Poetry Out Loud Regional Competition

Are you interested in ways to inspire your students to love both written and oral language? Want to improve their public–speaking skills and confidence in using language? Poetry Out Loud (POL) may be just the thing!

Poetry Out Loud is a national recitation contest sponsored by the National Endowment of the Arts and the Poetry Foundation. It challenges high school students (grades 9 – 12) across the nation to memorize and recite poetry and use these skills in a competition. And not to forget: at its heart, POL is a scholarship contest. The Pennsylvania state winner will receive $200 and an expense-free trip (with a chaperone) to the national contest in Washington, DC with more than $50,000 in scholarships in play.

POL features poetry representing different cultures and worldviews. Students choose poems to memorize from the hundreds available on the POL website and recite them in a competitive format within the POL guidelines.

POL can be done both in and out of the classroom. Many teachers find that POL fits nicely with their established curriculum; suggested lesson plans are available – minimizing teacher prep.

The Cultural Alliance of York is the regional sponsor of POL for York, Adams, Franklin, and Fulton counties and holds the annual competition. This year the regional contest will be at the historic Majestic Theater in Gettysburg, PA on Thursday, February 2 at 7pm. The registration deadline for the regional competition is December 5.

The winner will advance to the state competition on March 6, and the state winner will then compete at the national level in May 2017. For more information or to register, contact Hilary Trout at culturalalliancepol@gmail.com. Information, rules, judging criteria, and poems are available on the Poetry Out Loud website www.poetryoutloud.org and the Cultural Alliance of York website www.culturalyork.org.