Nationwide contest challenges students to memorize and recite poetry
Contact county arts council for information

The Ventura County Arts Council invites all public, private and parochial high schools, as well as home-schoolers, to participate in the Poetry Out Loud: National Recitation Contest, a competition that engages high school students in the presentation of poetry through memorization and performance.

Competitions are held in schools. The school winners move on to the county level in February.

The county winner advances to the California state championship, and that winner goes to the national contest in Washington, D.C. in April.

"In 2008, the first year we participated in the program, students representing nine schools participated in our county competition held at the High Street Arts Center (in Moorpark)," said Margaret Travers, executive director of the Ventura County Arts Council. "We hope to more than double the number of schools this year."

Through support from SAGE in Thousand Oaks, the Poetry Out Loud program can provide professional poets to work with teachers in the classroom through the arts council and California Poets in the Schools. Nationally approved educational materials and teachers guides are free, with no fee to participate.

Students make their selections from an anthology of hundreds of poems.

Interested teachers, administrators, parents and students may call the Ventura County Arts Council at (805) 658-2213 for details on how their school can participate.

For general information, go to www.cac.ca.gov and www.poetryoutloud.org.