Shout out and SUCH thanks to San Antonio Poet Laureate Carmen Tafolla, and The Department of Culture and Creative Development (DCCD) for this—San Antonio’s first Citywide Spoken Word Poetry Contest!

For La Voz de San Antonio, Carmen Tafolla, in conjunction with DCCD and Gemini ink, invited members of the community “from five to 95” to participate in one of four community contests held during National Poetry Month. Contestants chose a poem to recite—one of their own or a favorite poem by another author. They recited in English, Spanish and Tex-Mex and were judged on stage presence, voice, clarity and dramatic interpretation. The finalists (one from each of six age categories at four preliminary events) competed on Friday, May 3, in the Grand Finale, with first, second and third place champions named in each age group. Prizes valued at $50-500 were awarded. Congratulations to all of our La Voz participants! Here is a list of the winners:

7 and under
1st, Sloane Spriester, “Red,” author

8-13 years
1st, Lauren Wagner, “Luna,” author
2nd, Stephen Zambrano, “My Dog Chewed Up My Homework,” Shel Silverstein
3rd, Ivy Klein, “Maggie, Milly, Molly, May,” E.E. Cummings

14-19 years
1st, Anastacia Valdespino, “Mirrors,” author
2nd, Jessica Redman, “Snowflakes,” author
3rd, Marcus Gabriel-Martinez, “Wayward San Antonio,” author

20-29 years
1st, Amanda Flores, “Manu Ginobili,” author
2nd, Kirk Cox and Jeremy Carrizales, medley (various authors)
3rd, Diamond Mason, “Note to Self,” Ebony Stewart

30-69 years
1st, Andrea Greimel, “Chafa,” author
2nd, Abdur Rahim, “A Butterfly with Working Wings,” author
3rd, Martha Ofelia Tavera, “Petalos de Papel,” author

70 and over
1st, Jacinto Cardona, “Yellow Taxi Cab,” author
2nd, Edgar Pace, “Passion,” author
3rd, Moses Sandoval, “Alicia in Wonderland,” Author

This camp definitely has strings attached—to puppets of course! Students will work with nationally recognized puppeteer Elijiah Rios of the Nopalito Playhouse to write their own script, craft their own puppets, and design the set of a short puppet show. In doing so, children will enjoy theatre games, practice strengthening their voice and public speaking, practice voice-over recordings and puppetry. Students will perform in a short puppet play on Sat., July 13, and they will get to keep their puppets.

Elijiah Rios founded Madmedia in 1997, an artist collective designed for creating experimental theater, and since then, he has collaborated with the YMCA in their after-school arts programming. He’s also  acted in several productions of Shakespeare in the Park, and is a regular performer for The Witte Museum. In 2011, Rios received a San Antonio Artist Foundation Award to create an original puppet show, El Conejo del Campo. His most recent endeavor, the Nopalito Playhouse, is focused on bringing arts opportunities to underserved youth in the Southside of San Antonio.

Explore the relationship between words and pictures and jumpstart your creativity. Poet La Villa-Havelin and Visual Artist Ybáñez will work with students to create visual stories, illustrations, illuminations, poems with pictures, word and picture journals. Examples of classic tales and multiple illustrated versions, artists’ books, visual novels, hybrid forms, and poems in calligraphic language, will be shared and used as inspiration for creating new original works. Among the works we will look at Hairs/Pelitos by Sandra Cisneros, with illustrations by Terry Ybáñez. We will also look at Cisneros’ work The House on Mango Street and work by William Blake, Kenneth Patchen and others, and use them to create poems, poem responses to paintings, and word and picture projects.

Terry Ybañez is a painter and printmaker whose exhibited in numerous places throughout the Americas, including at the University of Mexico (Mexico City) and the Galería de la Raza (San Francisco). She is a muralist and a children’s book illustrator. Her work can be seen in Carmen Tafolla’s book That’s Not Fair! / No es justo!: Emma Tenayuca’s Struggle for Justice/La lucha de Emma Tenayuca por la justicia (Wings Press, 2008), and in Hairs/Pelitos (Dragonfly Books, 1994) by Sandra Cisneros. Ybañez holds degrees in Studio Art and in Bilingual/Bicultural Studies. She teaches art in the San Antonio Independent School District.

Jim La-Villa Havelin is a poet, editor and arts educator. In the early 1970s Havelin founded the poetry series Poetry Central in Rochester., which became renowned for attracting poetry stars. In 1969, he co-founded Charon Press with Dave Roberts and Chip Schramm. Since 1986, he’s held positions at museums in New York, Cleveland, and since 1994, at the Southwest School of Art in San Antonio as the Young Artist Program Director. His poetry publications include Rites of Passage (Charon Books, 1969), Simon’s Masterpiece (White Pine Press, 1983), and Counting (Pecan Grove Press, 2010).

This class will focus on nurturing each student’s particular voice and vision through journaling. Many artists use journals to generate their more formal artwork. Others may use journals as a part of a more personal journey. LaVilla-Havelin will offer a variety of approaches to journaling, providing examples and exercises. Visitors to the class may include writers and visual artists willing to share their journals and their way of working, creating and observing. Each student will receive a journal which will be theirs to keep. The class will also contribute to a collaborative/shared/ responsive open journal which will be entered as a part of the 1000 Journals Project.

Jim La-Villa Havelin is a poet, editor and arts educator. In the early 1970s Havelin founded the poetry series Poetry Central in Rochester., which became renowned for attracting poetry stars. In 1969, he co-founded Charon Press with Dave Roberts and Chip Schramm. Since 1986, he’s held positions at museums in New York, Cleveland, and since 1994, at the Southwest School of Art in San Antonio as the Young Artist Program Director. His poetry publications include Rites of Passage (Charon Books, 1969), Simon’s Masterpiece (White Pine Press, 1983), and Counting (Pecan Grove Press, 2010).

Read more at mysanantonio.com and The Current.

#12 Ekphrastic Poetry: Moving Pictures, Illuminating Text at the San Antonio Museum of Art
Date: Sat, May 4 | 10-1pm
Limit: 15 Participants
Level: All
CPE Credits: 3 Language Arts
Cost: $95
Registration Deadline: Fri, May 3
Instructor: Joni Wallace

Joni Wallace earned her MFA at the University of Montana. She is the author of Blinking Ephemeral Valentine, selected by Mary Jo Bang for the 2009 Levis Prize (Four Way Books, 2001).