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.

Journal entry Tomaž Šalamun, Dana Gioia

Yesterday I lost track of time, having three hours to kill, and I killed them very well indeed, 3 and a 1/2 hours worth, as a matter of fact. Today, I made up for all that lost time, and arrive a half an hour early to teach poetry at the Higham Family School. Oh well. I spent some time chatting with Michael Ellis, and reading my mail, a nice thank you letter from the Montana Writers’ Voice, Corby Skinner. I too need to send thank you letters to my hosts and teachers. I also received a letter from Ljubljana. A poet writes, Spring arrives despite the wars in Bosnia. Kajvic hopes the war is finally over, says Tomaž Šalamun who has been a cultural attaché in Washington DC, for four years, thankfully well out of harm’s way. My neighbor George was quite excited about my letter from Tomaž, but I’ve been receiving letters from famous poets in Brussels, Holland and elsewhere due to my massive Uniting The World mailing in December. Iren Kiss sends poems and says she has a job lead for me in Budapest, now that would be wild. Charles McGeehan who writes from Amsterdam that Joke is booking American poets for this year‘s Rotterdam Poetry Festival, and to send my stuff in as soon as possible. Dana Gioia, a near neighbor,just moved to Faught Road from the East Coast. We gather to welcome him. At the SRJC noon lecture I picked up an argument I began with him six years ago when he wrote Does Poetry Matter? He recognizes my name when I introduce myself, from an anthology, and he says Atomic Ghost? Yes. I said, but I haven’t submitted much of anything lately. I guess I should be flattered that he recognized me at all.