Hawaii Students o Compete in National Poetry Recitation Contest

Jane Chu, chair of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), will attend the contest this year as a special guest. (In 2015 the NEA granted almost $1 million to 12 local organizations to support the arts in Hawaii.)

The event is free and open to the public, with poetry lovers of all ages encouraged to attend. For information call 839-9885 ext 704 or e-mail edadmin@htyweb.org. Sixteen students are participating in the finals, which will be emceed by Ben Gutierrez. They represent 16 public and private schools from Oahu, Kauai, Maui, Lanai and Hawaii Island. Judges are Robbie Dingeman, Pete Doktor and Marie Hara.

The Hawaii state champion will receive $200 and an all-expenses-paid trip with chaperone to Washington, DC, to compete in the National Finals, May 2-4, where $50,000 in awards and school stipends will be distributed.

Poetry Out Loud is presented in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation, and administered in Hawaii by HTY and the Hawaii State Foundation on Culture and the Arts.

Ari Dalbert, from the Hawaii Homeschool Association, was selected as the 2015 Hawaii Poetry Out Loud champion and represented the state in the 2015 National Finals in Washington, DC, last April.

"To memorize a great poem is to make a friend of it for life," said John Barr, President of the Poetry Foundation. "Poetry Out Loud brings new energy to an ancient art by returning it to the classrooms of America."