Cusack Alexander
Douglas Kennedy
Norwalk
Devin Barr
Norwalk High School
Amor Mundi by Christina Rossetti
a song in the front yard by Gwendolyn Brooks
A Dream Within A Dream by Edgar Allan Poe
Martha Davis
Dale Barnhill
Pella
Kelly Anderson
Pella Community High School
Candles by Carl Dennis
The Enigma by Anne Stevenson
Sonnet CXVI: Let me not to the Marriage of True Minds by William Shakespeare
Suzanne Jones
Eric Nelson
Sioux City
Christine Madden
Sioux City North High School
War Widow by Chris Abani
Agoraphobia by Linda Pastan
Thoughtless Cruelty by Charles Lamb
Regional Contest Sponsored by Lamb Arts, Sioux City
Poetry Out Loud Coordinator Diana Wooley
Sioux City
Grace Rants
Sioux City East High School
The Good-Morro by John Donne
Dancers Exercising by Amy Clampitt
The Listeners by Walter De La Mare
Regional Contest Sponsored by Lamb Arts, Sioux City
Poetry Out Loud Coordinator Diana Wooley
Story City
Mia Pierson
Roland-Story High School
The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd by Sir Walter Raleigh
Contraction by Ravi Shankar
Through a Glass Eye, Lightly by Carolyn Kizer
Denise Biechler
Steve Schlatter
Tama
Amanda Husak
South Tama County High School
When You Are Old by William Butler Yeats
I Am by John Clare
Testimonial by Rita Dove
Nancy Dostal and Vickie Hoskey
James Tekippe
Waukon
Katie Riese
Waukon High School
Ah! Why, Because the Dazzling Sun by Emily Jane BrontÎ
It Couldn’t Be Done by Albert Guest
Anyone lived in a pretty how town by E.E. Cummings
Kathy Hay
Dan Diercks
West Des Moines
Catherine Babikian
West Des Moines Valley High School
I Am the People, the Mob by Carl Sandburg
The Tyger by William Blake
Cool Tombs by Carl Sandburg
Karen Downing and Erin Perry
Dr. Vicky Poole|
