A 17-year-old from Novato is about to represent California on the national stage after absolutely crushing it at the state poetry finals last month. Lillian Braly, a junior at Marin School of the Arts at Novato High School, just took home the 2026 California Poetry Out Loud championship title and is heading to the national recitation contest in Washington, D.C. this April.

Braly delivered three classic poems at the Sacramento finals on March 8-9: “Saturday’s Child” by Countee Cullen, “Casey at the Bat” by Ernest Lawrence Thayer, and “O Captain! My Captain!” by Walt Whitman. The judges clearly vibed with her performance because she’s now California’s official representative for the Poetry Out Loud National Recitation Contest, happening April 27-29.

What’s wild is that Braly didn’t start out as some poetry prodigy. “Poetry Out Loud was my very first chance to perform on a stage freshman year, and the joy of it has yet to leave me”, she told organizers. That’s honestly pretty cool, the competition gave her the confidence to keep going and ultimately dominate at the state level.

The California Poetry Out Loud program is a massive deal. This year marked the 21st anniversary of the competition, which is the largest event of its kind in the entire country. More than 13,500 students from 200 schools across 48 California counties participated this year. The program, run by the California Arts Council with support from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation, is designed to get high schoolers excited about poetry through memorization, performance, and competition.

At the state finals, California Arts Council Executive Director Danielle Brazell emphasized why this stuff matters: “Art is a tool to connect with ourselves, to each other, and society. These are ingredients for a civil society rooted in democracy and you are part of that story”.

Braly wasn’t the only standout performer that day. Sailee Charlu, a junior at Orange County School of the Arts, came in as runner-up and will step in to represent California at nationals if Braly can’t make it. Zoewin Abariga, a senior from Great Oak High School in Riverside County, received an honorable mention.

The program also has a creative writing competition called Poetry Ourselves, where students submit original work. This year’s winner was Beza Getahun, a 16-year-old sophomore from Sacramento County who wrote “Alchemy”. Charlu placed second again with “Ode to my deviated nasal septa” (honestly, respect), and Mahati Vaidyanathan from San Mateo County took third.

Braly’s win is a huge moment for Marin County and shows what happens when students get the chance to explore performance arts. Come April, she’ll be bringing that same energy to the national stage.