HCR 136

R-160  Page 1 of 1
2025
No. R-160. House concurrent resolution congratulating Mapenzi Selemani of
Winooski on winning the 2025 Poetry Out Loud Vermont State championship and
commemorating the 20th anniversary of Poetry Out Loud.
                                         (H.C.R.136)
   Offered by Representatives Berbeco of Winooski and Tomlinson of Winooski
   Whereas, Poetry Out Loud is a nationwide high school poetry recitation competition
that receives national support from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry
Foundation, and locally, the Vermont Arts Council and the Flynn in Burlington are
essential facilitators, and
   Whereas, high school students across the country participate in a dynamic poetry
recitation competition “that is designed to improve their public speaking skills, help build
confidence, and teach them about literary history and contemporary life,” and
   Whereas, since Poetry Out Loud began, more than 4.5 million students in the United
States from 21,000 schools, and with the support of 85,000 teachers, have
participated, and
   Whereas, this year’s State competition proved an exhilarating adventure, highlighting
the joys of dramatically reciting a poet’s written words, and
   Whereas, this nationwide cavalcade of poetic verbalization begins in local classrooms,
24 in Vermont this year, where eager young orators, 3,200 in the State and 157,000
nationwide, declaimed their soliloquies of poems or sonnets, and
    Whereas, the judges at the State finals listened with rapt attention and declared
Mapenzi Selemani, a junior at Winooski High School, who presented Thomas Hood’s “I
Remember, I Remember” and William Wordsworth’s “The World is Too Much With
Us”, as the 2025 Poetry Out Loud Vermont State champion and Vermont’s representative
at the national competition, now therefore be it
   Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives:
   That the General Assembly congratulates Mapenzi Selemani of Winooski on winning
the 2025 Poetry Out Loud Vermont State championship and commemorates the 20th
anniversary of Poetry Out Loud, and be it further
  Resolved: That the Secretary of State be directed to send a copy of this resolution to
Mapenzi Selemani, the Flynn, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Poetry
Foundation, and the Vermont Arts Council.
                                                                             VT LEG #383703 v.1