Carlos Alcala: Poetry Out Loud competition is all about the drama

Stanza and deliver: Annabel Lee and Casey went head to head last week. The poetic creations of Edgar Allan Poe and Ernest Lawrence Thayer were wielded by performers from neighboring schools in Arden. Lana Preszler from Sacramento Country Day was reciting "Annabel Lee." Christy Cunningham from Rio Americano was armed with "Casey at the Bat." Yes, there were competitors from 18 other schools at the Sacramento County Poetry Out Loud competition, but when the dust cleared after two rounds, Preszler and Cunningham – just Preszler and Cunningham – were asked to recite once more. The contest names only a first and second place. These two were in a dead heat for second. Preszler is a poetry fan. "It's something I've never been able to do (write) that well, but I enjoy reading it," she said. A senior now, she's liked Poe since middle school. "I like the drama." Cunningham, more of a performance fan, picked "Casey" for its story line and because "it's a little surprise ending," she said. Indeed, the audience reacted audibly to Casey's unexpected whiff at the end. Cunningham built the suspense with a practiced reading that avoided the trap of the poem's potent rhythm. "I tried especially not to do it sing-song," she said. Preszler aimed at identifying with the emotions of Poe's lovelorn narrator. "I think that's really the hardest part," she said. "I'm not the speaker in that poem." Each read their 19th-century poem in the first round and something modern in the second. When asked to go again, each went to their classic. Neck and neck, but in the end it was Cunningham's Casey who was the bigger bat. She got the second. … First? That went to Daniel Horne, an Elk Grove High student who did a phenomenal job with Sylvia Plath. …

New-see-um: The sign at Purrfect Auto Service on Fair Oaks Boulevard advertises a deal on "Fuil Injection." Not fuel, but fuil. Well, they did say Purrfect, not perfect. … Or perhaps fuil injection means transfusion, since fuil appears to be an old Irish word for blood. …

Street Whys: At the start of each new year, the Whys Guy gets excited. Why? The answer is on the cover of the 2008 Thomas Guide for Sacramento County. It says, "1,195 new streets & updates." That's a lot of Whys Guy turf. Sadly, though he studied the Arden and Carmichael pages, he couldn't find a single new street. Apparently, they're all in Elk Grove, Natomas, Roseville and Lincoln. Ah, well, there are always old streets to write about. For this week, how about Cada and Coda in Carmichael? Cada Circle near Mercy San Juan Medical Center isn't really a circle. On the map, it looks more like two sides of a triangle, with Aslin Way as the hypotenuse. Shirley Parsons lives in Dixon, but she used to live on Cada. It was named for Cada Conway, an agent for the Merrihill Homes sub- division back in the 1960s, she said. Coda Lane is almost as far from Cada as you can get and still be in Carmichael. It's a little tail of a street (coda means tail) that dead-ends across the American River from the Park Formerly Known As Goethe. Jan Childress said Coda was named by "Uncle Fred." Fred W. Links, who died in 1973, worked in the state Finance Department but wasn't just about numbers. He was a creative type who designed the governor's seal at the request of then-Gov. Goodwin Knight and directed church choirs. A coda is also the tail end of a musical piece. "He chose the name because of his musical background," Childress said. And that's the coda to this week's column.

About the writer:

• Call The Bee's Carlos Alcalá at (916) 321-1987. Back columns, www.sacbee.com/alcala.