Madera South High poet wins competition
Courtesy of Emily Redondo
First place winner Daisha Campos of Madera South High School.
Daisha Campos, a student at Madera South High School, won first place in the 2019 Madera County Regional Finals Poetry Out Loud Competition on Saturday at Madera County Arts Council’s Circle Gallery.
Campos will represent Madera County at the upcoming state finals. Abril Chavez of Madera South High School received 2nd place, Jackson Roeder of Glacier High School received 3rd Place, and Armando Sarabia of Voyager Secondary School received an Honorable Mention.
Campos won over the judges with her reading of “No Coward Soul Is Mine” by Emily Bronte and “Author’s Prayer” by Ilya Kaminsky. This year’s program also included a heartfelt reading by Sebastian Lopez, a student at Crescent View South Charter School, of a poem he wrote entitled “A Dad and A Mom”.
The California Poetry Out Loud State Finals will be held March 10th and 11th in Sacramento. The winner of that event will move on to represent the Golden State at the national finals in Washington, D.C.
This year’s state competition will be the 14th production from the California Arts Council.
An initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts, Poetry Out Loud encourages high school students to learn about poetry through memorization, performance, and competition. California’s Poetry Out Loud is the largest event of its kind in the U.S., and has grown steadily since its inception.
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About Poetry Out Loud: The National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation have partnered with the California Arts Council to support 2019 Poetry Out Loud, a free high school program which encourages the nation’s youth to learn about great poetry through memorization and recitation.
This dynamic program helps high school students master public speaking skills,build self-confidence, learn about their literary heritage, and compete formore than $100,000 in awards.
Since 2005, Poetry Out Loud has grown to reach more than 3.6 million students and 55,000 teachers from 14,000 schools in every state, Washington, DC, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico.
