For Immediate Release:
February 12, 2009 Contact: Poetry Out Loud State Finals Competition February 24
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Denver, CO (February 12, 2009) — The Colorado Council on the Arts and Lighthouse Writers Workshop will host the state finals for Poetry Out Loud: National Recitation Contest on February 24 at 6 p.m. at the Lakewood Cultural Center at 470 S. Allison Parkway in Lakewood.
Twenty high school students from across the state, who have already competed and and won at the school level, will compete to become the Poetry Out Loud Colorado champion. Contestants will recite works they selected from an anthology of more than 500 classic and contemporary poems.
Poet and University of Colorado-Denver Professor Jake Adam York will emcee the evening. Guest judges include: poets David Rothman and Sheryl Luna; Norma Moore, Executive Director of Stories on Stage; and Jose Mercado, assistant professor of theater, film and video production at University of Colorado-Denver. The event is free and open to the public.
The winner of the Poetry Out Loud Colorado finals will receive $200, and the winner’s school will receive a $500 stipend for the purchase of poetry books. The state champion will also receive an all-expenses-paid trip with a chaperone to the national competition in Washington, DC, April 27-29, 2009. The second place finalist will receive $100, with $200 for his or her school library. The Poetry Out Loud national finals will award a total of $50,000 in scholarships and school stipends, including a $20,000 college scholarship for the Poetry Out Loud national champion.
The competition, presented in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation, encourages the study of great poetry by offering educational materials and a dynamic recitation competition to high schools across the country. Poetry Out Loud uses a pyramid structure. Beginning at the classroom level, winners advance to a school-wide competition, then to the state competition, and ultimately to the National Finals in Washington, DC. More than 150,000 students across the country are expected to take part in Poetry Out Loud this year.
Lighthouse Writers Workshop is the presenting sponsor of the Poetry Out Loud Colorado. (www.lighthousewriters.org). For more information on Poetry Out Loud, visit www.poetryoutloud.org.
About the Colorado Council on the Arts:
The mission of The Colorado Council on the Arts, a division of the Office of Economic Development and International Trade, is to promote the cultural, educational, and economic growth of Colorado through development of its arts and cultural heritage. For more information, visit www.coloarts.org.All rights reserved. Privacy Policy
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