Enochs sophomore tops in 'Poetry Out Loud' contest

While some of her competitors succumbed to nerves and forgot lines, Enochs High School sophomore Kathryn Harlan-Gran delivered a polished performance of two poems Wednesday night at Modesto Junior College.

Her recitations of Paul Lawrence Dunbar's "We Wear The Mask" and Marianne Moore's "Poetry" in MJC's Little Theater earned her first place in the Stanislaus Arts Council's third annual "Poetry Out Loud" contest. She will represent Stanislaus County at the state level next month.

A panel of four judges deemed her the best of 12 high school students, based on her accuracy, level of difficulty and dramatic performance. The runner-up was Pitman High School's Esmeralda Lopez. "I'm so excited," Kathryn said. "I thought I had a chance, but I thought Esmeralda was really good."

Kathryn said she spent a month practicing. Like the other contestants, she had to memorize poems and then hone her performance. Poems recited by others included William Blake's "The Tyger," Lewis Carroll's "Jabberwocky" and Mary Howitt's "The Spider and the Fly." Students also represented three other high schools — Modesto, Patterson and Johansen.

Created by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation, the Poetry Out Loud competition takes place in all 50 states plus the District of Columbia, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico. Its nationwide launch was in 2006, with tens of thousands of high school students participating. Last year, 365,000 students in grades nine through 12 competed on the local level, according to www.poetryoutloud.org. The winners of state competitions are flown to the national finals in Washington, D.C., to vie for scholarships.

Grace Lieberman, director of the arts council, said she's glad the students are following in the footsteps of their elders, who used to have to memorize poems in school as a matter of course. "It teaches students to think, to memorize, to have good posture, to project their voices," she said.

In addition to Kathryn and Esmeralda, the other competitors were Ezequiel Amador (Modesto High), William Bowerman (Modesto High), Sierra Brown (Pitman High), Krissy Debler (Patterson High), Hannah Fontes (Pitman High), Haley Green (Enochs High), Vanessa Lightfoot (Modesto High), Laquisha Parker (Johansen High), Simon Wilson (Patterson High) and Kristen Woodward (Patterson High).

The performance judges were Karen Baker, Lynn Hansen and Gary Thomas, all featured in the recent Modesto poetry anthology "More than Soil, More than Sky." A fourth judge, Brenda Robert, scored the competitors on accuracy.