Welcome to Poetry Out Loud at Lowndes High School.

Poetry Out Loud is a national poetry memorization and recitation contest. It is open to all students at Lowndes High School, face-to-face and virtual.

Students memorize a poem from the Poetry Out Loud Anthology and then deliver it aloud for the competition.

To find out more information about the program, view videos of past national winners, and see tips on reciting poetry, please visit the national website here: www.poetryoutloud.org

If you are interested for the 2021-22 school year, please listen to the announcements next fall!

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What is Poetry Out Loud? Poetry Out Loud is a poetry memorization and recitation contest. The POL website states: “Poetry Out Loud encourages students to learn about great poetry through memorization and recitation. This program helps students master public speaking skills, build self-confidence, and learn about literary history and contemporary life.”

Through Poetry Out Loud™, students read, memorize, and recite classic and contemporary poems. This year virtual competitions will be held at all stages (local, state, and national) and all of the program materials, including an anthology of more than 1,100 poems, are free and available at poetryoutloud.org.

Poetry Out Loud is open to any student enrolled at Lowndes High School, whether face-to-face or virtual.

What Poetry Out Loud is not: Poetry Out Loud is not spoken word poetry or spontaneously composed poetry. It is also not a performance of one’s own work. It is memorizing and reciting classic and contemporary published poems from the anthology.

Eligible Poem Criteria:

All poems chosen for POL competition must be in the Poetry Out Loud anthology, which is at their website, www.poetryoutloud.org. If it isn’t in the anthology, it is not eligible for competition.

This year’s contest is virtual. Students participating in the school-wide competition will need to memorize and recite two poems from the anthology. Then the student will need to record themselves performing the poems in two separate video files. Video files may be uploaded to Google Drive (you may use your Chromebook to record your video) and then shared with Mrs. Reitz. She will then share those video files with the judges.

For our school competition, 2 (two) poems are required. At the state and national finals, students must have 3 (three) poems prepared: Among those three, one must be 25 lines or fewer, and one must be written before the 20th century. The same poem may be used to meet both criteria, and may be the student’s third poem.