First Santa Barbara Poetry Out Loud Competition

Press Release:

Poetry Out Loud: National Poetry Recitation Contest Comes to Santa Barbara

For the last several of months, students at five local high schools have been preparing for the district-wide poetry memorization and recitation contest to be held at 7:00 pm on March 9^th in the Mural Room at the Santa Barbara Courthouse. The winner of the local contest will go on to the state competition in Sacramento on March 23. The California winner will join other state champions at the national competition in Washington DC. Winners at all levels are awarded prizes and travel money. The first-place national prize is a $20,000 scholarship.

Poetry Out Loud is an initiative of the Poetry Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. Additional funding comes from the California Arts Council, the Santa Barbara County Arts Commission, and local donors, including the Robert and Christine Emmons Foundation and Chaucer’s Bookstore. The program has received enthusiastic support from Santa Barbara High School District, the South Coast Writing Program, and local high school teachers. Santa Barbara Poets in the Schools Christine Kravetz and David and Beth Taylor-Schott have been providing classroom instruction in poetic interpretation, tone, articulation and delivery.

This is the third year of the contest and the first year that Poetry Out Loud is available in California outside of Sacramento. Santa Barbara County is one of 11 counties in California that are participating. The vision for the program, which is modeled on the National Spelling Bee, is to have it available to all high school students throughout the state.

Students from five high school campuses have participated in the program. Representatives from La Cuesta Continuation School, Dos Pueblos and San Marcos High Schools will represent their campuses at the citywide competition. Eight to twelve students will recite a single poem each. Works to be recited have been selected from a wide range of material; choices include works from the Romantic poet John Keats to a contemporary poem by Shirley Lim.

Santa Barbara Poet Laureate Barry Spacks, poet Christopher Buckley, and actor Richard Dysart will act as judges for the competition. Students will be judged on accuracy, physical presence and posture, voice projection and articulation, appropriateness of dramatization, level of difficulty, evidence of understanding, and overall performance.

Poet in the Schools Perie Longo will act as emcee for the event, which will be recorded by the local educational channel. In addition, music will be provided by the Santa Barbara Youth Symphony and the audience will be invited to participate by reciting their own memorized poems. A reception will follow the announcement of the winner.

More information about the program can be found at www.poetryoutloud.org.