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Hill-Stead Young Poets Competition
For the past eleven years over 100 aspiring high school poets from all corners of Connecticut have put pen to paper, gathered their courage and entered the Sunken Garden Poetry Festival's Young Poets Competition. Their effort is justified. Every year a handful of winners reads their original verse before over 1,000 rapt listeners seated on blankets and lawn chairs within the picturesque amphitheatre of Hill-Stead Museum's one-acre sunken garden in Farmington. Even the 90 or so "also-rans" benefit from their brush with the competition experience. Every student who enters can take pride in the accomplishment of submitting a manuscript for consideration—writing, re-writing and meeting deadlines. This year, the deadline for submission is March 5. The competition is open to all high school-age writers who have not won in previous years. For guidelines, students should go to Hill-Stead Museum's web site at <www.hillstead.org>, or call Joy Pachla at 860-677-4787. There is no fee to enter.
Hill-Stead's Young Poets Competition is a rewarding, albeit rigorous, process. Finalists "audition" before a panel of judges, which includes one of their peers, a former Young Poet winner. The six successful candidates who emerge from the competition's final stage win on the combined strength of their texts and oral presentations. In addition to performing at the renowned Sunken Garden Poetry Festival in August, winners receive a summer of individualized mentoring with a professional poet. They also publish in a special edition chapbook and participate in public readings throughout the Greater Hartford region. Alison Meyers, the festival's artistic director, notes that this unique mentoring component is "perhaps the competition's greatest distinction." In past years, winners have worked with such prestigious poets as Connecticut Poet Laureate Marilyn Nelson, Pulitzer Prize nominee Sue Ellen Thompson, and award-winning poet Rennie McQuilkin. The line-up of mentors in 2003 will be no less impressive.
In 2003, a Young Musicians Competition will again complement the Young Poets Competition. This exciting companion competition, co-sponsored with Hill-Stead Museum by the Hartt School, University of Hartford, offers prestigious awards, including a performance in the Sunken Garden Poetry Festival in August. For details, Connecticut high school students should call 860-768-4451, or visit the Hartt Community Division website at <www.hartford.edu>.
A National Historic Landmark, Hill-Stead Museum in Farmington is noted for its 1901 33,000-square-foot house filled with art and antiques. Pioneering female architect Theodate Pope designed the Colonial Revival-style house, set on 152 hilltop acres, to showcase the Impressionist masterpieces amassed by her father, Cleveland iron industrialist Alfred A. Pope. A centerpiece of the property is the ca. 1920 sunken garden designed by landscape architect Beatrix Jones Farrand, and today the site of the summer-long poetry festival. The house is open year-round for tours; for more info call 860-677-4787.
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