Mia Westfere placed second in her age group in an annual poetry contest in Toledo last year. On Thursday, the 15-year-old competed again, this time winning.
“I am participating because it reflects where I live; and [where I live] is part of my identity. It fuses my love of writing with my love of Toledo,” the Maumee Valley Country Day School freshman said, adding that she has been writing verses for five years — “about my life, ideals, morals, good and evil.”
Miss Westfere, who lives in South Toledo, was one of 20 finalists at the fourth annual Ode to the Zip Code poetry contest held on the eve of the annual grass-roots holiday, 419 Day, when area residents celebrate all they appreciate about living in northwest Ohio, anywhere that falls within the 419 area code — with the area code 567 counting too.
About 100 people attended the event at Handmade Toledo at 1717 Adams St. in Toledo's UpTown district. The contest is the kickoff to the annual season of Art Loops that includes bus transportation around the downtown area including Broadway, the Warehouse District, central city, UpTown along Adams Street, and the Old West End.
“It's a chance for people to celebrate their neighborhood and their pride in their neighborhood,” Sarah Jenkins, chief of communications and outreach for the Fair Housing Center, said of the contest.
“As a community, it's an opportunity to understand the different experiences that people are having across the neighborhoods from places with a lot of opportunities, like parks and museums, to areas where people are struggling with blight and [lack of] safety,” Ms. Jenkins said.
Each of the 10 finalists in the adult category (16 years and older) and 10 in the youth category (15 years and under) read one or two of their five-line poems inspired by the neighborhoods where they live, with the number of words in each line determined by the digit in the writer’s ZIP code.
Finalists were selected based on the quality of their work out of 138 people who had submitted 226 poems online, Ms. Jenkins said.
A four-judge panel decided whose poems were the best. The winning authors in the adult category received $300 for first place, $200 for second place, and $100 for third. In the youth category, the winner, the runner-up, and the second runner-up got $200, $100, and $50 respectively.
Additionally, about 12 people in the audience each read their five-liners during an open-microphone session.
The event was sponsored by the Toledo-based Fair Housing Center, the Arts Commission, the Toledo Lucas County Public Library, and the Toledo City Paper. April is Fair Housing Month and National Poetry Month.
Said Wendy Westfere, Mia's mother: “I am so proud of her – because of her talent and because she is not afraid to get out in public and read her work ... And I think it’s neat that it's happening when we are celebrating 419 Day... I like it here. I'm a Toledo enthusiast.”
First place in the adult category went to Terri Draper of the 43615 ZIP code for her poem:
I vaped with the
Dollar Tree boy
In his pickup bed in the
Empty
Parking Lot of Family Video.
In the youth category, Miss Westfere of the 43614 ZIP code placed first for her poem:
No “darkest hour” comes
Where light’s everlasting,
An electric city in candlelight glows
Brilliantly.
Only people grow weary.
Lydia Horvath of the 43620 ZIP code placed second and Jodie Summers of the 43605 ZIP code placed third, in the adult category.
In the youth category, second place went to Amelia Simmons of the 43606 ZIP code and third to Scott Lime of the 43612 ZIP code.
First Published April 19, 2019, 1:30 a.m.
