​Carver Center Junior Named MD Poetry Out Loud State Champion

From BCPS: Angeline (Angie) Faieq, a Grade 11 student at George Washington Carver Center for Arts and Technology, was named the Maryland Poetry Out Loud State Champion on Saturday, March 18.

As the state champion, Faieq, a Towson resident, advances to the 2017 National Finals to be held at The George Washington University in Washington, D.C., April 25 – 26. Trip expenses for her and an adult chaperone are part of her state prize as well as a $200 personal award and a $500 stipend for Carver Center to use to purchase poetry books.

The National Finals includes a semifinals round for three regions from which three students per region move on to the finals. Faieq will compete in the region 1 semifinals on Tuesday, April 25, from 9 a.m. – 12 p.m. In addition to Maryland, region 1 includes Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, U.S. Virgin Islands, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, D.C., and West Virginia. All semifinals and the final round will be livestreamed at www.poetryoutloud.org. The national champion will receive a $20,000 prize, and an additional $30,000 in awards and school stipends will be presented to the regional semifinalists.

The Maryland championship was held on Saturday, March 18, at the Baltimore Museum of Art and was coordinated by the Maryland State Arts Council. In three rounds of competition, Faieq emerged as the winner after reading In the Desert by Stephen Crane, Tarantulas on the Lifebuoy by Thomas Lux, and What You Have to Get Over by Dick Allen. (These poems and all others that participants could choose from can be found at http://www.poetryoutloud.org/poems-and-performance/find-poems.)

This is the second consecutive year that Baltimore County has had a student become the Maryland Poetry Out Loud State Champion. Last year, Sharese Acheampong, then a senior at New Town High School, won both the state championship and the region 1 semifinals, and she competed in the national finals.

Poetry Out Loud is described on the initiative’s website as “a partnership between the National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation that encourages high school students around the country to learn great classic and contemporary poetry through a recitation competition that culminates with the national finals.”

Photo courtesy of BCPS