His confident, clear-throated poetry recitations give off no hint of nerves. But before Micah Meadowcroft takes the stage he must calm his emotions with plenty of water and silent reminders about pronouncing his words with conviction.
Meadowcroft’s pre-performance routine paid off in February when he won the Southwest Washington Regional Poetry Out Loud Competition. On Saturday, the junior from Cedar Tree Classical School in Ridgefield will look to duplicate that success at the Poetry Out Loud Washington State Final in Tacoma.
“He grabs you with his intensity and feeling and emotion,” the school’s headmaster, Tom Bradshaw, said of Meadowcroft. “He makes you want to listen.”
Meadowcroft, 16, and his junior classmate, Kelsey O’Neill, 16, will compete at the state competition. O’Neill finished second in regionals.
Poetry Out Loud is sponsored by The National Endowment for the Arts and Poetry Foundation.
Meadowcroft finished second at regionals last year. He failed to finish in the top eight at state. He hopes to achieve a better result this year. The state winner receives $200 and an all-expenses paid trip to the national finals April 25-27 in Washington, D.C.
“I’d love to win,” Meadowcroft said. “That would look really good on a college transcript, I’m sure.”
Meadowcroft recited Billy Collins’ “The Death of Allegory” and Edgar Allen Poe’s “A Dream Within A Dream” en route to winning the regional poetry contest. In addition to those poems, he will also read a Mark Doty poem titled “Golden Retrievals.”
The most challenging part of reading a new poem, he said, is determining how to best capture the poet’s sentiments, something that comes with hours of practice.
As a whole, Poetry Out Loud has been beneficial to students at Cedar Tree, a K-12 Christian school, because it has taught them to express themselves better and be better community leaders, Bradshaw said.
Camas writer’s novel considered for prize
When Terry DeHart decided to pen a science fiction novel, after years as a technical writer and consultant, he took on two fears at once: the hard-to-navigate world of book publishing and the apocalypse.
That first fear proved less daunting than the 50-year-old Camas resident expected, and “The Unit” was released in July. The second fear? It’s at the heart of DeHart’s novel, about a family that’s driving through the southern Cascades when terrorists launch a nuclear attack. “I wanted to write something that scared me to death,” DeHart said.
Now he’s waiting to learn if those frights also moved a panel of judges. “The Unit” was one of 54 novels deemed eligible for the Arthur C. Clarke Award, one of the most prestigious prizes for science fiction books. Six finalists will be named today. The winner will be announced April 27.
DeHart said he’d be surprised if he made the short list, but he’s thrilled that his book was even considered.
Now he’s hard at work on the sequel, which follows the son from “The Unit” as he navigates a gritty world recovering from catastrophe.
He’ll also be reading from “The Unit” as part of Camas’ First Friday celebration of the arts and culture tonight. He’s scheduled to read at 8 p.m. at Lizzabeth A, 415 N.E. Birch St., Camas.
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