NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE ARTS AND POETRY FOUNDATION PRESENT OUT LOUD TM 2021 NATIONAL FINALS WEBCAST AT arts.gov Poetry Out Loud is a partnership of the National Endowment for the Arts, the Poetry Foundation, and the state and jurisdictional arts agencies of the United States. The Poetry Out Loud National Finals are administered by Mid Atlantic Arts. Established by Congress in 1965, the National Endowment for the Arts is the independent federal agency whose funding and support gives Americans the opportunity to participate in the arts, exercise their imaginations, and develop their creative capacities. Through partnerships with state arts agencies, local leaders, other federal agencies, and the philanthropic sector, the Arts Endowment supports arts learning, affirms and celebrates America’s rich and diverse cultural heritage, and extends its work to promote equal access to the arts in every community across America. Visit arts.gov to learn more. The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry magazine, is an independent literary organization committed to a vigorous presence for poetry in our culture. It exists to discover and celebrate the best poetry and to place it before the largest possible audience. The Poetry Foundation seeks to be a leader in shaping a receptive climate for poetry by developing new audiences, creating new avenues for delivery, and encouraging new kinds of poetry through innovative partnerships, prizes, and programs. Mid Atlantic Arts was established in 1979 to promote and support multi- state arts programming in a region that includes Delaware, the District of Columbia, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Virginia, and West Virginia. It is one of six regional arts organizations in the United States, and works in close partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts and its member state and jurisdictional arts agencies. Mid Atlantic Arts distinguishes itself through its work in international cultural exchange, model programs in performing arts touring, its knowledge and presence in the jazz field, and its support of folk and traditional arts. Cover photos: 2018 Poetry Out Loud Champion Janae Claxton, 2016 Poetry Out Loud Champion Ahkel Togun, 2019 Poetry Out Loud Champion Isabella Callery, and 2011 Poetry Out Loud Champion Youseff Biaz. Photos by James Kegley BILLY COLLINS The poet with the most In 2005, the National Endowment number of different poems recited at the National Finals 4.1 MILLION for the Arts and the Poetry since 2005 Total number of Foundation partnered on a students participating in POL since 2005 program that would help students master public speaking, build self- confidence, and learn more about literary history and contemporary 17,000 life, all through a dynamic Total number of “CAGED BIRD” BY schools participating in poetry recitation competition. POL since 2005 MAYA ANGELOU The most viewed poem on The program was piloted in poetryoutloud.org during the Washington, DC, and Chicago, 2020-21 season Illinois, and spread nationally EMILY during the 2005-2006 school year DICKINSON through partnerships with the state The most searched for poet on “DOVER BEACH” and jurisdictional arts agencies. poetryoutloud.org during the BY MATTHEW 2020-21 season Today, Poetry Out Loud is in all 50 ARNOLD states, DC, Puerto Rico, the U.S. The most recited poem during the Poetry Out Loud National Finals Virgin Islands, Guam, and American since 2005 Samoa, with more than four million students participating over the past 16 years. Want to learn more about Poetry “ There’s a poem that you will Out Loud? Free materials, including connect with and you will feel a the online anthology of poems, are really deep relationship with no all available at poetryoutloud.org matter who you are.” along with contact information for —2019 Poetry Out Loud National Champion Isabella Callery each state on how to sign up for the 2021-2022 program. 1 SEMIFINALS PROGRAM • MAY 2 Welcome and Introductions HOSTS creative thinkers. Before coming to the Lauren Miller NEA, Reed directed XM Satellite Radio’s National Endowment for the Arts book and contemporary theater channel and hosted the program Writers on Justine Haka Writing. In partnership with the NEA, Photo by DJ Corey Photography Poetry Foundation Reed also created the series The Big Felicia Curry is a Helen Hayes Award- Read on XM. Passionate about language, 12:00 pm ET SEMIFINAL ONE winning actor, singer, and performer she has interviewed writers of all genres in the DC area and the new host for throughout her career, including novelists, Hosted by Felicia Curry WETA Arts on PBS. She is a Resident historians, playwrights, and poets. Company Member at Everyman Theatre and Factory 449, as well as an Artistic 3:00 pm ET SEMIFINAL TWO Associate at Ford’s Theatre. She can currently be seen in Studio Theatre’s Hosted by Sarah Anne Sillers streaming production of Until the Flood. Photo by AM | CO Arts & Design She was nominated for two Helen Hayes Awards in 2020 for Don’t Let the Pigeon Sarah Anne Sillers is a Helen Hayes 6:00 pm ET SEMIFINAL THREE Drive the Bus and Agnes of God. In the Award-nominated actor and vocalist DC area, she has performed at the John F. Hosted by Josephine Reed based in the Washington, DC area. Sillers Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, has performed at over a dozen venues Arena Stage, Woolly Mammoth Theatre, throughout the region including Signature Each Semifinal will follow Round House Theatre, Signature Theatre, Theatre, Olney Theatre Center, NextStop this schedule: and at numerous other venues. Theatre Company, Monumental Theatre Company, Imagination Stage, the First Round of Recitations Music Center at Strathmore, and others. Find her on Instagram Second Round of Recitations @sarah.anne.sillers or on her website, www.sarahannesillers.com. Announcement of Photo courtesy of Josephine Reed Regional Finalists (Top eight competitors in each semifinal will Josephine Reed is the media producer recite a third poem) for the Public Affairs office at the National Third Round of Recitations Endowment for the Arts (NEA). She produces and hosts the NEA’s weekly Announcement of podcast, Art Works, a program that National Finalists features interviews with artists and (Top three competitors in each semifinal will advance to the National Finals) 2 JUDGES collection of poetry The Heart of a Comet (Write Bloody, 2014) and has SEMIFINAL ONE received fellowships with 202Creates, Callaloo, and DC Commission on the Photo by Bear Guerra Arts and Humanities. A National Poetry Slam Champion, he has over a decade Jake Skeets is the author of Eyes of experience in creative writing, Bottle Dark with a Mouthful of Flowers performance education, and event (Milkweed, 2019), winner of the Photo by Sharon Gottula programming. Matam has also been 2018 National Poetry Series. From featured on various renowned platforms Vanderwagen, New Mexico, he holds Hadara Bar-Nadav’s most recent book and venues such as the NAACP, the John an MFA in poetry from the Institute of poetry is The New Nudity (Saturnalia F. Kennedy Center for the Performing of American Indian Arts. He is the Books, 2017). Her previous books include Arts, and the Apollo Theater. recipient of a 92Y Discovery Prize, a Lullaby (with Exit Sign) (Saturnalia Books, Mellon Projecting All Voices Fellowship, 2013), awarded the Saturnalia Books an American Book Award, and a 2020 Poetry Prize; The Frame Called Ruin (New Whiting Award. He is from the Navajo Issues, 2012), runner-up for the Green Nation and teaches at Diné College. Rose Prize; and A Glass of Milk to Kiss Photo courtesy of Kiki Petrosino Goodnight (Margie/Intuit House, 2007), awarded the Margie Book Prize. She is Kiki Petrosino is the author of four SEMIFINAL TWO also the co-author with Michelle Boisseau books of poetry: White Blood: A Lyric of of the best-selling textbook Writing Virginia (2020), Witch Wife (2017), Hymn Poems, 8th ed. (Pearson, 2011). Her for the Black Terrific (2013), and Fort awards include a National Endowment Red Border (2009), all from Sarabande for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowship Books. She holds graduate degrees Photo by Cassidy Duhon and the Lucille Medwick Memorial Award from the University of Chicago and the from the Poetry Society of America. She University of Iowa Writer’s Workshop. Dan Brady is the author of the poetry is a professor of English and teaches in Her poems and essays have appeared collections Strange Children (Publishing the MFA program at the University of in Best American Poetry, the Nation, the Genius, 2018) and Subtexts (forthcoming Missouri-Kansas City. New York Times, and Tin House, among from Publishing Genius, 2021), as well others. She is a professor of poetry at as two chapbooks. Brady is the poetry the University of Virginia. Petrosino is the editor of Barrelhouse, a magazine and recipient of a Pushcart Prize, a National small press based in Washington, DC. Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Previously, he served as the editor Photo by ElNatan Melaku Fellowship, and an Al Smith Individual of American Poets, the journal of the Artists Fellowship from the Kentucky Academy of American Poets, and worked Pages Matam is an international Arts Council. artist, writer, event coordinator, and in the literature division at the National educator from Cameroon, Central Africa, Endowment for the Arts, where he currently residing in Washington, DC. received a Distinguished Service Award He is the author of the award-winning for his work on the NEA Big Read. 3 SEMIFINALS PROGRAM • MAY 2 for Refugee Poetics. His fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction have appeared in McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, Photo by Kai Coggin Photo courtesy of Seema Reza Ploughshares, Gastronomica, Kenyon Review, Amerasia Journal, AGNI online, Roy G. Guzmán is the recipient of a Seema Reza is the author of A and Fiction International, among others.