The Arkansas Arts Council is pleased to announce Lia Lawson of Wonderview High School is the winner of this year’s Poetry Out Loud statewide competition.
The competition, held Friday, March 11, featured four representatives from various schools across Arkansas. They included:
- Ben Romero – Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences and the Arts
- Hadia Choudhary – Searcy High School
- Lia Lawson – Wonderview High School
- Diya Chakraborty – Arkansas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired
Hosted by Kai Coggin, this year’s competition was judged by Stacey McAdoo, Leron McAdoo, Stacy Pendergrast and Jo McDougall.
Lia will represent Arkansas at the national level for a chance to win $20,000 later this spring.
A partnership of the National Endowment for the Arts, Poetry Foundation and the state and jurisdictional arts agencies, this program offers free educational materials and a dynamic recitation competition for high school students across the country.
Although this year’s competition is over, we hope to grow the Poetry Out Loud program and get more students to participate next year.
In the 2022-2023 school year, Arkansas Arts Council will be sending out Arts in Education roster members to schools around the state to host poetry workshops, coaching sessions and bringing Poetry Out Loud back to the year-long program it was before the pandemic.
For more information about Poetry Out Loud, contact Matt Boyce, arts in education programs manager, at [email protected]. Information about the program is also available online at www.arkansasarts.org.