Poetry Out Loud in Calaveras county

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The Calaveras County Arts Council is delighted to launch our first year supporting Poetry Out Loud. POL is a national arts education program that encourages high school students to learn about great poetry through memorization and performance. The students start by reciting their poems in their classrooms, then move on to a school competition then a county wide competition. The winners of the county-wide competition go to Sacramento to compete against other kids from around California; the winner from the state competition gets an all-expenses paid trip to Washington, D.C. to compete at a national level. The prizes at the national level are big: $20,000 for the national champion and $10,000 for second place. But even at the local level, there will be awards for the winners.
 
Organized by Ingrid Hjelmervik, the Calaveras Poetry Out Loud program has already administered it’s first competition on Wednesday, November 28 at Bret Harte High School. Fifteen contestants recited two poems each to a packed house of fellow students who listened intently, clapped and cheered, and encouraged the contestants. The competitors were terrific, with sensitive and entertaining readings of poems like Vachel Lindsay’s Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight recited by Daniel Abando and Edgar Allen Poe’s The Conqueror Worm dramatically presented by Kayla Auten. 
 
The Calaveras High School competition will be Monday, December 3 at 1 p.m. We are expecting even more students to participate in this contest. The competition is at the Calaveras High School performing arts center and is open to the public (but good luck getting a seat!)
 
The countywide competition will be January 30 at the Calaveras High School Performing Arts Center.
 
Poetry Out Loud is an initiative of the National Endowment of the Arts and the Poetry Foundation. In California it is administered in the state by the California Arts Council. The Calaveras County Arts Council is proud to be the county administration for this exciting program.
 
Learn more about this competition at www.capoetryoutloud.org