Poetry Connection: Connecting with Young People

Melinda Palacio, Santa Barbara Poet Laureate

Last week, I had the pleasure of being the Emcee for the Poetry Out Loud competition. Most of the students were from Righetti High School and the program was held at the Santa Maria County building. Teacher Krissy Kurth does a wonderful job preparing the students for the competition. Although I am often called on judge poetry contests, I was glad I wasn’t a judge this time; the competition was tough. Poetry Out Loud is different because the students recite a well-known poem. Student Kohen Ross was the runner up for her recitation of Love Song by Dorothy Parker. Three of Santa Barbara’s past Poet Laureates: David Starkey, Chryss Yost, and Perie Longo served as judges and named Alicia Blanco, who recited From the Sky by Sara Abou Rashed, the winner. All three judges felt that Alicia Blanco truly understood the poem and assignment. 

 

Poetry Out Loud helps high school students learn about poetry through memorization and performance. It was nice to see the camaraderie between the participants. Hannah Rubalcava served as prompter, someone who is at ready to give the students the next line in case they forget. Recitation from memory is such a brave act. I was pulling for every student. The county winners will compete virtually at the California Poetry Out Loud State Finals and have a chance to compete in the national competition. The state champion receives a $200 cash prize and all-expense-paid trip to Washington, D.C., $500 for their school to purchase literary materials, and an opportunity to compete at National Finals for college scholarship funds. 

 

Young creatives also showed their talents at the 2024 Annual Teen Arts Mentorship Exhibition. I was pleased to see poetry represented as an art medium. Two categories were represented: Expressive Figure Drawing with mentors Austin Raymond and Chiara Corbo and Creative Expression with Typewriters with mentor Simon Kiefer. All Santa Barbara County high school students ages 13-18 are eligible to apply to one or more mentorships in their area.

 

If you’ve been to the farmers market or First Thursdays downtown, you’ve probably seen Simon Kiefer offering impromptu on-demand poetry. Simon has spent the last ten years using typewriters to facilitate creative self-expression and community building. In the South County Mentorship with Simon, students used vintage typewriters to express themselves with poetry and creative writing and added a visual element to their words. Student participants included Alex Ortiz, Heidi Sanchez Marquez, and 16-year-old Elsie Sneddon. 

 

Elsie Sneddon happens to be my neighbor and the daughter of City Councilmember Kristen Sneddon. Thanks to the Arts Fund and their Teen Arts Mentorship Exhibition at the Community Gallery in La Cumbre Plaza, I was able to see her poems transposed into works of art. This week’s poetry connection features three new poems by Elsie Sneddon. 

 

 

Garden Song

Elsie Sneddon

 

The great wide sidewise seam

like the split of a melon

The boys I love will smash them against the edge of the sink

and picture the flesh that stumbles from them to the floor is caked with the stink and the bees that all live in their abdomens

People think they don't live in me too

but they don't know that I have to be quiet because of the deafening buzz

 

I stay hungry;

imagine my stomach all scooped out,

feel the knocking of my gut-bell hard against the rind

 

Peel

Elsie Sneddon

 

I peel the skin back and find tiny cities there-

the places where you brushed against my temple all have hardened

What does it take to discover you 

over and over and over

and to feel the pins of all your tiny lights? 

 

Your dead end honey

touch me lovely

put my face plate in its place

This drawer

the milk you bound

it doesn't burn me now

The debt of pleasure

next endeavor

finding something new to sever

come on cry

releasing something shy and

dirty

I am hurting

I still never

feel enough to feel

half of the things 

I have the power to.

Road Dream

Elsie Sneddon

 

I kept trying to sleep but heat lightning danced behind my eyes 

and then I fell:

in my dream I was almost windblown enough to be a shell

a hull of some great ship

blown by electricity

and then I was a husk

of corn

and all my kernels rotted 

and my precious teeth fell out

and the inbred dogs ate them,

my pearly whites down their gullets

 

Creaking down the steps inside a house where no one lives

I etch my face into the countryside and I don't know just how to move

 

And sometimes nothing's right 

and always so much is missing

but sometimes I look into the grass and I don't say a thing and so I looked into the grass and smiled and I just sat there thinking

that if I called this place home

I'd find it hard not to believe in something

Elsie Sneddon is a musician and artist who enjoys learning new things and experimenting with different creative outlets. She especially loves writing, singing, playing, and recording music under the name "Golden Teeth." She is new to sharing her poetry, and her poetic work is currently being showcased for the first time at the Arts Fund Community Gallery.

*an earlier version of this column appears in the Santa Barbara Independent