A UC Davis-sponsored poetry competition expected to attract more than 800 middle and high school students will be held Friday, May 7, at the campus’s Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts.

For the past month, organizers of the event -- the second annual Sacramento Area Youth Speak (SAYS) Summit and Slam -- have held semifinal rounds, encouraging the best young poets, rappers and singers to compete for a spot in the finals.

Hosted by the UC Davis School of Education, the summit and slam will start at 9 a.m. with students participating in a town hall meeting and workshops on writing, social justice and youth empowerment. This year’s contest is titled “Learning Literacy Leadership for 2010: School is My Hustle.”

At 6 p.m., the competition’s finals will be held in Jackson Hall at the Mondavi Center. The top six poets will represent Sacramento at Brave New Voices, an international youth poetry slam held in Los Angeles in July.

The annual SAYS Summit is a culmination of year-round programming in regional schools. Youth from different communities and economic and ethnic backgrounds come together to learn and celebrate their accomplishments. Students also develop plans for school improvement and community change.

“Our goal is to create a literary community where everyone’s narrative matters and contributes, not only to the classroom, but also to the critical conversations of our world,” said Jason Mateo, director of the youth literacy program.

Rudy Corpuz, director of United Playaz, a violence prevention and youth leadership organization in San Francisco, will deliver the keynote address at the summit.

Tickets for the slam finals -- $5 for those 21 and under and $15 for all others -- are available at the Mondavi Center box office or by calling (866) 754-ARTS. A limited number of seats for the daytime summit will be available to schools. For more information, contact Jason Mateo at says.ucdavis.edu.