Sylvia Dale, a senior at Ganado High School in Apache County, will represent Arizona at the 15th Annual Poetry Out Loud national finals competition in Washington, DC, April 27 – 29, 2020.
The Arizona Poetry Out Loud State Finals were held in Phoenix on Saturday, March 7.
Ten students, representing schools from Tucson to Ganado, a chapter of the Navajo Nation, recited poems by a diverse array of literary luminaries, including Langston Hughes, Pablo Neruda, and contemporary Arizona poet, Natalie Diaz.
After two rounds of recitations, four students advanced to the final round. From these four, Sylvia Dale was named State Champion while Oscar Landa Samano, a student at Coconino High School in Flagstaff, was named first runner-up.
A program of the National Endowment for the Arts and The Poetry Foundation, Poetry Out Loud is a poetry recitation competition delivered in high schools in all 50 states and three territories through partnerships with State Arts Agencies.
Arizona’s Poetry Out Loud program is managed by the Arizona Commission on the Arts, an agency of the State of Arizona, with support from regional partners, University of Arizona Poetry Center, Phonetic Spit, and Andrea Lenhart, a Flagstaff-based poet and lecturer at Northern Arizona University.