- Hi everyone, I'm David Toland and I'm honored to serve as the Lieutenant Governor of the great State of Kansas alongside Governor Laura Kelly.

It's my pleasure to welcome you to the Kansas State Finals of the Poetry Out Loud Competition.

Every year our state's arts agency, the Kansas Arts Commission, partners with the National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation to promote the study of exceptional poetry in our schools.

The poetry recitations you're about to see and hear will demonstrate countless hours of hard work by some of our state's most talented young people.

We are proud to share their impressive and moving performances.

And even though it's a competition with only one champion, I think you'll all agree that they are all winners.

So to get the program started, it's now my pleasure to introduce our host Kansas Poet Laureate, Traci Brimhall.

We hope you enjoy Poetry Out Loud.

(bright music) (electricity fizzing) - [Announcer 1] This program on KTWU is sponsored by Ann and Ray Goldsmith, supporting excellence through lifelong learning that benefits our community, bringing growth and beauty to our lives.

- [Announcer 2] Ben and Judy Coates proudly support KTWU and arts education.

(bright music) - Welcome to the 2025 Kansas Poetry Out Loud recitation contest.

I am your host, Traci Brimhall, the current Poet Laureate of the State of Kansas, and I am so grateful that we are able to gather in the name of poetry.

Speaking of gratitude, I want to take this moment and thank our sponsors, the Kansas Arts Commission, the Poetry Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Without them, none of this would be possible.

Poetry Out Loud is a national arts education program that encourages the nation's youth to learn about great poetry through memorization and performance.

Reciting great poetry connects us to an ageless art form, to the timelessness of great poets, to abstract ideas and higher critical thinking and ultimately, to deeper life experiences.

Here to explain how the event unfolded across the state this year is Curtis Young, Director of the Kansas Arts Commission, and State Poetry Out Loud Coordinator, Cheryl Germann.

- For 20 years, the National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation have partnered with state arts agencies across the country to sponsor Poetry Out Loud, a national recitation contest.

The Kansas Arts Commission is proud to present the Poetry Out Loud program and is excited to partner with KTWU to bring poetry into homes and classes across Kansas and celebrate the hard work these students put in to get here today.

- Poetry Out Loud begins with teachers and students in classrooms and schools across the state.

Each high school can send one representative to their area's regional competition where the number of competitors determines how many advanced to the state finals.

This year, five students will compete to become the 2025 Kansas Poetry Out Loud champion and represent our state in the national finals.

- Here is how the contest works.

Students have each selected three poems from the Poetry Out Loud anthology.

Within their selections, they must include a poem that was written before the 20th century and a poem that is 25 lines or fewer.

During each round of the contest, the judges will assess the recitation on these criteria, physical presence and posture, voice projection and articulation, appropriateness of dramatization, evidence of understanding and overall performance.

In addition, each recitation will be scored for accuracy.

Following the second round, the three students receiving the highest total scores will compete in round three.

After the third round of presentations, the final scores will be tabulated.

The student with the highest total score will win the Kansas Poetry Out Loud Competition.

Let's get started.

Up first, we have Ashlyn Dobson.

(upbeat music) (audience applauding) - All right, my name is Ashlyn.

I'm from Manhattan, Kansas and I'm a senior.

It is my first time competing and thus far it's just been a really, like, strong community experience.

It's been really nice getting to know all the other performers and kind of creating a special bond with them.

I think getting close to people who are interested in the same things I am is really special and I think Poetry Out Loud is unique in that I kind of have that opportunity.

"1969," by Alex Dimitrov.

"The summer we all left for the moon even those yet to be born.

And the dead who can't vacation here but met us all there by the veil between worlds.

The number one song in America was 'In the Year 2525' because who has ever lived in the present when there's so much of the future to continue without us?

How the best lover won't need to forgive you and surely take everything off your hands without having to ask, without knowing your name, no matter the number of times you married or didn't, your favorite midnight movie, the cigarettes you couldn't give up, wanting to kiss other people you shouldn't and now to forever be kissed by the Earth.

In the Earth.

With the Earth.

When we all briefly left it to look back on each other from above, shocked by how bright even our pain is running wildly alongside us like an underground river.

And whatever language is good for, a sign, a message left up there that reads, 'Here men from the planet earth first set foot upon the moon, July 1969, A.D. We came in peace for all mankind.'

Then returned to continue the war."

(audience applauding) (upbeat music) - Up next is Sarah Rose.

(upbeat music continues) (audience applauding) - My name is Sarah Rose.

I am from Girard High School in Girard, Kansas, that's in the very southeastern corner of the state, and I'm a senior this year.

So this is not my first time competing.

It's my first time competing at the state level, but I have competed the last three years at my school wide.

Unfortunately we do not have a regional contest this year due to dropouts and me being the only person who is competing, but this is my first year being at the state level.

"Backdrop addresses cowboy" by Margaret Atwood.

"Starspangled cowboy sauntering out of the almost-silly West, on your face a porcelain grin, tugging a papier-mache cactus on wheels behind you with a string, you are innocent as a bathtub full of bullets.

Your righteous eyes, your laconic trigger-fingers people the streets with villains, as you move, the air in front of you blossoms with targets and you leave behind you a heroic trail of desolation, beer bottles slaughtered by the side of the road, bird-skulls bleaching in the sunset.

I ought to be watching from behind a cliff or a cardboard storefront when the shooting starts, hands clasped in admiration, but I am elsewhere.

Then what about me, what about the I confronting you on that border you are always trying to cross?

I am the horizon you ride towards, the thing you can never lasso.

I am also what surrounds you, my brain scattered with your tincans, bones, empty shells, the litter of your invasions.

I am the space you desecrate as you pass through."

(audience applauding) (upbeat music) - Up next, Ismail Saeed.

(upbeat music continues) (audience applauding) - So my name is Ismail Saeed, I'm from Wichita.

I go to East High School and I'm a senior.

Yeah, this is my first year.

I've known about it for a little bit, but I didn't decide to participate on this until this year.

Yeah, I started at an in-school competition and then I went to regionals and I'm here.

It's been a really good experience, a lot of learning and yeah, I've just had a lot of great opportunities and especially like a lot of good support from my teachers and my family, which I've loved.

"Shall earth no more inspire thee," Emily Bronte.

"Shall earth no more inspire thee, thou lonely dreamer now?

Since passion may not fire thee shall Nature cease to bow?

Thy mind is ever moving in regions dark to thee, recall its useless roving, come back and dwell with me.

I know my mountain breezes enchant and soothe thee still, I know my sunshine pleases despite thy wayward will.

When day with evening blending sinks from the summer sky, I've seen thy spirit bending in fond idolatry.

I've watched thee every hour, I know my mighty sway, I know my magic power to drive thy griefs away.

Few hearts to mortals given on earth so wildly pine, yet none would ask a heaven more like this earth than mine.

Then let thy winds caress thee, thy comrade let me be, since nought beside can bless thee, return and dwell with me."

(audience applauding) (upbeat music) - Our next performer is Scarlet Ellenz.

(upbeat music continues) (audience applauding) - My name is Scarlet Ellenz.

I'm a freshman and I'm from Tipton Catholic High School.

This is my first time.

It's been kind of a laid back experience, honestly.

We didn't really have a school competition, just kind of went right into regionals.

"Love Elegy in the Chinese Garden, with Koi" by Nathan McClain.

"Near the entrance, a patch of tall grass.

Near the tall grass, long-stemmed plants, each bending an ear-shaped cone to the pond's surface.

If you looked closely, you could make out silvery koi swishing toward the clouded pond's edge where a boy tugs at his mother's shirt for a quarter.

To buy fish feed.

And watching that boy, as he knelt down to let the koi kiss his palms, I missed what it was to be so dumb as those koi.

I like to think they're pure, that that's why even after the boy's palms were empty, after he had nothing else to give, they still kissed his hands.

Because who hasn't done that, loved so intently even after everything has gone?

Loved something that has washed its hands of you?

I like to think I'm different now, that I'm enlightened somehow, but who am I kidding?

I know I'm like those koi, still, with their popping mouths, that would kiss those hands again if given the chance.

So dumb."

(audience applauding) (upbeat music) - Our final performer for round one, Makenna Aiello.

(upbeat music continues) (audience applauding) - My name is Makenna Aiello.

I'm a senior at Olathe South High School and I'm from Olathe, Kansas.

This is my first year.

I heard about it at my school and I hadn't known that it was even a thing until my senior year, and it has been so fun.

I've really like connected with my coach a lot, who's also my English teacher, and she and I have gotten really close and I've really enjoyed being able to perform poetry 'cause I'm very passionate about it.

"Cartoon Physics, part 1," by Nick Flynn.

"Children under, say, 10, shouldn't know that the universe is ever-expanding, inexorably pushing into the vacuum, galaxies swallowed by galaxies, whole solar systems collapsing, all of it acted out in silence.

At 10, we are still learning the rules of cartoon animation, that if a man draws a door on a rock only he can pass through it.

Anyone else who tries will crash into the rock.

10-year-olds should stick with burning houses, car wrecks, ships going down, earthbound, tangible disasters, arenas where they can be heroes.

You can run back into a burning house, sinking ships have lifeboats, the trucks will come with their ladders, if you jump, you will be saved.

A child places her hand on the roof of a school bus, and drives across a city of sand.

She knows the exact spot it will skid, at which point the bridge will give, who will swim to safety and who will be pulled under by sharks.

She will learn that if a man runs off the edge of a cliff he will not fall until he notices his mistake."

(audience applauding) (upbeat music) - Before we begin round two, let's take a moment to meet our distinguished judges.

A seventh generation Kansan, Eric McHenry teaches English at Washburn University and was the Poet Laureate of Kansas from 2015 to 2017.

His books of poetry include "Potscrubber Lullabies," which won the Kate Tufts Discovery Award, and "Odd Evening," a finalist for the Poets Prize.

Mercedes Lucero is an Afro-Latinx writer and the author of "Stereometry," from another New Calligraphy Press in 2018.

They are the winner of the Langston Hughes Creative Writing Award for Poetry and a finalist for the Sandy Crimmins National Prize for Poetry.

Laura Lorson is a news editor, writer, host, and radio producer for Kansas Public Radio in Lawrence.

She's the host of the local broadcast of the NPR news magazine "All Things Considered," and is a contributor to KPR, NPR, the BBC and the CBC.

Huascar Medina is the lit editor for "785 Magazine," a staff editor at South Broadway Press, and an op-ed writer for "Kansas Reflector."

He's Kansas' first Latino Poet Laureate Emeritus and an Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellow.

Robert Hubbard, today's Accuracy Judge, has worked as a script supervisor for local filmmakers Kevin Willmott and Patrick Ray, amongst others, and has made his own short films.

We are so grateful to have these accomplished judges with us today.

The writer Zadie Smith said, "Time is how you spend your love," and we are so glad that these judges are offering their time and their love to poetry.

We will now begin the recitations for round two.

Up first, we have Ashlyn Dobson.

(audience applauding) - "Oranges" by Roisin Kelly.

"I'll choose for myself next time who I'll reach out and take as mine, in the way I might stand at a fruit stall having decided to ignore the apples, the mangoes and the kiwis but hold my hands above a pile of oranges as if to warm my skin before a fire.

Not only have I chosen oranges, but I'll also choose which orange, I'll test a few for firmness, scrape some rind off with my fingernail so that a citrus scent will linger there all day.

I won't be happy with the first one I pick but will try different ones until I know you.

How will I know you?

You'll feel warm between my palms and I'll cup you like a handful of holy water.

A vision will come to me of your exotic land, the sun you swelled under, the tree you grew from.

A drift of white blossoms from the orange tree will settle in my hair and I'll know.

This is how I will choose you, by feeling you, smelling you, by slipping you into my coat.

Maybe then I'll climb the hill, look down on the town we live in with sunlight on my face and a miniature sun burning a hole in my pocket.

Thirsty, I'll suck the juice from it.

From you.

When I walk away, I'll leave behind a trail of lamp-bright rind."

(audience applauding) - Up next is Sarah Rose.

(audience applauding) - "It Couldn't Be Done" by Edgar Albert Guest.

"Somebody said that it couldn't be done but he with a chuckle replied that, 'Maybe it couldn't,' but he would be one who wouldn't say so till he'd tried.

So he buckled right in with the trace of a grin on his face.

If he worried he hid it.

He started to sing as he tackled the thing that couldn't be done, and he did it!

Somebody scoffed, 'Oh, you'll never do that, at least no one ever has done it,' But he took off his coat and he took off his hat and the first thing we knew he'd begun it.

With a lift of his chin and a bit of a grin, without any doubting or quiddit, he started to sing as he tackled the thing that couldn't be done, and he did it.

There are thousands to tell you it cannot be done, there are thousands to prophesy failure, there are thousands to point out to you one by one, the dangers that wait to assail you.

But just buckle in with a bit of a grin, just take off your coat and go to it, just start in to sing as you tackle the thing that 'cannot be done,' and you'll do it."

(audience applauding) - Up next is Ismail Saeed.

(audience applauding) - "Say Grace" by Emily Jungmin Yoon.

"In my country our shamans were women and our gods multiple until white people brought an ecstasy of rosaries and our cities today glow with crosses like graveyards.

As a child in Sunday school I was told I'd go to hell if I didn't believe in God.

Our teacher was a woman whose daughters wanted to be nuns and I asked, "What about babies and what about Buddha?"

and she said, "They're in hell too," and so I memorized prayers and recited them in front of women I did not believe in.

"Deliver us from evil.

O sweet Virgin Mary, amen."

O sweet, O sweet.

In this country, which calls itself Christian, what is sweeter than hearing, "Have mercy on us," from those who serve different gods?

O clement, O loving, O God, O God, amidst ruins, amidst waters, fleeing, fleeing.

Deliver us from evil.

O sweet, O sweet.

In this country, point at the moon, at the stars, point at the way the lake lies, with a hand full of feathers, and they will look at the feathers.

And kill you for it.

If a word for religion they don't believe in is magic, so be it, let us have magic.

Let us have our own mothers and scarves, our spirits, our shamans and our sacred books.

Let us keep our stars to ourselves and we shall pray to no one.

Let us eat what makes us holy."

(audience applauding) - Up next is Scarlet Ellenz.

(audience applauding) - "So This Is Nebraska" by Ted Kooser.

"The gravel road rides with a slow gallop over the fields, the telephone lines streaming behind, its billow of dust full of the sparks of redwing blackbirds.

On either side, those dear old ladies, the loosening barns, their little windows dulled by cataracts of hay and cobwebs hide broken tractors under their skirts.

So this is Nebraska.

A Sunday afternoon, July.

Driving along with your hand out squeezing the air, a meadowlark waiting on every post.

Behind a shelterbelt of cedars, top-deep in hollyhocks, pollen and bees, a pickup kicks its fenders off and settles back to read the clouds.

You feel like that, you feel like letting your tires go flat, like letting the mice build a nest in your muffler, like being no more than a truck in the weeds, clucking with chickens or sticky with honey or holding a skinny old man in your lap while he watches the road, waiting for someone to wave to.

You feel like waving.

You feel like stopping the car and dancing around on the road.

You wave instead and leave your hand out gliding larklike over the wheat, over the houses."

(audience applauding) - Our next performer is Makenna Aiello.

(audience applauding) - "Miss you.

Would like to grab that chilled tofu we love," by Gabrielle Calvocoressi.

"Do not care if you bring only your light body.

Would just be so happy to sit at the table and talk about the menu.

Miss you.

Wish we could bet which chilis they'll put on the cubes of tofu.

Our favorite.

Sometimes green.

Sometimes red.

Roasted we always thought.

But so cold and fresh.

How did they do it?

Wish you could be here to talk about it like it was so important.

Wish you could.

Watched you on the screens as I was walking, as I was cooking.

Wish you could get out of the hospital.

Can't bring myself to order our dish and eat it in the car.

Miss you laughing.

Miss you coming in from the cold or one too many meetings.

Laughing.

I'll order already.

I'll order seven helpings, some dumplings, those cold yam noodles that you like.

You can come in your light body or skeleton or be invisible, I don't even care.

Know you have a long way to travel.

Know I don't even know if it's long at all.

Wish you could tell me.

What you're reading.

If you're reading.

Miss you.

I'm at the table in the back."

(audience applauding) (upbeat music) - [Traci] While the judges tabulate scores from rounds one and two, let's take a moment to learn more about our participants.

(upbeat music continues) - All right, so me personally, I'm a really big singer.

Poetry is just music.

Poetry, our stanzas, our lines, they're just lyrics, and the same thing, lyrics are just poetry.

And so there are so many poems that I've performed to music before.

You know, Sara Teasdale poems, Walt Whitman poems.

I've performed them to song before for different competitions.

And so reading through these poems, it's so easy to memorize 'cause you just think that if they had music behind them, how you would be performing them, the emotion you would have.

That's why I really love poetry.

(upbeat music continues) - I have always loved reading and I started writing poetry a couple years ago.

I just have always loved the fact that poetry gives you a chance to share your voice with other people and have that impact on people because poetry is so powerful and I don't know if some people understand how much of an impact that words can have on other people's lives.

- I love the idea of like taking a grander concept or like a message you're trying to say and then just like putting it down into simpler or not even simpler, just words with bigger meaning.

It's kind of like it don't need a whole speech to specifically give the message that I want.

I can just say it in a few stanza.

- Well, I'm a pretty avid reader and so poetry, I was always just kind of drawn to poetry.

I've done workshops, but I've also done slam poetry events, things like that.

But you know, every aspect of poetry, I just love engaging with the art.

- I just think that everybody needs a little bit of poetry in their lives, whether it's like a music or just reading it for yourself, it just opens up, like just makes you see so many different perspectives on things.

Like I could read a poem, be like, "Oh, this is so good.

It reminds me of people pleasing or this poem reminds me of a relationship I was in."

Just, everybody gets a different approach from it and everybody can still like it.

(upbeat music continues) - All right, so my first poem today is going to be "Backdrop addresses cowboy" by Margaret Atwood.

And Margaret Atwood, she wrote "The Handmaid's Tale," very famous author.

It has a little bit of anger behind it because we're looking at this archetypal cowboy heroic person coming into a town, everybody is just hands clasped in admiration, but this cowboy is causing destruction wherever he goes.

So we're seeing a different point of view on your classic cowboy type character.

My second poem is "It Couldn't Be Done," by Edgar Albert Guest.

And it is all about just if somebody says that you cannot do something, to completely ignore them, just say, "You know what?

Buckle right in with a trace of a grin on your face and that you'll do it."

And then my third poem, very classic poem, Walt Whitman, it's called "A Noiseless Patient Spider," an extended metaphor poem.

And we're comparing a spider out on a lake, casting its webs, being very patient, making sure that each web hits in the perfect place, comparing it to your soul, seeking out different opportunities wherever you go, making sure that you meet all of your goals and your opportunities.

- So my first poem is "Cartoon Physics, part 1," by Nick Flynn.

My second poem is, "Miss You.

Would like to grab that chilled tofu we love," by Gabrielle Calvocoressi.

And my third poem is "Sonnets from the Portuguese 43, How do I love thee?

Let me count the ways," by Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

- For my pre-20th century, I chose Emily Bronte.

I think I read a lot about the Bronte Sisters in my English classes, so I enjoyed their work a lot.

And then I chose "Say Grace" by Emily Jungmin Yoon for my second poem.

Oh, and then "Learning to Love America" by Shirley Geok-Lin Lim.

And my third, I usually do my process by just like randomizing my poetry and then I choose the ones that stick with me most.

But I knew that I wanted to specifically choose poetry that spoke to me and that it's something that I could speak through, so.

- My first one is "1969" by Alex Dimitrov.

My second one is "Oranges" by Roisin Kelly, and my third is "Death, be not proud" by John Donne.

I chose them because I wanted to, for one, kind of show off my range as a performer, but also to kind of express the different phases and aspects of life, that was kind of my goal.

- The first poem I'll be performing is "Love Elegy in the Chinese Garden, with Koi" by Nathan McClain.

And I chose that one because I just felt like it was a very relatable poem.

I feel like everybody has been in the same position as the poet.

And my second poem is "So This Is Nebraska" by Ted Kooser.

I really picked the poem because it made me feel connected to my surroundings because it just describes everything so well of what I grew up with, and I picked "A January Dandelion," because everybody has been in that emotional moment of not despair, but like need for somebody else to understand what they're going through.

And I think the poem just really brings that out on display for everybody to hear.

(upbeat music continues) - I'd say die right into it.

I would tell them to check out some of Sara Teasdale's poems.

She just has an incredible writing style, very beautiful, simplistic poems about nature, about themes of love, about longing, any of your pre-20th century, a lot of them are very, very simplistic.

It's easy to understand.

I know today we're so absorbed with our phones, our attention spans sometimes aren't the greatest and it can be harder to really get into, dive deep, analyze poetry.

So just simple poems again, Sara Teasdale, Walt Whitman, very simplistic poems that are easy to understand that message right up front.

- I really like Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost is another classic one but those are like the two poets that I have been exposed to that I've really loved.

- I think just finding what specifically you relate to and what you like to read.

You know, it's all personal to you.

Also things that like when specifically when you'll read a poem and you're like, "This is the one for me, like this feels like it was written specifically for me, I know exactly what they're trying to say," it's like a blissful feeling.

So some of the poets I read, Ocean Vuong, he's incredible, he writes a lot about like the Asian American experience and just like relations with that, which I enjoy a lot.

It's something I relate to.

And Mary Oliver, she does a lot of like natural poems, which I love, I love things that relate to nature.

Yeah, I just think it's incredible.

- Actually, that's something I love to do.

I love recommending poetry to my friends.

I'm especially passionate about Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, I don't know what it is but something about their prose I just really connect to and I like being able to share that passion of mine with my friends.

- I would definitely say Ted Kooser, especially from somebody like a friend of mine because everybody, especially from my small town, can experience what Ted Kooser is explaining in his poetry, small town, countryside, driving anywhere.

(upbeat music continues) - The three contestants with the highest combined scores from round one and two will advance to compete in round three.

Those students are Ashlyn Dobson, Ismail Saeed, and Makenna Aiello.

(audience applauding) Congratulations on moving on to the final round.

Up first in this round is Ismail Saeed.

(audience applauding) - "Learning to love America" by Shirley Geok-Lin Lim.

"Because it has no pure products, because the Pacific Ocean sweeps along the coastline, because the water of the ocean is cold, because land is better than ocean, because I say we rather than they, because I live in California, I have eaten fresh artichokes and jacaranda bloom in April and May, because my senses have caught up with my body, my breath with the air it swallows, my hunger with my mouth, because I walk barefoot in my house, because I have nursed my son at my breast, because he is a strong American boy, because I have seen his eyes redden when he is asked who he is, because he answers, 'I don't know,' because to have a son is to have a country, because my son will bury me here, because countries are in our blood and we bleed them, because it is late and too late to change my mind, because it is time."

(audience applauding) - Up next is Makenna Aiello.

(audience applauding) - "How do I love thee?

Let me count the ways," by Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

"How do I love thee?

Let me count the ways.

I love thee to the depth and breadth and height my soul can reach, when feeling out of sight for the ends of being and ideal grace.

I love thee to the level of every day's most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.

I love thee freely, as men strive for right, I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.

I love you with a passion put to use in my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.

I love thee with a love I seemed to lose with my lost saints.

I love thee with thee breath, smiles, tears, of all my life, and, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death."

(audience applauding) - Next we have Ashlyn Dobson.

(audience applauding) - "Holy Sonnets, Death, be not proud," by John Donne.

"Death, be not proud, though some have called thee mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so, for those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow die not, poor Death, nor yet can'st thou kill me.

From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be, much pleasure, then from thee much more must flow, and soonest our best men with thee do go, rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.

Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men, And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell, and poppy or charms can make us sleep as well and better than thy stroke, why swell'st thou then?

One short sleep past, we wake eternally and death shall be no more, Death, thou shalt die."

(audience applauding) (upbeat music) - While we compile the scores from round three, let's take a moment to hear from our judges.

Up first to share a poem is Eric McHenry.

(audience applauding) - Well, I'm honored and humbled to be judging once again and just floored by the standards set by the poets that have preceded me.

So I'm hoping I don't mess this up.

Here's a poem called "Feel Free."

"'Please don't feel obligated to reply,' is something I don't hesitate to write but hesitate to send.

I'm not sure why.

It strikes me as equivocal, I guess.

It's just so ostentatiously polite, as though its secret hope were to invite displays of even grander politesse.

Thank you so much, my selfless friend, for saving me time and inconvenience by waiving the only courtesy a person wants from any correspondent, a response, and doing so moreover, by appealing to my need not to feel the thing I'm feeling, a sense of obligation that occurred to me the moment you invoked the word.

It doesn't matter that it's what I mean, in other words, my fear of being seen as insincere is stronger than my fear of being impolite or insincere.

I also think it's possible to hear, above the overtones, the faintest whine of lazy self involvement in the line, as though I can't pretend to see a need for further comments now that I've made mine, which anyone is welcome to reread.

I realize these reservations must betray an unbecoming self distrust, and that they're overdone.

Nobody parses cliches this fussily except in farces.

I overthink, therefore I over-am.

If language were just infinite, discreet, tinted speech bubbles, one for every word, 10 for whatever I intended by it, 100 for the ways it was misheard, et cetera, like some Venn diagram of God's determination to keep quiet, I'd find another way of speaking, clearly.

But when I reread, 'Please don't feel,' I pause, linger, and know I'm going to delete first, 'Please,' and then the whole offending clause as surely as the software that abhors my sin is going to chasten in it with cerely and try to pin a truly onto yours," thanks.

(audience applauding) - Up next to share a poem is Mercedes Lucero.

- Hello, everyone, so happy to be here and so, so proud of all the contestants.

I would like to read a new poem that's not memorized, but it will be published next month in "Poetry Magazine," which I'm really excited about.

So I'll have that to look forward to, including catching the recording.

So this is a contrapuntal, it can be read in multiple ways, and so I will read it once in one version and then I will read it again in another version.

This is "Text/ile II."

"Dear Mary, metonym of mine to mind, Mary, Mari, Mare, Mere, Magdalene or Mother, not as Abuelita dreams of you holy, beloved symbol of self-sacrifice, not submissive as the cult of the virgin does not belong to me, having queered Mother Mary, I narrate beyond disciples trans-migrating into being, Mary, y Maria, Magdalena, y Mujer, altogether to become Marion apparition or Reina de Mexico, facing Sangre de Cristo Mountains, mononymous with Mary's sin, imagine the narrator trans-elations steeped in politics in each interpretation meaning whorish or humiliated sinner or sorrow/er, archetypal women revisioned, something mythic as sound dissolving into las canciones que dije llorr como Magdalena, luminously written first apostle."

"Dear Mary, metonym of mine to narrate beyond disciples' trans-elation, steeped in politics in each mind, Mary, Mari, Mare, Mere, migrating into being Mary, y Maria, interpretation meaning whorish or Magdalene or Mother, not as Magdalena y Mujer altogether.

Humiliated sinner or sorrow/er.

Abuelita of you holy, to become Marion apparition, archetypal woman revisioned, beloved symbol of self-sacrifice, or Reina de Mexico, facing something mythic as sound, not submissive as the cult of Sangre de Cristo Mountains, dissolving into las canciones.

The virgin does not belong to me.

Mononymous with Mary's sin, que dije llorar como Magdalena.

Having queered Mother Mary, I imagine the narrator, trans-luminously written first apostle," thank you.

(audience applauding) - Up next to share a poem is Laura Lorson.

(audience applauding) - All right, I feel a little silly surrounded by the great poets who are actually here and judging.

I needed to select a poem because you don't wanna hear my poetry, trust me on this.

So I wanted to share with you today a poem written in 1919 called "To Germany."

It was written by a Scotsman named Charles Hamilton Sorley.

"You are blind like us.

Your hurt no man designed, and no man claimed the conquest of your land.

But gropers, both through fields of thought confined, we stumble and we do not understand.

You only saw your future bigly planned, and we, the tapering paths of our own mind, and in each other's dearest ways we stand, and hiss and hate.

The blind fight the blind.

When it is peace, then we may view again with new-won eyes each other's truer form and wonder.

Grown more loving-kind and warm, we'll grasp firm hands and laugh at the old pain, but that's when it is peace.

Until peace, the storm, the darkness and the thunder and the rain."

Thank you.

(audience applauding) - Up next to share a poem is Huascar Medina.

(audience applauding) - This is a poem about a place that exists everywhere and nowhere all at once.

"Los Otros, Kansas."

"Los Otros is a neon brown floating city, a mobile border town with no jurisdiction and perpetual redistricting.

We only acknowledge its existence in the breaking news during election cycles.

Every state has a Los Otros, and many cities have dedicated neighborhoods and streets to the citizens of Los Otros, for better or worse.

Los Otros is treated like a far away place with no municipality, all locals are foreigners.

The red lines around their cities drawn out in quicksand, constantly coiling around its inhabitants.

The city of Los Otros has been known to disappear overnight, under the guise of economic development and urban renewal, swallowed up whole by gentrificator and gerrymander, a two-headed python with no end feasting on our plight.

Here, the cities of Los Otros have nicknames like "The Bottoms" and "La Yarda".

If you ever wondered if you have ever lived in Los Otros, you are not from Los Otros.

If your small town is dying, you have already been moved to Los Otros."

(audience applauding) - Our final judge to share a poem is Robert Hubbard.

(audience applauding) - Hi, this poem I chose is "We Lived Happily During the War" By Ilya Kaminsky.

"And when they bombed other people's houses, we protested but not enough, we opposed them but not enough.

I was in my bed, around my bed America was falling, invisible house by invisible house by invisible house.

I took a chair outside and watched the sun.

In the sixth month of a disastrous reign in the house of money in the street of money in the city of money in the country of money, our great country of money, we, forgive us, lived happily during the war."

Thank you.

(audience applauding) (upbeat music) - The time has come for us to announce the results of the 2025 Kansas Poetry Out Loud finals.

The champion will receive $200 and the opportunity to compete in the National Poetry Out Loud contest.

This student's school also receives $500 to purchase poetry resources for their school library.

Should the Kansas State winner be unable to participate in the National Poetry Out Loud finals, the runner up will represent Kansas at the national competition.

The runner up receives $100 and their school also receives $200 for poetry materials.

The person receiving third place in the 2025 Kansas Poetry Out Loud competition is Makenna Aiello.

(audience applauding) The second place runner up for the 2025 Kansas Poetry Out Loud is Ashlyn Dobson.

(audience applauding) The 2025 Kansas Poetry Out Loud Champion is Ismail Saeed.

(audience applauding) (upbeat music) Congratulations and thanks to all the students, judges, regional coordinators, parents, teachers, and our special guests for attending the Kansas Poetry Out Loud State Finals.

Remember that you can watch our state champion represent Kansas at the national semifinals arts.gov on May 6th.

(upbeat music continues) (audience applauding) (audience cheering) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) - [Announcer 1] This program on KTWU is sponsored by Ann and Ray Goldsmith, supporting excellence through lifelong learning that benefits our community, bringing growth and beauty to our lives.

- [Announcer 2] Ben and Judy Coates proudly support KTWU and arts education.