The Kentucky Arts Council has opened registration for the 2016-17 season of Poetry Out Loud, a poetry recitation contest sponsored by the arts council, the National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation. In 2016, more than 317,000 students from every state in the nation participated in the competition, including Kentucky state champion Naomi Cliett of Elizabethtown, who represented Kentucky at the national finals in May.