Clifton Smith wins state award

HHS senior Clifton Smith won first place in the Tennessee Arts Commission Poetry Out Loud National Recitation Contest in Nashville on March 20. Pictured with him is HHS teacher Perry Burrows.

Haywood High School senior Clifton Smith, son of Annie Harden, won top honors in the National Endowment for the Arts/Tennessee Arts Commission Poetry Out Loud National Recitation Contest in Nashville on Saturday, March 20. Accompanying him to the contest was HHS teacher Perry Burrows.

Mr. Burrows, a language arts teacher at HHS, has had experience with this contest and was the sponsor for the HHS contest that Clifton won. According to Mr. Burrows, Clifton worked diligently to memorize the entries he recited and gave an outstanding performance. He recited Paul Lawrence Dunbar’s poem, “We Wear the Mask,” Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s “The Cross of Snow,” and Claude McKay’s “America.”

“This competition was incredibly challenging,” Mr. Burrows said. “All judges were professional poets, writers, performers and professors.”

Clifton received a cash award, and the school will receive $500 in poetry and poetry-related books for the library. He and Mr. Burrows will travel to Washington, D. C., to compete in late April in the national contest.

For more information, go to http://poetryoutloud.org/