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Redmond High School will participate in a Poetry Out Loud contest today at 7pm. The competition, presented in partnership with the Oregon Arts Commission, National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation, is part of a national program that encourages high students to learn about poetry through memorization, performance and competition. Over the past 12 years, Poetry Out Loud has reached more than three million students and 45,000 teachers nationwide.
More than 20 students from Redmond High will participate in the contest held at the Clyde Moore Auditorium of Redmond High School. The winner of the competition will advance to the state contest in spring 2019. The Oregon state champion will go on to the national finals held in Washington, D.C. in April 2019.
Redmond High’s Virginia Johnson will serve as master of ceremonies; local celebrity guest judges include Melissa Eaton and Graham Fox.
Eaton, a lifelong Bend resident, graduated from Sweet Briar College where she spent four years writing in workshops and one-on-one independent studies with poet Mary Oliver and author John Gregory Brown. Her poem Stream won third place in the inaugural The Source/OSU-Cascades MFA annual poetry contest, and other poems will appear this spring in Sixfold magazine and Crosswinds Poetry Journal.
Graham Fox is a community librarian for Deschutes Public Library at the Redmond Library. He has a degree in English education, creative writing and a master’s in library science.
The competition is free and open to the public.
Contact Redmond High’s Angela Liesching for more information at 541-923-4800 extension 1925.