Poetry Out Loud gets new state champ
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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.
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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.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Nigel Redden (Special Award) retired as the general director of Spoleto Festival USA in 2021 having rejoined the festival in October 1995 after having previously served as its general manager from 1986 to 1991. Redden was director of the Lincoln Center Festival from 1998 to 2017. He has also served as executive director of the Santa Fe Opera (1991-1995), artistic consultant to Philadelphia’s American Music Theater Festival (1992-1994), and consultant to the chairperson of the New York International Festival of the Arts (1991-1992). He was director of the National Endowment for the Arts’ dance program from 1981 to 1986 and has served on numerous panels for the NEA, regional arts organizations, and various foundations. He is president of the Spaulding-Paolozzi Foundation and serves on the board of South Arts. In 2001 he was awarded the Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters and was promoted to Commandeur in 2019. He has received honorary doctorates from the College of Charleston and the University of South Carolina. He is currently the project leader for the Anson African Burial Memorial in Charleston which will honor 36 Africans/African Americans buried in the late 18th century whose bodies were disinterred during the renovation of the Charleston Gaillard Center.
Born and raised in Lexington County, Ray McManus (Artist Category) is frequently active in poetry initiatives across the state. He serves as the writer-in-residence at the Columbia Museum of Art. McManus founded Split P Soup, a creative writing outreach program that places writers in schools and communities across South Carolina, and former director of the creative writing program at the Tri-District Arts Consortium that serves Columbia area schools. He coedited a collection of writing responding to historical photographs from South Carolina archives. He is the author of five collections of poetry. His first was selected for the S.C. Poetry Book Prize and published in 2007 and a fifth, Last Saturday in America, will be published by Hub City Press in 2024. His poems and prose have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies of Southern and Irish-American writers. McManus earned his master’s in poetry and his doctorate in rhetoric and composition from the University of South Carolina. Now an English professor at USC Sumter, he teaches creative writing, Irish literature, and Southern literature. He is division chair of both arts and letters and humanities and social sciences and director of the school’s Center for Oral Narrative.
Carlos Agudelo (Individual Category) has been Ballet Spartanburg’s artistic director since 1991. Among his choreography are classic and contemporary favorites; some of these have been performed at Piccolo Spoleto Festival, Columbia, Greenville, Greenwood, and Rutherford County, North Carolina. Under Agudelo’s direction in 2012, Ballet Spartanburg formed a resident professional company comprised of a diverse group of dancers from across the world. For 10 years, it has performed from Spartanburg to North Carolina, Texas, and Las Vegas, in the process staging more than 85 presentations of his choreography. The native of Colombia, Agudelo began his training in Florida under the direction of Ruth Petrinovic. He received a scholarship to study at the Harkness Ballet School in New York City and danced with the Israel Classic Ballet in Tel Aviv and the International Ballet de Caracas. Alvin Ailey coached him in Ailey’s ballet, The River. He also danced with Ballet Hispanico of New York. Mr. Agudelo received the 2021 Civitan Servant’s Heart Award for the community of Spartanburg and the 2022 Spartanburg Citizen of the Year awarded by the Spartanburg Kiwanis Club. In 2018, Ballet Spartanburg was awarded the S.C. Governor’s Award for the Arts in the organization category.
Real-world implications led Charleston’s School of Building Arts to become the American College of the Building Arts (Arts in Education Category) in 2003. A 1968, a warning came that American artisans in the traditional building arts were aging out of the job market. As school systems cut traditional crafts training, no new generation was being trained to create or repair, restore, and preserve American architectural, historic, and cultural treasures. Then, owners of historic Lowcountry properties had to look to Europe to find artisans who could repair and restore damage after Hurricane Hugo. A group of Charleston’s preservation leaders created ABCA as a unique higher education experience that fills a gap. ACBA was the first to combine old-world apprenticeship training with a liberal arts core curriculum. ACBA students graduate with the skills to practice their trade and broad liberal arts foundation that allows them to design while leading their fields. They understand not only how to do something, but to think critically within the context of their specialization, manage a business, and communicate effectively with clients. ACBA students have trained through a wide range of community service projects, restoring or creating from the Oval Office back to the Lowcountry.
Making art more inclusive and accessible is a high priority for Aiken Center for the Arts (Organization Category). Staff and board of directors use this lens to make the vision a reality for the 40,000 people who come through its doors yearly. Three galleries change exhibitions every six weeks. ACA staff work to incorporate each exhibition into their ongoing educational programs, making a cohesive experience for the community. ACA provides instruction from local artists and musicians, enabling community members to find a creative voice through lessons, camps, workshops, and classes—with scholarships available. ACA works closely with the Aiken County public schools. A program brings Aiken Head Start 4K students into the gallery, and ACA places authors and artists in schools as the arts that are integrated to connect learning and life. Further, ACA serves individuals with cognitive and physical disabilities in its community. Youth summer workshops and year-round adult workshops provide for the development of communication skills, teamwork, and decision making at no cost to participants, and art experiences relating movement and painting reach the Alzheimer’s/dementia community.
Kaylen Pritchard. Provided photo.[/caption]
Kaylen Pritchard of Fort Mill (right) won first place with her personal essay, “The Curriculum My Brother Deserves.” A senior at Catawba Ridge High School, Pritchard recounted how her mixed-race family was “denied service” at a South Carolina restaurant because her younger brother, adopted from Africa, was Black. She argues against recent state legislation that limits teaching critical race theory in schools. “My brother has been on the receiving end of the bitter teeth of racism ever since he first came to the United States at 18 months old,” she wrote. “If my young siblings and I had to experience the confusion and fear of being turned away from an establishment because of one of our skin colors, we were old enough to learn about the deeply rooted issues that led to such manifestations of racism.”
“Truly amazing work” is how Judge McManus described Pritchard’s work. “I do not know the age of this writer, but I think he or she captures the very essence of the issue and simplifies the complexity (without over-simplification) that is often elusive for many adults. This is a writer we college professors dream of having.”
Pritchard will receive the Walter Edgar Award, which includes $1,000. The Walter Edgar Award is provided by Thad Westbrook, a Columbia lawyer and University of South Carolina trustee, in honor of his history professor. At Catawba Ridge High, Pritchard’s English teachers are Heather Spittle and Christopher Revels.
William Ross of Sullivan’s Island won second place with “Train Tracks,” his personal essay about the racism that exists in the South and within his family. A junior at Charleston County School of the Arts, Ross describes an incident that occurred while his family watched a college football game. “This essay cuts me to the bone,” McManus wrote. “It’s honest and unflinching, which is not an easy task when you consider how we will often save face to prevent any perceived embarrassment. What this writer does, and so eloquently, is brave, and it’s beautiful.”
A student of Danielle DeTiberus, Ross will receive the South Carolina Academy of Authors Award, which includes $500.
Katherine “Kit” Moore of Greenville won third place for “Blue-Capped Future,” her personal essay about how everyone wins when students with disabilities are included in all school classrooms. A junior at Greenville Senior High School, Moore described how her brother, who has Down Syndrome, thrived in such a school. “If each of the 64,400 students were given the opportunity to impact their classmates as my brother did his, our communities would benefit from an inclusive educational system and our state would be filled with people who’ve learned to see the world inside-out.”
A student of Rachel Stokes, Moore will receive the South Carolina Academy of Authors/Pat Conroy Literary Center Award, which includes $250.
Liam Quan of Columbia won Honorable Mention for his poem, “The Holes We’ve Dug.” A junior at Heathwood Hall Episcopal School, Quan begins his poem by describing South Carolina’s potholed roads before covering the state’s history of enslavement and education. “I am blown away by the mastery of metaphor here – holes, more specifically potholes, as divots in our troubling and often embarrassing history,” McManus remarked. “The writer’s experimentation never loses focus on the subject. I have no doubt that this individual, staying on this trajectory, will be in print someday (sooner rather than later).” Quan is a student of Dr. Sally Plowden.
The South Carolina Arts Commission (SCAC) 
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 
Emily Allison[/caption]
Allison’s body of work earned her first prize over seven other finalists in her first experience with the competition. In lieu of the usual in-person state final competition, each finalist was recorded reciting three poems via a video conference with Poetry Out Loud State Coordinator Bonita Peeples and prompter Thomas Maluck, teen services librarian for Richland Library. The videos were sent to the four judges and an accuracy judge.
After two rounds of evaluation, the top three scorers proceeded to the final round. They were: Allison; Teagan Domm, a junior at Academy Magnet High School in Charleston; and Caleb Xiao, sophomore at Spartanburg Day School who was first runner-up.
The South Carolina Arts Commission (SCAC) 
Now in its 15th year, Poetry Out Loud helps students master public speaking skills, build self-confidence, and learn about literary history and contemporary life. Created by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation in 2005, Poetry Out Loud is administered in partnership with the State arts agencies in every state, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, and American Samoa. Poetry Out Loud offers more than $100,000 is prizes and school stipends each year. It provides free teacher resources and a comprehensive website with a large anthology of classic and contemporary poems, audio and video clips, as well as complete contest information.
Since its establishment in 2005, Poetry Out Loud has grown to reach more than 4 million students and 65,000 teachers from 16,000 schools. For more information, visit 
The S.C. Arts Commission (SCAC) 
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