Proud to Speak Poetry Out Loud!

On Thursday, February 5, Get Lit! Programs will be hosting the regional 2009 Poetry Out Loud competition at the MAC. Join us as students from area high schools--Bryant, Central Valley, East Valley, Havermale, Mead, Okanagan, and Phoenix--compete by reciting both classical and contemporary poetry. Last year, Kevin Ma and Sarah Woodroof from Mead High School (Kevin's the second on the left) were our regional finalists that we sent to state. We hear they might be coming back again this year...

Poetry Out Loud seeks to foster the next generation of literary readers by capitalizing on the latest trends in poetry - recitation and performance. The program builds on the resurgence of poetry as an oral art form, as seen in the slam poetry movement and the immense popularity of rap music among youth. Through Poetry Out Loud, students master public speaking skills, build self-confidence, and learn about their literary heritage. The program is sponsored by the Washington State Arts Commission, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Poetry Foundation.

In 2008, BreAnna Jones, a 10th grader from West Valley High School in Yakima won the state competition and went to Washington, DC for the nationals.

Winners advance from classroom competitions to school-wide, then regional, and then state level competitions, with one student from each state going to the National Finals. Each winner at the state level will receive $200 and an all-expenses-paid trip to Washington, DC, to compete for the national championship. Poetry Out Loud will award a total of $50,000 in scholarships and school stipends at the National Finals.

This event runs from 6pm to 8pm and is free.

Updike on Creative Writing

“I seem most instinctively to believe in the human value of creative writing... as a mode of truth telling, self-expression and homage to the twin miracles of creation and consciousness. ”
John Updike in his 2005 NPR This I Believe essay "Testing the Limits of What I Know and Feel"

On January 27, novelist, poet, short story writer, art critic, and literary critic John Hoyer Updike put down his pen forever. Through his 76 years, he was a prolific writer, publishing more than twenty-five novels and more than a dozen short story collections, as well as poetry, art criticism, literary criticism and children's books. He received Pulitzers for his books Rabbit is Rich and Rabbit at Rest.

The Washington Post hails him as a "prolific chronicler of small-town angst" who wrote "finely polished novels and stories exploring the virtues, vices and spent hopes of America's small towns and suburbs." The New York Times describes him as "endowed with an art student’s pictorial imagination, a journalist’s sociological eye and a poet’s gift for metaphor" and "this country’s one true all-around man of letters."

This amazing man touched many. Today, The New Yorker published Updike tributes from George Saunders, Antonya Nelson, Paul Theroux and more. He published hundreds of stories, reviews, and poems in the magazine, starting in 1954.

As a way of saying farewell to an American icon. Get Lit! wants to know, what is your favorite Updike piece? Did he or his work influence your writing, reading, thinking, or living? Let us know.

Ellen Wittlinger Tells it Like it Is

One of the most featured authors of teen book sites and MySpace discussions is joining us for our Young Adult event on Sunday, April 19.

Ellen Wittlinger is a former children’s librarian, Iowa Writer’s Workshop graduate, and Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center fellow (twice!) who writes YA books that realistically portrays the issues of today's teenagers. She doesn’t shy away from controversial topics such as oral sex and gay teens coming out, which caused residents in Alabama to try to censor her novel Sandpiper, while high schoolers all over the country devour her books.

Ellen started out as a poet and published Breakers in 1979. It wasn’t until she had two kids of her own and was working as a children’s librarian that she thought of writing for the YA market. She found her true calling; after two other successful novels, Hard Love was published in 1999 and became an American Library Association Michael L. Printz Honor Book, a Lambda Literary Award winner, and a Booklist Editors' Choice. She wrote nine more great books for the YA audience. Her most recent, Love & Lies, is a companion book to the award-winning Hard Love. In it, Marisol returns to accomplish two things: write a novel and to fall in love. “Marisol remains the character we came to know and love in Hard Love: unflinching, unsentimental, and wickedly funny. She is one of the most realistic lesbian characters ever to appear in a young adult novel. " -- K. T. Horning, Worth the Trip

But you don't have to be a teenager to enjoy Ellen’s books! Check out to these interviews conducted by the various audiences who love Ellen Wittlinger’s prose: Author profile on teenreads.com, Teacher Trenches: An Interview with Ellen Wittlinger, and Ravenstone Press’ Authors Among Us - Children's Writers Who Are or Who Have Been Librarians. See you all on the 19!

Greatest Living Canadian Gives us the Big Picture

When the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) asked their viewers to rate their greatest citizens, David Suzuki came in fifth. But that's not a bad placement, the people preceding him were all dead. This very much alive award-winning scientist, environmentalist, broadcaster, and author works hard to sustain, not only his own, but all life on our planet. He’s been awarded 22 honorary degrees for his work of popularizing science and environmental issues.

Suzuki served as a full Professor at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver from 1969 until his retirement in 2001. He is professor emeritus at UBC's Sustainable Development Research Institute. His broadcasting career includes Suzuki on Science, Science Magazine, The Nature of Things, A Planet for the Taking, the critically acclaimed PBS series The Secret of Life, and the Discovery Channel series The Brain: The Universe Within. He’s also written more than forty books.

In 1990, he founded the David Suzuki Foundation with his wife, Dr. Tara Cullis. Through this non-profit, they champion sustainably and uses science and education to promote solutions that help conserve nature. According to Time Magazine, “Suzuki has become one of the crucial hubs in the cultural ecology of our strained earth. Biologists talk about keystone species essential for the proper function of an ecosystem; Suzuki is a keystone guy.”

Please join us on April 18 to hear this remarkable man read from his latest book: The Big Picture.

For a preview of the treat you’re in for, watch these interviews of David Suzuki on YouTube and Google Video. To read some of his latest articles, please visit the Science Matters archive.