Demarest Teen Wins Poetry Competition

DEMAREST, N.J. — A young poet from Northern Valley Regional High School Demarest will move on to the next round of the Poetry Out Loud Championships.

Ava Panetto, left, of Northern Valley Regional High School Demarest won the 2015 Poetry Out Loud Champion. Regan Mizrahi and Sara Reshamwala were the two runners up.
Photo Credit: *Northern Valley Regional High School Demarest via Facebook*

Cindy Capitani

12/30/2015 5:30 a.m.

Ava Panetto won the 2015 Poetry Out Loud Champion. She will now move on to compete in the Regional Championship. The two runners up were Regan Mizrahi and Sara Reshamwala.

Poetry Out Loud, a free national program sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation, encourages high school students across the country to learn about great works of classic and contemporary poetry through memorization and recitation.

Students share their interpretation and delivery of poetry; they also vie for awards and scholarships totaling $50,000.

All schools follow the same contest structure, which begins at the classroom level. Classroom winners advance to a school-wide competition, then to a Regional Competition, followed by the NJPOL State Finals in March of 2016.

The NJPOL State Champion wins an all-expenses paid trip to Washington, D.C. to compete in the National Finals in May 2016.

The New Jersey Poetry Out Loud State Finals will take place on Thursday, March 17 at The College of New Jersey in Ewing.

Click here for more information about NJ Poetry Out Loud.

Click here for more information about Northern Valley Regional High School Demarest.

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