Waterford High School Participating in Poetry Out Loud

A record 43 Connecticut high schools have registered to participate in the 11th annual Poetry Out Loud (POL) national recitation contest, according to the Connecticut Office of the Arts, which stages the program in partnership with Connecticut Humanities.

Supported by the Poetry Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts, Poetry Out Loud encourages high school students to learn about poetry through memorization, performance, and competition.

Of the 43 schools, nine are new to the program this year. From Southeastern Connecticut, participating schools include: Montville High School; New London High School; Waterford High School; and Wheeler High School.  For a complete list of participating high schools, click here.

The schools are now holding classroom workshops with visiting poet-teachers to prepare students for classroom and then school-wide poetry contests. The winners advance to regional and then a state competition on March 15, 2016.

The Connecticut State Champion will advance to the National Finals, which will take place from May 2-4, 2016, in Washington, D.C.

Connecticut’s 2015 POL Champion was a finalist in the 2015 National Finals last April. Owen Elphick, now a senior at E.O. Smith High School in Storrs, was one of more than 365,000 students from 2,300 high schools nationwide who took part in the Poetry Out Loud program during the last school year.

“Many students who’ve never given poetry a second thought or who shy away from public speaking now carry a poem in their hearts and a bit more confidence on stage,” said Denise Abercrombie, a teacher and English department chair at E.O. Smith High School. “Poetry Out Loud brings poetry alive for our students.”

The NEA and the Poetry Foundation provide state arts agencies with free, standards‐based curriculum materials. These include an online poetry anthology containing more than 800 classic and contemporary poems, a teacher’s guide, lesson plans, posters, and video and audio on the art of recitation. These resources are available on the Poetry Out Loud website.