Hi everyone, I'm David Toland and I'm honored to serve as the Lieutenant Governor of the great state of Kansas alongside Governor Laura Kelly.

It's my pleasure to welcome you to the Kansas State Finals of the Poetry Out Loud competition.

Every year, our state's arts agency, the Kansas Arts Commission, partners with the National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation to promote the study of exceptional poetry in our schools.

The poetry recitations you're about to see and hear will demonstrate countless hours of hard work by some of our state's most talented young people.

We are proud to share their impressive and moving performances, and even though it's a competition with only one champion, I think you'll all agree that they are all winners.

So to get the program started, it's now my pleasure to introduce our host, Kansas Poet Laureate Tracy Brimhall.

We hope you enjoy Poetry Out Loud.

[Music] This program on KTWU is sponsored by Ann and Ray Goldsmith.

Supporting excellence through lifelong learning that benefits our community.

Bringing growth and beauty to our lives.

Ben and Judy Coates proudly support KTWU and arts education.

[Music] Welcome to the 2026 Kansas Poetry Out Loud State Championship.

I am Traci Brimhall, the current Poet Laureate of the State of Kansas, and I am excited to join you in celebrating the courage and artistry of these students as they bring poetry to life.

This event is not just a competition.

It is a celebration of language, history, and the power of the human voice.

Poetry Out Loud is a national arts education program presented by the National Endowment for the Arts.

It encourages students across the country to explore great poetry through memorization and performance.

But what makes this program so special is it's not simply the recitation of lines.

It is the transformation that happens when a poem moves from the page into a living, breathing performance.

What you will see today is not just memorization, but interpretation, an understanding of tone, meaning, and emotional depth.

Now to share how this journey unfolded across Kansas this year, please welcome Cheryl Germann, State Coordinator for Poetry Out Loud.

The journey to this stage begins in classrooms across Kansas, where teachers introduce students to the richness of language and the enduring voices of poets, past and present.

From there, each high school or organization is able to select one representative to advance to their regional competition.

At each regional event, students stand and give voice to poetry with clarity, depth and confidence.

This year, five extraordinary students have earned their place here.

Today, one of them will be named the 2026 Kansas Poetry Out Loud Champion and will go on to represent our state at the national finals.

Carrying with them not only their own hard work, but the pride of Kansas.

This is how today's competition will unfold.

Each student has thoughtfully selected three poems from the official Poetry Out Loud anthology this year, in recognition of America's 250th anniversary the anthology consists of poems that celebrate the rich tapestry of American history and culture.

During each round, our judges will evaluate the recitations using carefully established criteria.

They will consider the student's physical presence and posture, and will listen for voice projection and articulation.

They will assess the appropriateness of dramatization and look for evidence of understanding.

Finally, they will evaluate the overall performance, the complete and cohesive presentation of the work.

In addition, each recitation will be scored for accuracy, honoring the discipline and preparation required to faithfully render each poem from memory.

Following the second round, the three students with the highest cumulative scores will advance to the final round of competition.

After the third and final round of recitations, the judges scores will be carefully tabulated.

The students with the highest overall total will be named the Kansas Poetry Out Loud Champion.

And now it is time to begin.

Our first competitor is Miriam Mantara.

[Music] My name is Mairiam Mantara.

I am from Blue Valley High School.

I'm a junior in high school and I am from Overland Park, Kansas.

It is not my first time competing, but as it is my first time at state, which I'm very excited about.

I think the reason I didn't advance faster was because I didn't have the love for poetry that I have now, which is why I think I'm more passionate about it.

And I'm here now.

So I'm very excited.

[Music] It Was Not Fate by William H. A. Moore.

It was not fate which overtook me.

Rather a wayward, willful wind that blew hot for a while.

And then, as the evening shadow came blue cold.

What a pity it is that a man grown old in life's dreaming should stop, even for a moment, to look into a woman's eyes.

And I forgot.

Forgot that one's heart must be steeled against the east wind.

Life and death alike come out of the east.

Life as tender as young grass.

Death as dreadful as the sight of clotted blood.

I shall go back into the darkness.

Not to dream, but to seek the light again.

I shall go by paths, mayhap on roads that wind around the foothills.

Where the plains are bare and wild.

And the passers-by come few and far between.

I want the night to be long.

The moon blind.

The hills thick with moving memories.

And my heart beating.

A breathless requiem.

For all the dead days I have lived.

Dawn deathless dreaming I shall will that my soul must be cleansed of heat.

I shall pray for strength to hold children close to my heart.

I shall desire to build homes where the poor will know shelter, comfort and beauty.

And then may look into a woman's eyes and find holiness, love, and peace, which passeth understanding.

[Applause/music] Up next we have Keiryn Hein.

My name is Keiryn Hein I go to Northfield Academy, which is in Wichita, and, I am a junior in high school.

Yes, this is my very first time competing in Poetry Out Loud and I just recently actually learned about it.

And it's it's been a lot of fun to just perform because I love performing.

So it's been a ton of fun.

Chicago by Carl Sandburg, Hog butcher for the world tool maker.

Stacker of wheat, player with railroads and the nation's freight handler.

Stormy.

Husky brawling.

City of the Big Shoulders.

They tell me you are wicked.

And I believe them.

For I have seen your painted women under the gas lamps.

Luring the farm boys and they tell me you are crooked.

And I answer, yes, it is true.

I have seen the gunmen kill and go free to kill again.

And they tell me you are brutal.

And my reply is on the faces of women and children.

I have seen the marks of want and hunger.

And having answered so, I turn once more to those who sneer at this my city, and I give them back the sneer, and say to them, come and show me another city with lifted head singing.

So proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning, flinging magnetic curses amid the toil of piling job on job here is a tall, bold slugger set vivid against the little soft cities, fierce as a dog with tongue lapping for action, cunning as a savage pitted against the wilderness, bare headed shoveling, wrecking, planning, building, breaking, rebuilding.

Under the smoke.

Dust all over his mouth.

Laughing with white teeth.

Under the terrible burden of destiny.

Laughing as a young man laughs.

Laughing even as an ignorant fighter laughs.

Who has never lost a battle.

Bragging and laughing that under his wrist is the pulse and under his ribs the heart of the people laughing, laughing.

The stormy, husky brawling laughter of youth.

Half naked, sweating, proud to be hog butcher, tool maker, stacker of wheat, player with railroads and freight handler to the nation.

[Applause/music] Taking the stage now is Seth Wilson.

[Applause/music] My name is Seth Wilson.

I'm a senior from Girard High School.

I'm involved in a lot of different clubs.

Reflections, which is a choral singing group, FBLA, which is Future Business Leaders of America and many more, as well as Poetry Out Loud.

This is actually my third year competing in Poetry Out Loud, and my second year going to state.

Like I said, it's my senior year, but my sophomore year I made it to the state level and placed second.

O captain, My Captain by Walt Whitman.

Oh, captain, my captain.

Our fearful trip is done.

The ship has weathered every wreck.

The prize we sought is won.

The port is near the bells.

I hear the people all exulting while follow eyes.

The steady keel.

The vessel grim and daring.

But all heart, hearts, hearts.

Oh, the bleeding drops of red.

We're on the deck.

My captain lies fallen cold and dead.

O captain, my captain, rise up and hear the bells rise up for you.

The flag is flung for you.

The bugle trills.

For you bouquets and ribboned wreaths for you the shores a crowding.

For you.

They call the swaying mass Their eager faces turning.

Here, captain.

Dear father, this arm beneath your head.

It is some dream that on the deck you've fallen cold.

And dead.

My captain does not answer his lips are pale and still.

My father does not feel my arm.

He has no pulse, nor will the ship is anchored safe and sound.

Its voyage closed and done from fearful trip.

The victor ship comes in with object one.

Exult O shores and ring O bells.

But I with mournful tread.

Walk the deck.

My captain lies fallen cold and dead.

[Applause/music] The next student to present is Tehya Burnham.

[Applause/music] My name is Tehya Burnham.

I'm in.

I'm a freshman in ninth grade.

I'm from Baldwin City where I go to high school.

it is my first time competing.

And it's been.

It's been great.

A little bit stressful just from, like, learning the poems.

But all of the judges have been super nice and everything.

To a Young Dancing Girl.

by Elsa Gidlow Golden eyed girl.

Do you see what I see?

Do you see behind the veil that life laughs through?

Golden eyed girl I would like to laugh with you.

But my veil is torn.

And I see things pass.

Like shadows in the depths of a crystal glass.

Golden eyed girl, you are young as springtime.

Your great eyes dream full.

Your rare lips sweet shadows matter little to youth.

With dancing feet and all of life skeletons wear gay dresses and youth is deceived by even death's caresses.

Golden eyed girl, you have many years to dance and wonder.

Before your life's curtain will wear into holes.

And let you see the hopelessness hidden in souls.

Many moons of laughter, many years to go before you will learn how heavy dancing feet can grow.

[Applause/music] Please welcome our final competitor, Scarlett Ellenz [Applause/music] I'm Scarlett Ellenz I'm from Tipton Catholic High School and I am from Tipton originally.

It's a really small town.

I actually attended State Poetry Out Loud last year, and I have to say, from this year to last year, the environment's a little different.

It's a little more close, but I actually like that.

So I can feel more one on one with my judges A January Dandelion by George Marion McClellan.

All Nashville is a-chill.

And everywhere like desert sand.

When the winds blow, there's each moment sifted through the air a powdered blast of January snow.

Oh thoughtless dandelion.

To be misled by a few warm days.

To leave thy natural bed.

Was folly, growth and blooming over soon.

And yet, thou blasted, yellow coated gem.

Full many a heart has but a common boon with thee now freezing on thy slender stem.

When the heart has ballooned by the touch of love's warm breath.

Then left and chilling snow is sifted in.

It still may beat but there is blast and death to all that blooming life that might have been.

[Applause/music] Before we begin round two let's take a moment to meet our distinguished judges.

Laura Lawson is an editor, producer, and broadcast announcer for Kansas Public Radio in Lawrence, where she is the local host of NPR's All Things Considered.

She has more than 35 years of experience in news and features reporting and editing, with a particular focus on the role that the humanities and fine arts play in shaping culture as a whole.

Brennan Bestwick is a poet from Randolph, Kansas.

He is an AWP Intro to Journals Award winner and the recipient of a Glenna Luschei Prairie Schooner Award.

His writing appears in Best New Poets, Colorado Review, The Journal, The Offing, Eco Theo Review, and elsewhere.

Annette Hope Billings is an award winning poet, actress and storyteller from Topeka, Kansas.

After a four decade long career as a nurse, she became a full time writer in 2015.

Her work includes four collections of poetry, her most recent being Just Shy of Stars.

On February 2nd of this year Billings was awarded the Governor's Award for Excellence in Artist Achievement in Literature, given by the Kansas Arts Commission.

Huascar Medina is a poet, father, editor and essayist.

He served as Kansas Poet Laureate from 2019 to 2022.

He's the former lit editor for 785 magazine and senior editor at South Broadway Press.

He has three collections of poetry on Mango Grows in Kansas, How to Hang the Moon and Protest as Love Poem.

This is the fifth year Robert Hubbard has served as accuracy judge for the Poetry Out Loud finals.

A veteran in film and video production.

He has been script supervisor for several of Kevin Willmott films, including the upcoming film on poet George Moses Horton, the Bard.

Robert has also made his own short films and has written film and music related content for websites and publications.

The writer Zadie Smith said, time is how you spend your love, and we are so grateful to have these accomplished judges offering their time to be with us here today and share their love of poetry.

We will now begin the recitations for round two.

We invite Miriam Mantara back to the stage.

Conscience by Henry David Thoreau.

Conscience is instinct bred in the house.

Feeling and thinking.

Propagate the sin by an unnatural breeding.

In and in.

I say turn it outdoors into the moors.

I love a life whose plot is simple and does not thicken with every pimple.

So, so sound.

No sickly conscience binds it.

That makes the universe no worse than it finds it.

I love an earnest soul whose mighty joy and sorrow were not drowned in a bore.

And brought to life tomorrow.

But one tragedy and not seventy.

A conscience worth keeping.

Laughing, not weeping, a conscience wise and steady.

And forever ready.

Not changing with events, dealing in compliments, a conscience exercised about large things.

Where one may doubt I love a soul, not all of wood.

Predestined to be good, but true to the backbone and to itself alone and false to none.

Born to its own affairs, its own joys and own cares.

By whom the work which God begun is finished and not undone.

Taking up where he left off.

Whether to worship or to scoff, if not good, why then evil, if not good God, good devil.

Goodness, you hypocrite, come out of that.

Live your life.

Do your work.

Then take your hat.

I have no patience towards such conscientious cowards.

Give me simple laboring folk who love their work.

Whose virtue is a song to cheer God along.

[Applause] Next to recite her second poem is Kieryn Hein.

[Applause] Departed Days by Oliver Wendell Holmes.

Yes, dear departed cherished days.

Could memories hand restore your morning light Your evening rays from time's gray urn once more.

Then might this restless heart be still.

This straining eye might close and hope her fainting pinions fold.

While the fair phantoms rose.

But like a child in ocean's arms.

We strive against the stream.

Each moment farther from the shore.

Where life's young fountains gleam.

Each moment fainter wave the fields and wider rolls the sea.

The mist grows dark.

The sun goes down.

Day breaks.

And where are we?

[Applause] Up next we have Seth Wilson.

[Applause] If I had a million by Samuel Alfred Beadle.

If I had $1 million.

I don't know what I do, but I sometimes think I'd stroll around and squander few.

Or maybe I'd steal away to the country's quietude and spend the rest of my life among the simple and the rude.

I hardly think with the fashionable I'd be imbued and the society woman I swear I would elude.

Nor should the bosoms of my Sunday shirts be immaculate, even a million.

I don't think my cranium would inflate, because I'd like to slip a cog and go it with a bit, with my soul.

A glow of passion for my brother in the pit.

Proud to be with the commoners I'd rusticate a while, nor would I care.

Accursed thing about the latest style Brogan shoes and homespun socks.

The very things I need for too much dress and fashion.

Would my life step impede a single gallus friend would hold my breeches on to me and I would not care a snap about The doctrine of the broad brimmed hat I'm sure I would not heed.

I believe in reducing things to what we really need.

Besides, I've always been content under a brimless cap to go out with the urchins, a frolicking, jolly chap with them I'd like to take just now a little bit of ease.

A lounging where I used to out under the apple trees, a whittling and swapping jokes with Bill and Tom and Ned, and let our memories filled to round the lore of the trundle bed.

I over and above it all.

This is the simple truth.

If I'd it and could, I would spend a million for my youth.

Then with my true love I would go a sparking it again.

And hold my love upon her My tongue could never explain.

To lead her once again My friend through the old Virginia real.

To salute her, to balance all again.

To fondly feel the same old bliss I used to while swinging corners all and stepping to the music to the jocund country ball were worth millions of yellow pelf to a maimed old chap like me, and I'd give it, if I could, with the zest of childish glee.

Oh, if I could but put away my gout and rhamitis' And take an old time outing from the pressure of my biz.

With a bonny girl, then youth I'd go to the fair old sunny clime down the sylvan haunts of Dixie Where the jessamines ever twine.

Where the lilies faint of sweetness in ever blows the thyme where the seasons all are summer and the climate is sublime.

Where the rose aflame of beauty drops its petals on the sward.

Geraniums blush of scarlet the passion flowers nod in the breezy sweeps of zephyrs bring on the metric chime of the winged minstrelsy in in the glory of their prime.

If you could take the silver from this old pate of mine.

Call back my youth a-gambling down yon vista way sublime.

And bring me back my true love.

My long lost love again.

Up from among the daisies.

Where she so long hath lain.

The million dollars you might have.

And millions o'er and o'er again I'd take my love and youth.

And ask for nothing more.

[Applause] The next student to present is Tehya Burnham.

[Applause] My Papa's Waltz by Theodore Roethke The whiskey on your breath could make a small boy dizzy.

But I hung on like death.

Such waltzing was not easy.

We romped until the pans slid from the kitchen shelves.

My mother's countenance could not un frown itself.

And the hand that held my wrist was battered on one knuckle.

And with every step you missed my right ear scraped a buckle.

You beat time on my head with the palm caked hard by dirt.

Then waltzed me off to bed still clinging to your shirt.

[Applause] Our final presentation for the second round comes from Scarlet Ellenz.

[Applause] For Who?

by Mary Weston Fordham When the heavens with stars are gleaming like a diadem of light.

And the moon's pale rays are streaming.

Tacking earth with radiance bright.

When the autumn's winds are sighing over the hill and over the lee.

When the summer time is dying wanderer, wilt thou think of me?

When thy life is crowned with gladness.

And thy home with love is blest.

Not on one brow overcast with sadness.

Not one bosom of unrest.

When at eventide reclining at thy hearthstone gay and free.

Think of one whose life is pining.

Breathe thou love, a prayer for me.

Should dark sorrow's makes thee languish Cause they cheek to lose its hue.

In the hour of deepest anguish darling, then I'll grieve with you.

Though the night be dark and dreary and it seemeth long to thee I would whisper.

Be not weary, I would pray love then for thee.

Well, I know that in the future I may cherish naught of earth Well, I know that love needs nurture, and it is of heavenly birth.

But though ocean waves may sever I from thee, and to thee from me still this constant heart will never, never cease to think of thee.

[Applause/music] And while the judges tabulate scores from rounds one and two, let's take a moment to learn more about our participants.

[Music continues] My mom is a literature teacher, and she loves poetry.

And I think that that kind of pushed off onto me.

I'm also part of, like, competitive speaking at school, and I found a love for poetry there as well.

So I just loved it so much.

And the messages that it holds.

I took a poetry class, I think I was in eighth grade, and I sort of fell in love with it, and I started writing a lot of poems and, reading a lot of poems, started doing Poetry Out Loud and started reading more different types of poems that I've never read before and learned how to do spoken word poetry.

And it's it's been so much fun.

I think poetry appeals to me so much just because of how different these performances can be.

You can practice a million different times and say your lines a million different times, but when you get on to that stage, there's going to be something that's a little bit different from what you practiced.

You know, it's just that fluidity and change of performance, especially with poetry and these poems that I've selected today, allow me to bring a new performance every time I step up in front of that mic.

[Music continues] I'm not really sure.

I haven't really paid much attention to it before this year, but I really liked it once I started getting into it.

I just love poetry because there's so many different interpretations of it.

I can read a poem and get a completely different thought or idea than someone else reading it, and I feel like if we can do that and we can understand it like that, then we can do that with other things too.

And just the messages we get from it is so important.

[Music continues] I chose “It Was Not Fate”, “Conscience” and”Friendship After Love”.

The first two I chose because they really resonated with me and what I was going through at the current moment.

And then I'm a really big romance fanatic, so that's why I chose “Friendship After Love”.

My first poem that I'm performing is Chicago by Carl Sandburg, and then I Have Departed Days by, Oliver Wendell Holmes.

And then I also have a Nation Strength by, William Ralph Emerson.

And they are poems that I just, I read and I felt very connected to.

And two of them, I think are very important for like just where we are in the world right now and how we need to be together as a community.

And I think that's that's something that's very important to me.

I chose to perform O captain, My Captain by Walt Whitman, Departed Days by Oliver Wendell Holmes, and If I had a Million by Samuel Alfred Beadle.

And the reason I chose these poems is that each one of them have this different sort of mood shift, where in the beginning of every single one of these poems, there's some sort of mood presented, whether it's happier or more gloomy.

But as the poem progresses and goes on, you can sense that there's an emotional shift and change.

And I really love those types of poems where it kind of shifts the whole entire theme of it.

I chose, To a Young Dancing Girl, by Elsa Gidlow because it connected with me as a person.

I love to dance.

And then My Popa's Waltz.

I just connected it that on like a deeper level, with things that have happened in my life and my experience.

And then We Wear the Mask because of, like, society is like, look.

And you have to, like, hide yourself from others to be fit and and.

[Music continues] I chose the poem of January Dandelion because it's very relatable and with your relationships, because you can be really eager about something like put your all into it.

But sometimes that just doesn't work.

You have to ease your way into things.

And I chose For who?

because we all grieve, we all deal with things, and we have to learn that other people are too.

You have to help other people to in order to help yourself sometimes.

[Music continues] I definitely would I think I also want to give writing poetry a chance.

So I think starting there would be my advice, but performing that is just as fun.

Absolutely.

It's like a different type of medium that people don't really care about a lot anymore.

And I think it's thought of as like boring and dull.

But it has so much soul and meaning to it.

It's like music and it's it's gorgeous.

It's so beautiful.

And it's a great way to like, if you want to write it, it's a great way to like, say things in a different way that you can't say any other way, if that makes sense.

I think poetry especially allows kids to connect in different ways to the arts.

When you're reciting a piece of work that somebody wrote 200 years ago, it's a different sort of connection than any other piece of art, whether it be music or performing on an instrument.

I think poetry just allows a unique approach to storytelling.

[Music continues] I most definitely would.

I would tell them that it's a different way of writing, and it's a different way to like, perceive things, and that it's very interesting to like, see the different connections between the words Always give poetry a chance.

I mean, you are giving poetry a chance every single day when you're listening to music, all you have to do is pay attention to the lyrics.

[Music continues] The three contestants with the highest combined scores from round one and two will advance to compete in round three.

Those students are Miriam Mantara Scarlett Ellenz and Kieryn Hein.

Congratulations on moving on to the final round.

Please welcome our first contestant in round three, Scarlet Ellenz [Applause] Conscience by Henry David Thoreau.

Conscience is instinct.

Bred in the house.

Feeling and thinking.

Propagate the sin by an unnatural breeding.

In and in I say turn it outdoors into the moors.

I love a life whose plot is simple and does not thicken with every pimple.

A so sound no sickly conscience binds it that makes the universe no worse than it finds it.

I love an earnest soul whose mighty joy and sorrow are not drowned in a bowl and brought to life tomorrow that lives one tragedy and not seventy.

A conscience worth keeping laughing, not weeping, a conscience wise and steady and forever ready.

Not changing with events, dealing and compliments.

A conscience exercised about large things where one may doubt.

I love a soul not all of wood predestinated to be good, but true to the backbone unto itself alone and false to none.

Born to its own affairs, its own joys and own cares, by whom the work which God begun is finished and not undone.

Taking up where he left off, whether to worship or to scoff.

If not good, why then evil, if not good God, good devil, goodness, you hypocrite, come out of that.

Live your life, do your work, then take your hat.

I have no patience towards such conscientious cowards.

Give me simple laboring folk who love their work.

Whose virtue is a song to cheer God along.

[Applause] Up next we have Miriam Mantra.

[Applause] Friendship After Love by Ella Wheeler Wilcox.

After the fierce midsummer, all ablaze has burned itself to ashes and expires in the intensity of its own fires.

There come the mellow, mild Saint Martin days, crowned with the calm of peace but sad with haze.

So after love has led us till he tires of his own torments and throws and desires come large eyed friendship with the restful gaze he beckons us to follow.

And across cool, verdant vales we wander free from care.

Is that a touch of frost lies in the air.

Why are we haunted with a sense of loss.

We do not wish the pain back or the heat.

And yet.

And yet these days are incomplete.

[Applause] Our final reader in round three is Kieryn Hein.

A Nation's Strength by William Ralph Emerson.

What makes a nation's pillars high and its foundations strong?

What makes it mighty to defy the foes that round it throng?

It is not gold Its kingdoms grand go down in battle shock.

Its shafts are laid on sinking sand, not on abiding rock.

Is it the sword?

Ask the red dust of empires passed away.

The blood has turned their stone to rust.

Their glory to decay.

And it pride?

That bright crown has seemed to nation sweet.

But God has struck its luster down in the ashes at his feet.

Not gold, but only men can make a people great and strong men who for truth and honor's sake, stand fast and suffer long, brave men who work while others sleep, who dare while, others fly.

They build a nation's pillars deep.

And lift them to the sky.

[Applause/music] While we compile the scores from round three, let's hear from our judges.

Please help me welcome Annette Hope Billings to share a poem Brava.

When they called “places” she refused to debut as a victim, she made them hold Act One while she adjusted her stance.

She called for a Bedazzler to decorate her scars, and made them reprint the playbill and rename her character Survivor.

She made her entrance, found her mark, upstaged all doubt that she could carry the part.

By the time they called curtain Roses carpeted her stage, she bowed before a rapt audience who exchanged their pity.

Their pity for applause.

[Applause] Up next to share a poem is Robert Hubbard.

[Applause] The Net by Margaret Widdemer The strangers' children laugh along the street.

They know not or forget the sweeping of the net.

Swift to ensnare such careless feet.

And we, we smile and watch them pass along.

And those who walk beside soft smiling, cruel-eyed.

We guard our own, not our eyes, to right the wrong.

We do not care.

We shall not heed or mark till we hear one day too late the strife or pray, our daughters voices crying from the dark.

[Applause] Our next judge to share a poem is Huascar Medina.

This poem is titled Mother Tongue Palabras are family prayers of intercession and a different mother tongue is not a crime.

My mother's accent is more light than heavy.

When speaking the word heaven.

I hear Haven, a place of refuge and safety.

If only she could speak that into being I might feel safer for all of us.

Havenly mother, protect us from the racists and the xenophobes.

Pray for us now and in every hour of our living.

Share your mother tongue miracle.

Teach me to speak Saint before the words abuela, abuelo, madre, padre, hijo y hija are taken right out of our mouths and even further from our homes.

[Applause] Our next judge to share a poem is Brennan Bestwick.

[Applause] Horses in the orchard.

The school bus chased two mares through the orchard.

Our parents don't believe it.

Whose horses ran where?

Round the mailboxes.

Over the daisies between the pear trees.

The peaches rattled like juice glasses stacked up in the cupboard.

Beautiful horses headed to the lake.

We're losing sleep over it.

Who could they belong to?

I believe in the occasional miracle that they kept running down the boat dock to the mile long bridge.

Not swimming, gliding over the surface of the dark water.

Miracle.

Mares not struck with the hard edge of a rider's heel.

Where could they go but anywhere we imagine?

Weeks after the children tell each other stories about the horse's origin.

The toy horses on my windowsill are gone.

A boy known for lying says he saw a rodeo clown at the barbershop, asking around.

Where does any wild thing start?

Horses ran out of the cedars from God knows, juniper berries tangled in their manes, bus huffing.

Each kid on the route has a plan for finding them.

Cowboys with lassos, sugar cubes as big as hot air balloon baskets.

I'm growing an orchard.

I'll sit still as a plum on the branch.

No quiet stays long.

Everything I've seen could happen again.

[Applause] And lastly, please help me welcome Laura Lawson to share a poem.

After all these talented people, I will be reading something someone else wrote.

This is The Curtains in the House of the Metaphysician by Wallace Stevens.

I particularly love Wallace Stevens.

It's just I love his backstory.

Insurance guy worked, doing, underwriting, wrote poems in his spare time.

He'd always been a poet when he was in school and such, but, finally decided he would publish.

And this poem was published in Poetry the magazine of verse in October of 1919, which I think is really significant aside from the fact that it's finally in the public domain so we can all enjoy it.

But also, this was a time of transition and a time that was very disturbing and very uneasy.

Europe was essentially bleeding itself dry.

Everything was terrifying.

And I feel like this poem, The Curtains in the House of the Metaphysician, reminds us that even in difficult times, there is time for contemplation, and poetry helps us organize our thoughts and might help us find some measure of peace.

In times that are dark.

It comes about that the drifting of these curtains is full of long motions, as the ponderous deflations of distance, or as clouds inseparable from their afternoons, or the changing of light, the dropping of the silence, wide sleep and solitude of night.

In which all motion is beyond us.

As the firmament up rising and down falling bares that last largeness a largeness bold to see.

[Applause/music] The time has finally come for us to announce the results of the 2026 Kansas Poetry Out Loud finals.

The champion will receive $200 and the opportunity to compete in the National Poetry Out Loud contest.

This student school also receives $500 to purchase poetry resources for its school library.

Should the Kansas State winner be unable to participate in the National Poetry Out Loud finals, the runner up will represent Kansas at the national competition.

The runner up receives $100, and their school also receives $200 for poetry materials.

The person receiving third place in the 2026 Kansas Poetry Out Loud competition is.

Scarlet Ellenz.

[Applause] The second place runner up for the 2026 Kansas Poetry Out Loud is Kieryn Hein [Applause] The 2026 Kansas Poetry Out Loud champion is Miriam Mantra.

[Applause] As we conclude these remarkable performances, we extend our deepest congratulations to all of today's competitors.

Each student who stood on this stage demonstrated courage, discipline, and a profound respect for the power of language.

We also offer our sincere thanks to the many individuals who make this event possible.

Our dedicated judges, whose thoughtful deliberation honors both craft and integrity.

Our regional coordinators who guide and support this program across Kansas.

Our teachers who nurture a love of literature in their classrooms Our parents and families whose encouragement sustains these students.

And our special guests, whose presence affirms the importance of the arts in our communities.

Poetry Out Loud is more than a competition.

It is a celebration of voice, of memory and of connection.

And today, that celebration has been beautifully realized.

[Music] We invite you to continue this journey with us by watching our Kansas State champion represent our state at the national semifinals on April 28th at arts.gov.

Thank you for being a part of this extraordinary event.

We hope that the words you heard and the performances you witnessed today linger with you beyond this stage.

[Music continues/Applause] This program on KTWU is sponsored by Ann and Ray Goldsmith, supporting excellence through lifelong learning that benefits our community, bringing growth and beauty to our lives.

Ben and Judy Coates proudly support KTWU