by Stephanie Kane
Carrboro Commons Writer

In an initiative to promote youth in the arts, the Town of Carrboro is conducting its first Carrboro Youth Poetry Contest. Submissions are due by April 4.

Recreation supervisors Dana Hughes (left) and Kim Andrews have developed programs to support writing and poetry among Carrboro citizens.
Staff photo by Stephanie Kane

Three winners from the elementary, middle and high school levels will be announced on May 4 in conjunction with festivities for the 13th annual Carrboro Day. The awards ceremony will include public readings of the winning poems as well as publication in The Carrboro Citizen and the distribution of various other prizes.

Kim Andrews, a recreation supervisor of the Carrboro Recreation and Parks Department, is currently receiving the poem submissions. However, she credits Neal McTighe, Carrboro poet laureate, with proposing the competition.

“It was Neal’s prerogative as poet laureate to get youth involved in poetry,” Andrews said, adding that the Parks and Recreation Department would support this initiative however they could.

McTighe and the Carrboro Day Committee will be judging the poems.

Though this is the pilot year for the event, both Andrews and McTighe said they anticipate the contest becoming an annual tradition, one that might spark additional youth poetry programs in the future.

Most Carrboro High School English classes incorporate poetry into the crowded curriculum, although educators and students believe more could be done.

Many teachers note Carrboro’s devotion to the arts as a town and hope to cultivate this through programs within the high school after other issues of being a new school are settled.

“We have [a lot] to do to support our student voices through poetry… We need to provide a venue for those voices, which we currently do not,” said Jan Gottschalk, an 11th grade Carrboro High English teacher.

Mariah Norris, a junior at Carrboro High School, reads in her Carrboro home. Norris writes for the CHS student newspaper, The JagWire, and plans to enter the Youth Poetry Contest.
Staff photo by Stephanie Kane

“I was excited about it as soon as my teacher told our class,” said Mariah Norris, a junior at CHS who writes for the school’s student publication, the JagWire.

“Poetry is an important way to express yourself, and I think that’s a lot of what Carrboro and Chapel Hill are about,” Norris said. She plans to enter the contest and hopes that other creative young writers will join her.

Andrews hopes to connect with the 18 and under population in Carrboro through other initiatives by the Parks and Recreation Department under the program “Poetry Alive.” These include Open Mic Nights at the Open Eye Café and the annual West End Poets weekend in October.

“Once people are exposed to poetry and see that there are so many different forms of it, we’ll reach some community members who might not have been interested but can really get engaged with this,” Andrews said.

The Town of Carrboro is accepting submissions for the Carrboro Youth Poetry Contest.

Participants must be 18 or younger, a resident of Carrboro and a poet. The contest will be divided into elementary, middle and high school levels, and each level will have one first-place winner and one honorable mention.

Winners will read their poems in a ceremony at Carrboro Day on May 4, and first-place poems will be published in The Citizen.

To submit a poem, mail it to: Carrboro Youth Poetry Context, Attn: Kim Andrews, 100 North Greensboro St., Carrboro, NC, 27510. Submissions should include the poet’s name, address, phone number, email address and date of birth, as well as the name of the poet’s school and a little about the poet. Submissions must be received by April 4.

Carrboro Parks and Recreation Department:

http://www.townofcarrboro.org/rp/
Carrboro Citizen:

http://www.carrborocitizen.com/main/
Carrboro High School:

http://www2.chccs.k12.nc.us/education/school/school.php?sectiondetailid=38387
Open Eye Café:

http://www.openeyecafe.com/
West End Poets’ Weekend:

http://www.westendpoetsweekend.com/