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Des Moines East High School student wins state poetry contest
Ashley
Baccam won the Poetry Out Loud National Recitation Contest in Iowa today
at Hoyt Sherman Place with Deliberate by Amy Uyematsu and Anyone
Lived in a Pretty How Town by e.e. cummings.
With the victory, the Des Moines East senior received $200, a $500 check for her school library and an all-expense paid trip to Washington, DC, to compete in the Poetry Out Loud National Finals May 16 at the Lincoln Theatre, following a special congressional breakfast on Capitol Hill. The National Finals will award $50,000 in college scholarships and school prizes, including a $20,000 college scholarship to the national winner.
“I was very nervous up there, this is still sinking in,” said Baccam, a senior who will attend Grinnell College next year to study communications. “I like poems and I like reading in front of people. The way you hear it and the way people inflect when they’re reading is something you don’t get by just reading it to yourself.”
Jill Jones of West Des Moines Valley took second place, receiving $100 and a $200 check for her school. Other contestants included Leah Belknap of Johnston, Joshua Bensley of Des Moines Lincoln, Megan Dial of Shenandoah, Jennifer Miller of Norwalk and Grant Rodgers of Ottumwa. Iowa poets Bill Ford, Jim McKean and Mary Swander, and Iowa Department of Cultural Affairs Director Anita Walker, judged the contest. All participants were presented certificates signed by Governor Tom Vilsack.
Announced at the annual convention of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) in Pittsburgh, PA, Poetry Out Loud is a nationwide program sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation. This year’s contest marks an expansion of the pilot phase launched last year, in which the NEA and the Poetry Foundation conducted contests in Washington, DC, and Chicago, IL. Last year, more than 4,000 students participated in the program; at least 250,000 students — including 323 Iowa students — participated in the 2006 Poetry Out Loud program.
