Poetry Outloud!

It was delightful to serve as the accuracy judge for this year's Fresno County Poetry Outloud! competition. This is a national competition, and each county's winners go to--in our case--Sacramento for the State competition. The winner of that one goes on to the National. Our county's contest is sponsored by the Fresno Arts Council, and hosted by Andrea Mele. Tonight the contestants, all Fresno County high school students from Washington Union High School and San Joaquin Memorial, along with their teachers and many parents, assembled in the Fresno City Council chambers to recite their poems. My fellow judges were the inimitable Lee Herrick, a former City of Fresno Poet Laureate, and the writer and poet Liz Scheid.

Our emcee for the evening was Bryan Medina, yet another former Poet Laureate, who also acted as a coach for the students. The contest was very close! The winner was Memorial student Charlotte Burke. I encourage all high school English, Speech, or Drama teachers to get their students involved in this excellent program.

Materials are provided, and coaching available to you!