Download the complete Teachers Guide.

Dana Gioia
Chairman
National Endowment for the Arts

The memorization and recitation of poetry have been central elements of education since ancient times. Performance is also a major new trend in poetry. This recent resurgence of poetry as an oral art form can be seen in the slam poetry movement and in the immense popularity of rap music.

The National Endowment for the Arts and The Poetry Foundation have partnered with the State Arts Agencies on an exciting new program, Poetry Out Loud: National Recitation Contest, which invites the dynamic aspects of slam poetry, spoken word, and theater into the English class. Poetry Out Loud helps students master public speaking skills, build self-confidence, and learn about their literary heritage.

Learning great poetry by heart develops the mind and the imagination. By encouraging your students to study, memorize, and perform some of the most influential and timeless poems of the English language, you immerse them in powerful language and provocative ideas.

Although many students may initially be nervous about reciting in front of their teenage peers, theexperience will prove valuable — not only in school, but also in life. Much of the future success of students will depend on how well they present themselves in public. Whether talking to one person or many, public speaking is a skill people use everyday in both the workplace and the community.

Poetry recitation as a competitive event is as old as the Olympic Games. Along with wrestling, long-distance running, and the javelin toss, the ancient Olympics included contests in music and poetry. Performers trained for years and traveled great distances to the games. Please join us in restoring the energy and esprit of poetry recitation nationwide as Poetry Out Loud.

John Barr
President
The Poetry Foundation

Can there be any subject more difficult to teach in the classroom than poetry? Students who take their culture at the speed of the Internet may not easily find it in a measured, majestic poem that comes down to us from the past. But a great poem has much to tell if we can find a way to listen. It will speak to us and for us, giving voice to times of great joy or great loss. As we grow older it will grow with us, waiting to give new meaning to our deepening experience. "Why should I study this poem," the Internet-savvy student may ask," let alone try to learn it by heart?" And we may answer, "Because it is a chance to make a friend for life."

Poetry Out Loud: National Recitation Contest brings new energy to an ancient art by returning it to the classrooms of America. The public recitation of great poetry is a way to honor the speaker, the poem, and the audience all at once. Hearing a poem spoken aloud, we discover that a poem is before anything else an event of the ear. In the hands of the poet our everyday speech becomes a musical instrument. The meaning of the poem, we find, lies as much in the sound of its words as in their sense.

Hearing the spoken words of the ancient poets we learn that we are not alone, that men and women always have felt as we feel, that the human spirit has been the one constant in the history of our kind. Hearing the voices of our contemporary poets we learn again that we are not alone, that in our individuality we are a community. In this way the recitation of poetry brings history to life; in this way it creates community.

The Poetry Foundation is committed to a vigorous presence for poetry in our culture. Through its programs the Foundation seeks to make poetry directly relevant to the American public. We are excited to join with the National Endowment for the Arts in Poetry Out Loud: National Recitation Contest.