Vermont HCR 136: House concurrent resolution congratulating Katherine Suzanne Bove on winning one gold medal and one bronze medal at the 2019 Special Olympics World Games in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

Bill Text

R-160 Page 1 of 1
2025

VT LEG #383703 v.1
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.