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Arts & Entertainment

AmCan Teen Heads to State Poetry Tourney

Stella Palado of American Canyon was the winner in Napa County's qualifying round of the national competition, held at New Tech High earlier this month.

Stella Palado, a sophomore at American Canyon High School, took first place in the second annual Napa County “Poetry Out Loud” competition held at in Napa on Feb. 9.

Palado was one of thousands of students to participate in local qualifiers for the national recitation contest, which was started by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) to engage high-school students in the presentation of poetry through memorization and performance.

“We are thrilled to bring this engaging program to Napa County high schools again this year,” said Kristina Young, Executive Director of . “To see these students interpret the poems is inspiring. They truly are emerging artists—once they take the stage, they transform from shy, young adults, into bona fide and breathtaking poets.”

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Palado astounded the judges with her recitations of Beautiful Wreckage by W.D. Ehrhart and The Chimney Sweeper: When My Mother Died I Was Very Young by William Blake.

“Young people interested in rap and slam contests can be surprisingly interested in classical poetry when it’s presented through the Poetry Out Loud competition,” said Muriel Johnson, director of the California Arts Council, which administers the contest at the statewide level. The program is coordinated locally by Arts Council Napa Valley, as a grantee of the California Arts Council.

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“We’ve seen students from all backgrounds and academic levels embrace this program wholeheartedly. It can change their lives,” Johnson said.

Palado was selected as a winner by a judging panel of local educators and administrators, including Napa Mayor Jill Techel, Danis Kreimeier of the Napa City-County Library, Anne Evans of the Napa Valley Writer’s Conference, and Napa County Poet Laureate Michael Waterson.

The countywide competition’s first runner-up was Whitney Davis, a junior at New Technology High School.

Palado advances to the California state finals in Sacramento on March 20 and 21. At stake are hundreds of dollars at the state competition level and thousands at the national finals.

According to the NEA, the "Poetry Out Loud" program seeks to foster the next generation of literary readers by capitalizing on the latest trends in poetry: recitation and performance. Poetry Out Loud competitions start in the classroom, then at the school, region, state, and national finals, similar to the structure of the spelling bee.

The national initiative is part of an attempt to bring literary arts to students -- a critical need in U.S. schools, according to a 2004 NEA report, Reading at Risk, that found a dramatic decline in literary reading, especially among younger readers.

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