Twenty-one high school student-poets, including two from Windham Christian Academy, have been selected by Maine Poet Laureate Betsy Sholl as finalists in the Second Annual Merriconeag Poetry Festival.

The Festival will culminate Sunday, May 3, 3 – 5 p.m., at the Merriconeag Waldorf School Freeport campus (57 Desert Road, off I-295, exit 20). The public is cordially invited.

The 21 finalists include, from Scarborough High School: Alex Colville, Melanie Grover, Natalie Jones, Sophia Malayev, Ryan Mancini, Kevin Philbrick and Caitlin Sackville; from Freeport High School: Amanda Adaime, Erin Dillon, Hannah Melville-Weatherbee, Mia Taggart, Greg Townsend; from Yarmouth High School: Erica Paul, Anne Strand, Phoebe Walsh; from Merriconeag: Leif Anderson, Zak Konstantino, and Tyler O’Brien; from Windham Christian Academy: Connor Briggs, Joe Trefethan; and from Greely High School, Nikola Champlin. Hannah Melville-Weatherbee and Zak Konstantino are repeat finalists, having been selected last year as well.

At the Festival, finalists will read their winning poems and receive gift certificates from area bookstores. Betsy Sholl will also read some of her work and announce the top three prize-winning finalists, whose poems will appear on a poster to be distributed to all area high schools. She will also conduct a brief “seminar” with the audience on the “Power of Poetry to Effect Change.” A reception serving light refreshments will follow the readings.

The Second Annual Merriconeag Poetry Festival was financially supported, in part, by a generous grant from the Maine Humanities Council, and by a number of area bookstores that donated gift certificates, most notably Longfellow in Portland, Books, Etc. in Falmouth, and Gulf of Maine in Brunswick.