2024-2025 Poetry Out Loud Competition Registration Open Now!

Poetry Out Loud is a national arts education program that encourages the study of great poetry by offering free educational materials and a dynamic recitation competition for high school students across the country. This program helps students master public speaking skills, build self-confidence, and learn about literary history and contemporary life. Poetry Out Loud is a partnership of the National Endowment for the Arts, Poetry Foundation, and the state and jurisdictional arts agencies. The Mobile, Alabama program involves a FREE Find Your Voice Workshop in January, followed by the Region 1 Recitation Competition the following week. Winners at the Regional Level will advance to the Statewide Competition, who may advance to the National Competition.

The Region 1 Poetry Out Loud Workshop will be held January 18th, 2025 at the Ben May Main Library located at 701 Government St. This FREE workshop will begin at 11:00 a.m. Here, students will have access to poetry analysis, writing, and general competition info. Students will be given the opportunity to practice their poems in the competition space, so they can be as prepared as possible come competition day! Click here to register for the workshop.

The Region 1 Poetry Out Loud competition will be held Saturday, January 25th, 2025. Region 1 consists of Baldwin, Butler, Clarke, Choctaw, Conecuh, Covington, Escambia, Marengo, Mobile, Monroe, Washington, and Wilcox counties. Only currently enrolled students in grades 9th-12th are eligible, with an exception made for 8th-grade students participating in a 9th- through 12th-grade class. A student may not advance to the state finals without competing in a lower-level competition.

There are three categories for the Alabama competition: Anthology, Social Issues and Original Poetry. Anthology Poems that are eligible for the Anthology competition can be found on the Poetry Out Loud website. Students must provide the titles and authors of their poems and the order in which they will be recited to the coordinator. Students may not change their poems or their order once submitted. This will enable the coordinator to have poems for the accuracy judge and prompter and evaluation sheets prepared.

State and national finals consist of three rounds of competition. Our Region 1 Competition will have two rounds, but students must recite only one poem in each round. At the state and national finals, students must have three poems prepared. For the Anthology Competition, one poem must be 25 lines or fewer, and one must be written before the 20 ^th  century. One poem may be used to meet both criteria, and may be the student’s third poem.

The registration form linked below should be filled out by the individual student planning to compete in the regional competition on January 25th, 2025 no later than Saturday, January 18th, 2025 at 11:59 p.m .

If you are an educator or student in Baldwin, Butler, Clarke, Choctaw, Conecuh, Covington, Escambia,
Marengo, Mobile, Monroe, Washington, & Wilcox counties, contact Sydney Cramer, Region 1 Poetry Out Loud Coordinator, with any questions at scramer@mobilearts.org.