The dynastic Casey Goggin
Moore County high school student Casey Goggin was crowned the North Carolina champion of the 2014 Poetry Out Loud Competition for the second year in a row. That’s back-to-back championships for the sixteen-year-old from Pine Crest High School—officially making him a dynasty. At least in our books.
Goggin recited complex poems “The Bad Old Days” by Kenneth Rexroth, “Chorus Sacerdotum” by Fulke Greville, and “To Elsie” by William Carlos Williams. He was challenged by thirty-three other students from across the state in the annual recitation contest sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts and coordinated by the North Carolina Arts Council, a division of the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources.
He will compete in the national finals in Washington, DC, April 29-30.
Runner-up was Alisha Hartley from Central Academy of Technology & Arts in Union County with her recitations of “The Blues Don’t Change” by Al Young, “Invitation to Love” by Paul Laurence Dunbar, and “The Gift” by Li-Young Lee.
The Poetry Out Loud Competition features students in grades nine through twelve. Competitors at the state and national finals must be U.S. citizens or permanent residents; all poems must be selected from the Poetry Out Loud print or online anthology, which is updated every summer.
Goggin receives $200 and an all-expenses-paid trip to the nation’s capital for the Poetry Out Loud National Championship. There, the North Carolina representative will compete for a $20,000 college scholarship. His school receives a $500 stipend to be used for purchasing poetry books; Hartley won $100, and her school received a $200 stipend for buying poetry books. All students participating in the semi-finals receive free memberships to the North Carolina Writers’ Network and the North Carolina Poetry Society.
For more information on Poetry Out Loud, click here.
For a complete list of students competing at the North Carolina regionals, click here.
