Rebecca Wisniewski named Delaware Poetry Out Loud champion
Delaware News Desk
From a field of 10 Delaware high school students, Rebecca Wisniewski, a senior from Milford High school, earned the title of 2021 Poetry Out Loud Delaware State Champion at the state finals held virtually March 2.
The first runner-up was Lia Dougherty, from Sanford School in Wilmington, and the second runner-up was Janelle Carter, of Delaware Valley Classical School in New Castle.
Wisniewski is a member of the school drama club and has acted in plays and musical for years. She unexpectedly found that learning poetry has made her a better performer in general, saying, “you have to put yourself in the background while you are forming a deeper connection to the pieces. Reciting a poem means you have to pull from your emotions. It’s about being self-aware, even while forming a deep connection to the voices in the poems.”
Carol Feingold/Correspondent
Book lovers, never fear. COVID-19 won’t defeat the 16th annual Newburyport Literary Festival (NLF), which will take place as a live, online streaming event Friday, April 23 to Sunday, April 25.
To bring this year’s events to the public, the festival will once again partner with A Mighty Blaze, a social media initiative created by authors Jenna Blum and Caroline Leavitt to help promote other authors’ new books during the continued pandemic,
While everyone will miss the joy and excitement of the in-person festival, organizers are taking advantage of the online format to feature authors from Newburyport and around the world, from “Bel Canto” author Ann Patchett, who will participate from her home in Tennessee, and Kim Johnson, who will ring in from Oregon, to British mystery writers Ruth Ware, Elly Griffiths and Dorothy Koomson, who will all join from the UK.