CA Poetry Out Loud

We're at Poetry Out Loud finals in Sacramento. Competing students from 33 counties were stellar. First round was AMAZING. I'd hate to be a judge. How can you judge perfection? 


Dana Gioia showed up and gave an impassioned speech about Why Poetry Matters. Imagine  being a high school student reciting a poem by Dana Gioia, former Chair of @NEAarts & the genius behind Poetry Out Loud, while he's here watching? #pol2012 YEP! Dana said the student did a better job on his poem than he did. Praise indeed.


Head of the California Arts Council, Craig Watson gave an amazing testimonial about his deep and abiding connection with poetry, and Council member Malissa Shriver is a true champion for the arts. It gives me hope in a dark time for arts funding. 


California Poets Laureate: Juan Felipe Herrera and Al Young as judges. Former Assemblyman Dennis Mangers!  I met his way back when —when I was an arts advocate/lobbying for arts education with Ken Larsen. 


WOW! riding high. What a night for poetry. It really Matters. Besitos all round.


For me, tonight was several of so many small circles closing, completing, overlapping. When I told Dana Gioia way back in the early 1980s that I didn't buy the whole POL concept, why did it matter, he wanted to know about the pivotal moment when I got it. 

When Craig Watson was there for me in the outbacks of Santa Rosa, another "way back when story" giving me advice, art supplies, and hope for the future—I still have those magic pencils, having taught thousands of students to draw with them. 


And Juan Felipe Herrera and me working on CAC evaluation processes for the NEA‚ how many years ago? Me & JF with Juan Valdez of Zoot Suits fame way back when. 


And the CAC's inimitable Wayne Cook who wears a secret Super(Art)man shirt under his suit—but don't tell. So many amazing mentors in my life. Small circles opening into larger circles, myriad pools rippling in the consciousness of life—when it all came together, tonight at a banquet hall at a hotel in Sacramento tonight. What circles we travel in. For all this, I am truly grateful.

You see, I am a poetry coach for Poetry Out Loud. Last year my student Mark Reifenheiser from Diablo Valley High School placed second in the California state Poetry Out Loud finals, and the year before, my student from Deer Valley High School, Cheryl Evans came in 3rd. I'm onto something here. Don't know exactly what. But there it is. 

I tell my students that the real POL equation is being emotionally honest when redacting poem. Not over the top, not acting. But being with the poem, discovering it anew from the inside out—taking the audience along for the ride so they too discover something new in hearing the poem. These students really get it.