I'm now into my sixth Youth Poetry Contest organized five years ago to give school children in my area the opportunity to try their hand at writing poetry. Each year there has been a theme to write about. This year's is "I Wonder..." Amazing the wonderful ideas that get expressed by young students from grade 1st through 12th grade from those few words. The idea started in my mind and got developed by an opportunity that developed at Tuacahn Saturday's market in Ivins, Utah. Then with support from our local Washington County School District who helped promote and publicize with their teachers as well as private and home schools in the county, we were off and running. Prizes were donated by local merchants and prize money from grants from Utah state and National Endowment for the Arts.
The first year was slow going with only 100 students participating until last year's contest had 400+ students. Organizing all the entries by email-cut and paste into a word program plus a few paper entries was time consuming and very frustrating. This year's contest sponsored now by the
St George Book Festival was aided by James Duckett who designed a program for submission and also thanks to Lenore and Shane for help with judging! Photos of winners coming later this week as they read their winning entries at an awards program on Sat-Oct 24th. Trying to help others find their voices through poetry is what it's all about for me.
