Willimantic – Two students from EASTCONN’s Arts at the Capitol Theater (ACT) arts magnet high school were among 15 finalists in the Hill-Stead Museum’s prestigious 2014 Fresh Voices Poetry Competition.
ACT students Gage Stone Baker, of Tolland, and Kaelie Martin, of Lebanon, were chosen as finalists in the annual student poetry competition called Fresh Voices, part of the nationally renowned Sunken Garden Poetry Festival that is held each summer on the grounds of Farmington’s Hill-Stead Museum.
Stone Baker and Martin are ACT Creative Writing students of ACT teacher Barbara Greenbaum.
“It was such an honor to be chosen as a finalist for this amazing competition,” said Greenbaum of her students. “I am so happy and so proud of these wonderful young writers.”
“We had nearly 100 entrants – and of those, only 15 finalists were selected,” said Kate Ebner,
manager of Interpretation and Programs
at the Hill-Stead Museum. “It was very challenging for our readers to make the selections, as so many of the entries were remarkable.” The Fresh Voices Poetry Competition is open to Connecticut high school students.
The Fresh Voices student finalists read their poems before judges at the Hill-Stead Museum’s Makeshift Theater in early May. While Baker and Martin did not win the contest, the 15 finalists’ poetry readings so impressed the Fresh Voices judges that Susan Ballek, executive director and CEO of the Hill-Stead Museum decided to publish one poem by each of the 15 finalists on the Fresh Voices Web site (currently being built) in the next few months, according to an e-mail from Ebner.
The 2014 Sunken Garden Poetry Festival will take place on Wednesday evenings, June 11, June 25, July 9, July 23 and August 6, 2014. Visit www.sunkengardenpoetry.org for more information about the festival.
To learn more about ACT’s Creative Writing program, contact ACT Principal Tracy Goodell Pelletie