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10 Benicia Students Compete in Popular Poetry Competition, One Wins

Kimberlee King will compete in Sacramento on March 25th for the state championship.

Ten Benicia High School students competed Saturday in Poetry Out Loud, a national competition of memorization and recitation of well known poetry.

Kimberlee King, the winner, recited The Secret Garden by Rita Dove and To the Ladies by Lady Mary Chudleigh. Runner Up Rachel Roberts recited These Poems, She Said by Robert Bringhurst and Larkinesque by Michael Ryan. 

Ms. King will compete in Sacramento on March 25th for the state championship. The winner there will compete in national finals in Washington, D.C. In the event, Ms. King is unable to compete, Rachel Roberts would take her place. 

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Other students competing and their poems include: 

  • Kieran Cross:   Ode on Solitude  by  Alexander Pope and The Unknown
  • Citizen by W.H. Auden
  • Tara McAninch: Solitude by Ella Wheeler Cox and I Am! by John Clare
  • Jenna Rogenski:  Friendship After Love  by Ella Wheeler Wilcox and  These Poems, She Said by Robert Bringhurst
  • Anjuli Peters: To the Ladies by Lady Mary Chudleigh and Richard Cory
  • by Edwin Arlington Robinson
  • Sierra Beard: Shall earth no more inspire thee  by Emily Brontë and Trees by Joyce Kilmer
  • Jed Weiss: Constantly Risking Absurdity by Lawrence Ferlinghetti and  America by Claude McKay
  • Jennifer Trybull:  I Am the People, the Mob  by Carl Sandburg and I Am Learning To Abandon the World by Linda Pastan
  • Sarah Carrell:   Sheltered Garden by H. D. and One Art by Elizabeth Bishop.

Judges for the contest were Janice Adams, Superintendent of Benicia School District, Windy Keefe, President of the Toastmasters Club, Juanita Martin, Poet Laureate Emeritus of Fairfield, and Mary Eichbauer, President of the Library Board.
Joel Fallon was Master of Ceremonies for the event.

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Teachers, Kim Thompson and Christina Mani of Benicia High coached the students. Lois Requist. Benicia Poet Laureate was in charge of the program, assisted by many local poets and writers, including Carolyn Plath, Frances Jackson, Jeff Kingman, Rebecca Rhee, Karen Terhune, John Goory, Forest Peddler, Bobbie Richardson, Tricia Gaither, and Peter Bray. Ronna Leon photographed the event and provided the pictures that accompany this release.

Poetry Out Loud is sponsored by the Solano County Arts Council, California Arts Council, National Endowment for the Arts, Poetry Foundation, Benicia Public Library and Friends of the Benicia Library, and Benicia First Tuesday Poetry Group.

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