Poetry Out Loud 2025 County Winner Announcement 

February 14, 2025 – Mariposa, CA – This week, eleven high school students from Mariposa County participated in the county final for the Poetry Out Loud National Recitation Contest. Poetry Out Loud is an arts education initiative created by the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Poetry Foundation that encourages the nation’s youth to learn about great poetry – both classic and contemporary – through memorization, performance and competition. The contest is open to currently enrolled students in grades 9-12.

Contestants are required to select and memorize three poems from the Poetry Out Loud official anthology, which they recite in front of a panel of local judges. Each recitation is evaluated on physical presence, voice and articulation, dramatic appropriateness, evidence of understanding, overall performance and accuracy. The top ten performers from a school-wide contest progress to the county final. 

The winner of this year’s County Champion title was Spirit DeWitt, whose nuanced and compassionate performances of ‘The Layers’ by Stanley Kunitz, ‘The Days Gone By’ by James Whitcomb Riley and ‘Playthings’ by Rabindranath Tagore scored very highly with the judges. Spirit will now go to compete in the State final in Sacramento in March. Runner-up performers were Huyana Lawrence and Jasmine Martinez.

The Mariposa County Poetry Out Loud competition is coordinated by the Mariposa County Arts Council. In the weeks leading up to the contest, students were guided by their teachers, Brooke Dobson and Kate Hall with additional coaching by local poet Megan Levad Beisner, author of Why We Live in the Dark Ages and What Have I to Say to You. This year’s judges were Amanda White, Andra Kovacs, Maureen McCormick and Sunny Braselton.

The Arts Council is an incorporated not-for-profit organization created to promote and support all forms of the cultural arts, for all ages, throughout Mariposa County and is supported in part by the County of Mariposa, the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency, and the California Arts Council, a state agency.

Source & photo: Mariposa County Arts Council