Poetry Out Loud gets new state champ
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
COLUMBIA, S.C. – The state finals for Poetry Out Loud, a national poetry recitation and performance competition, yielded a new state champion from Spartanburg who will represent South Carolina in the national competition.
[caption id="attachment_52763" align="alignright" width="200"]
Catherine Wooten. Provided photo.[/caption]
Catherine Wooten, a junior who attends Westgate Christian School in Spartanburg, returned to the state finals and earned first prize over five other finalists in the first in-person competition since 2019.
As state winner, Wooten will receive a $200 prize and get to represent South Carolina in the national finals competition among a total of 55 state and jurisdictional finalists for the chance to win the $20,000 first prize. The 2023 national finals will also be held from May 8-10 in Washington and will stream on arts.gov, the website of the National Endowment for the Arts.
The South Carolina Arts Commission coordinates Poetry Out Loud in South Carolina, partnering with the NEA and the Poetry Foundation to bring the competition to South Carolina 9-12 graders.
The finalists recited a poem each in rounds one and two before the top three scorers proceeded to the final round: Wooten, the two-time defending state champion Emily Allison of Greenville’s Fine Arts Center, and Jessie Leitzel who attends Charleston County School of the Arts.
Wooten recited “Time Does not Bring Relief: You All Have Lied” by Edna St. Vincent Millay in the final round, edging Leitzel, who was named first runner-up. Leitzel recited and “If They Should Come for Us” by Fatimah Asghar.
Jennifer Bartell Boykin, poet laureate for the city of Columbia; Eric Bultman, actor and theatre instructor; Ed Madden, poet and University of South Carolina English professor; and Dr. Michele Reese, professor at USC Sumter, served as judges. Serving as host was Ray McManus, English professor at USC Sumter and soon-to-be recipient of the South Carolina Governor’s Award for the Arts in the artist category. Thomas Maluck, Richland Library teen services librarian, was the prompter. From the SCAC, Kevin Flarisee of Columbia was accuracy judge, Daphne Hudson of Aiken was the tabulator, and Bonita Peeples of Columbia is Poetry Out Loud program coordinator.
CORRECTION
A previous version of this story incorrectly stated the dates of the national Poetry Out Loud finals in Washington. The dates have been corrected in the story.-Ed.
About Poetry Out Loud A partnership of the National Endowment for the Arts, Poetry Foundation, and the state and jurisdictional arts agencies, Poetry Out Loud is a national arts education program that encourages the study of great poetry by offering free educational materials and a dynamic recitation competition to high schools across the country. Learn more at PoetryOutLoud.org.
About the South Carolina Arts Commission The mission of the South Carolina Arts Commission (SCAC) is to promote equitable access to the arts and support the cultivation of creativity in South Carolina. We envision a South Carolina where the arts are valued and all people benefit from a variety of creative experiences. A state agency created by the South Carolina General Assembly in 1967, the SCAC works to increase public participation in the arts by providing grants, direct programs, staff assistance and partnerships in four areas: arts learning, community and traditional arts, artist development, and arts industry. Headquartered in Columbia, S.C., the SCAC is funded by the state of South Carolina, by the federal government through the National Endowment for the Arts, and other sources. Visit SouthCarolinaArts.com or call 803.734.8696, and follow @scartscomm on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter for #Arts4SC and #SCartists content.
As the day nears for the 2022 South Carolina Arts Awards, The Hub is focusing on this year's recipients: four receiving the 
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
COLUMBIA, S.C. – The South Carolina Arts Commission (SCAC) is happy to announce four recipients who are to be honored in 2022 with South Carolina’s highest award for exceptional achievement in practicing or supporting the arts.
The SCAC presents the South Carolina Governor’s Awards for the Arts annually each spring. The appointed members of the agency’s board of directors vote on panel recommendations for the award. In 2022, the SCAC board approved the recommendations of the following honorees from their respective categories to be recognized for outstanding achievement and contributions to the arts in South Carolina:
DARION MCCLOUD (Artist Category) is an actor, director, storyteller, educator, arts activist, and children’s literature advocate from Columbia. He is also the founder and creative director both of NiA Theatre Company and Story Squad. McCloud is a Riley Institute Diversity Fellow and the 2019 recipient of the Theatre Artist of the Year Award from The Jasper Project. A formally trained visual artist with a bachelor’s in art studio from the University of South Carolina, he found his way to the stage via telling stories and stayed, acting and teaching there for more than 20 years. He enjoys crafting theatre, storytelling, and art experiences for old and young and the initiated and the un-initiated in environments as varied as classrooms, corporate settings, libraries, campfires and, of course, theatres; he is a company member for Columbia-based Trustus Theatre and the South Carolina Shakespeare Company. McCloud has numerous statewide partnerships to his credit in higher education, the humanities, and the arts. He considers himself as having committed his life to the transforming power of art.
ED MADDEN (Individual Category) is a poet, activist, and a professor of English, with a focus on Irish literature, at the University of South Carolina. There, he is also director of the women’s and gender studies program. His academic areas of specialization include Irish culture; British and Irish poetry; LGBTQ literature, sexuality studies, and history of sexuality; and creative writing and poetry. In 2019 he was named a Poet Laureate Fellow of the Academy of American Poets and a visiting artist fellow at the Instituto Sacatar in Bahia, Brazil. In 2015, Madden was named Columbia’s first poet laureate, a post he maintains today. Madden has been a South Carolina Academy of Authors Fellow in poetry twice and was South Carolina Arts Commission Prose Fellow in 2011. He has been writer-in-residence at the Riverbanks Botanical Garden and at Fort Moultrie in Charleston as part of the state’s African American Heritage Corridor project. He also was 2006 artist-in-residence for South Carolina State Parks. His numerous publishing and editing credits include four of his own: Nest, Ark, Prodigal: Variations, and Signals, and his chapbook So They Can Sing won the 2016 Robin Becker Chapbook Prize. Photo by Forrest Clonts.
CARRIE ANN POWER (Arts in Education Category) has been an arts educator and advocate in South Carolina for more 30 years. Beginning in 2004 she was the fine arts department chair, grant manager, and visual arts teacher at East Aiken School of the Arts (EASOA) until 2015. During that time, she transformed EASOA by adding full-time dance and theatre programs, developed and implemented all aspects of the EASOA after-school arts program, and secured donations to fund scholarships providing low-income families access to programs. During that tenure she coordinated the Curriculum Leadership Institute in the Arts, which improves and enhances arts lesson plans based on the 2010 S.C. Visual and Performing Arts Academic Standards. She then served as the education associate for visual and performing arts at the South Carolina Department of Education from 2015 until 2019, where she oversaw the development of K-12 Design Standards for visual and performing arts and later coordinated their revisions. Power served an active role on notable state arts or arts education boards and, in her community, supports educational outreach programs that bring professional artists into schools.
Founded as a non-profit in January 2012, ONE COLUMBIA FOR ARTS AND CULTURE (OC) (Organization Category) served as de facto office of cultural affairs for Columbia until being officially named as such earlier this year. Its mission is to “advise, amplify and advocate for strengthening and unifying the cultural community of Columbia” and does so by promoting cultural activities taking place in the city through various means. In 2014, OC facilitated the formalization of Columbia’s public art program, which has resulted in the creation of more than 60 public artworks and an online directory of public art throughout the city of Columbia. The organization facilitates other projects related to tactical urbanism, creative placemaking and enhancing public space. When Columbia established the honorary position of city poet laureate in 2015, it tasked OC with creating the selection committee that resulted in Dr. Ed Madden being awarded the title. OC is responsible for Amplify, a comprehensive cultural plan approved by city council in 2020. In recent years, it undertook the lengthy process of developing of a modern flag for the city adopted by city council in 2020.
Photo by Forrest Clonts[/caption]
In 2019, they expanded their work, and 
Photo by Kathy Ryan, courtesy of TerranceHayes.com[/caption]
The festival announced Columbia native Terrance Hayes (right, top) as its keynote speaker this year, and Conway native and current Columbia resident Nikky Finney (right, bottom) is to receive the inaugural Deckle Edge Southern Truth Award.
Among Finney's accolades is being an Elizabeth O'Neill Verner Award recipient from the Arts Commission, and she also received the 2011 National Book Award for Poetry and 1996 PEN American Open Book Award. Hayes is the current poetry editor for New York Times Magazine and has won Guggenheim, MacArthur, National Endowment for the Arts and U.S. Artists Zell fellowships. His Lighthead won the 2010 National Book Award, and How to Be Drawn was a finalist for the same.
Got all that? Because we're not quite done.
[caption id="attachment_33844" align="alignright" width="200"]
Photo by Forrest Clonts, courtesy of NikkyFinney.net[/caption]
Further Arts Commission connections abound among the authors, poets, and songwriters scheduled to participate in the scheduled panels or presentations. Julia Elliott, Scott Gould (twice), and Ed Madden are all S.C. Arts Commission Fellows, and other writers have received grants or won awards from the agency as well. In fact, it would probably be easier simply to list those who lack Arts Commission ties - but then we don't want anyone to feel left out.