Topsham HS student is Poetry Out Loud Maine champ

Rose Horowitz of Mt. Ararat High School won the 2016 Poetry Out Loud competition March 15 at the Waterville Opera House.

Horowitz will receive a cash award and her school will receive prize money to purchase poetry books for the library.

After participating in classroom, school-wide and regional level competitions, 10 state finalists recited three rounds of poetry from memory in the Maine state final. Horowitz recited “In the Basement of the Goodwill Store,” by Ted Kooser; “Mrs. Caldera’s House of Things,” by Gregory Djanikian; and “On An Unsociable Family,” by Elizabeth Hands.

As the Maine champion, Horowitz will represent the state at the National Poetry Out Loud Finals to be held May 2–4 in Washington, D.C, where students from all 50 states, the District of Columbia, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico will compete for the national title and a total of $50,000 in awards, including a grand prize of $20,000, and school stipends for the purchase of poetry.

Poetry Out Loud was established in 2006 and is sponsored annually at the state level by the Maine Arts Commission. This year’s competition included almost 10,000 students in 46 public and private Maine high schools.

Build it and they will come

Brunswick Junior High School’s Great Diamond Island team of seventh-graders will demonstrate how to use caulk, spray foam and weatherstripping, show how PowerHouse works, and how to create well-insulated “penguin shelters,” at a celebration of Project Wx Wednesday, March 30 at the Curtis Memorial Library.

Over the past few months, the Great Diamond Island Team has collaborated with Evergreen Home Performance and Hammond Lumber, which offered more than 80 seventh-graders the opportunity to develop a better understanding of how building science and improved energy-efficiency affect daily life, local economies, and the wider world.

After researching climate change and working with tools, materials, and technicians, the students are now eager to show what they have learned to the community. The hour-long program will begin at 6:30 p.m. in the library’s Morrell Meeting Room.

Rose Horowitz of Mt. Ararat High School bested nine other finalists to win the 2016 Poetry Out Loud state competition March 15.

Topsham student Nick Deveny-Freeman, at left, and Tucker Wnek of Harpswell served as honorary pages at the State House in Augusta recently. In addition, Brunswick Junior High School students Gus Silverman and Henry Heyburn served as pages in the Maine Senate.

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