Poetry Connection | Connecting with Young People

Poetry Out Loud Competition Gives High School Students the Mic, While Teen Arts Mentorship Program Offers Professional Creative Guidance

Elsie Sneddon and Simon Kiefer. | Photo: Melinda Palacio

Last week, I had the pleasure of being the emcee for the Poetry Out Loud competition. Most of the students were from Righetti High School, and the program was held at the Joseph Centeno Betteravia Government Administration Building in Santa Maria. Teacher Krissy Kurth does a wonderful job preparing the students for the competition.

Santa Barbara County Poetry Out Loud First Runner Up Kohen Ross | Photo: Melinda Palacio

Although I am often called on to judge poetry contests, I was glad I wasn’t a judge this time; the competition was tough. Poetry Out Loud is different from most competitions because the students recite a well-known poem. Student Kohen Ross was the runner up for her recitation of “Love Song” by Dorothy Parker. Three of Santa Barbara’s past Poet Laureates: David Starkey, Chryss Yost, and Perie Longo served as judges and named Alicia Blanco, who recited “From the Sky” by Sara Abou Rashed, the winner. All three judges felt that Alicia truly understood the poem and assignment.

Poetry Out Loud helps high school students learn about poetry through memorization and performance. It was nice to see the camaraderie between the participants. Hannah Rubalcava served as prompter, her role was to be ready to give the students the next line if they forgot it. Recitation from memory is such a brave act. I was pulling for every student. The County winners will compete virtually at the California Poetry Out Loud State Finals and have a chance to compete in the national competition. The state champion receives a $200 cash prize and all-expense-paid trip to Washington, D.C., $500 for their school to purchase literary materials, and an opportunity to compete at the National Finals for college scholarship funds.

Santa Barbara County Poetry Out Loud Winner Alicia Blanco | Photo: Melinda Palacio

Young creatives also showed their talents at the 2024 Annual Teen Arts Mentorship Exhibition. I was pleased to see poetry represented as an art medium. Two categories were represented: Expressive Figure Drawing with mentors Austin Raymond and Chiara Corbo, and Creative Expression with Typewriters with mentor Simon Kiefer. All Santa Barbara County high school students ages 13-18 are eligible to apply to one or more mentorships in their area.

If you’ve been to the farmers’ market or First Thursdays downtown, you’ve probably seen Simon Kiefer offering impromptu on-demand poetry. Kiefer has spent the last ten years using typewriters to facilitate creative self-expression and community building. In the South County mentorship with Kiefer, students used vintage typewriters to express themselves with poetry and creative writing and added a visual element to their words. Student participants included Alex Ortiz, Heidi Sanchez Marquez, and Elsie Sneddon.

Elsie happens to be my neighbor and the daughter of City Councilmember Kristen Sneddon. Thanks to the Arts Fund and their Teen Arts Mentorship Exhibition at the Community Gallery in La Cumbre Plaza, I was able to see her poems transposed into works of art. This week’s poetry connection features three new poems by Elsie Sneddon.

Garden Song
By Elsie Sneddon

The great wide sidewise seam
like the split of a melon
The boys I love will smash them against the edge of the sink
and picture the flesh that stumbles from them to the floor is caked with
the stink and the bees that all live in their abdomens
People think they don’t live in me too
but they don’t know that I have to be quiet because of the deafening buzz

I stay hungry;
imagine my stomach all scooped out,
feel the knocking of my gut-bell hard against the rind

Elsie Sneddon is a participant in the Arts Fund 2024 Teen Arts Mentorship Exhibition | Photo: Melinda Palacio

Peel
By Elsie Sneddon

I peel the skin back and find tiny cities there-
the places where you brushed against my temple all have hardened
What does it take to discover you
over and over and over
and to feel the pins of all your tiny lights?

Your dead end honey
touch me lovely
put my face plate in its place
This drawer
the milk you bound
it doesn’t burn me now
The debt of pleasure
next endeavor
finding something new to sever
come on cry
releasing something shy and
dirty
I am hurting
I still never
feel enough to feel
half of the things
I have the power to.

Road Dream
By Elsie Sneddon

I kept trying to sleep but heat lightning danced behind my eyes
and then I fell:
in my dream I was almost windblown enough to be a shell
a hull of some great ship
blown by electricity
and then I was a husk
of corn
and all my kernels rotted
and my precious teeth fell out
and the inbred dogs ate them,
my pearly whites down their gullets

Creaking down the steps inside a house where no one lives
I etch my face into the countryside and I don’t know just how to move

And sometimes nothing’s right
and always so much is missing
but sometimes I look into the grass and I don’t say a thing and so I looked into
the grass and smiled and I just sat there thinking
that if I called this place home
I’d find it hard not to believe in something

Elsie Sneddon is a musician and artist who enjoys learning new things and experimenting with different creative outlets. She especially loves writing, singing, playing, and recording music under the name “Golden Teeth.” She is new to sharing her poetry, and her poetic work is currently being showcased for the first time at the Arts Fund Community Gallery. Elsie is a 16-year-old student.