PB POETRY FESTIVAL Applauds the Winners of High School Poetry Contest 2022
The Floridant/10163189

DELRAY BEACH, Fla. - Floridant -- (Delray Beach, FL – January 10, 2022) Susan R. Williamson, Director of the Palm Beach Poetry Festival, and Blaise Allen, Ph.D., the Festival's Director of Community Outreach, today announced the winners of the annual Palm Beach County High School Poetry Contest. The 18th annual Poetry Festival starts today and runs through January 15, 2022.

In addition to cash prizes, each of the five winning poets will also receive a one-year subscription to Poets and Writers Literary Journal, and their poems have been published online on the Festival's official website

(www.palmbeachpoetryfestival.org).

The $200 first place prize went to Alyssa jean-Louis, from Royal Palm Beach, a senior at A.W. Dreyfoos School of the Arts in West Palm Beach. She won for her poem Heritage? Her sponsoring teacher is Ms. Brittany Rigdon.

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The next four $100 winners are in order of their finish:

+ David Levinson, a junior at Jupiter Community High School, for his poem lost spaceman. His sponsoring teacher is Ms. Danielle Steyn.

+ Priya Gowda, from Jupiter, a freshman at Dreyfoos School of the Arts, for her poem Unbelonging. The sponsoring teacher is Ms. Rigdon.

+ Kaja Andric, from West Palm Beach, a senior at Dreyfoos School of the Arts, for her poem Ocean. Her sponsoring teacher is Ms. Rigdon.

+ Sarah-Lyse Kirsteen Exume, a senior at Wellington Community High School for her poem This Side of my Skin. Her sponsoring teacher is Ms. Silkia Aviles.

"This year the Palm Beach Poetry Festival High School Poetry Contest received nearly 200 submissions," says Dr. Allen. "We are grateful to our contest judge, Dr. Jeff Morgan from Lynn University in Boca Raton, for once again choosing this year's winners."

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"The Poetry Festival has been honored to work with high school teachers throughout Palm Beach County for a decade and a half. We have visited hundreds of classrooms to discuss the craft of poetry and encourage students to write original poems. Every year we are impressed by the quality of their work. Many of our past winners have gone to college to become teachers themselves, and we are always hopeful that the students will continue to discover the delights that poetry offers us," she adds. "As celebrated poet Carolyn Forche has pointed out, you find in poetry, something that is not found anywhere else."

Available for Interview

Blaise Allen, Ph.D., Director of Community Outreach

Palm Beach Poetry Festival

954.729.8007

blaise@palmbeachpoetryfestival.org

Media Contact:

Gary Schweikhart, PR-BS, Inc.

561.756.4298 / gary@pr-bs.net