With only a few short weeks remaining to register for 2021 Poetry Out Loud, we’re excited to share this video produced by the young creatives of RE:FRAME Youth Arts Center and Creative Youth of Arizona! I mean, we could talk all day about why we love this national poetry recitation competition, but why take our word for it when you can hear directly from some of the exceptional young people who participated in last year’s competition?
This year, the National Endowment for the Arts ( NEA) and the Poetry Foundation, the program’s national sponsors, have made a couple of major changes in response to the unusual conditions of the 2020-21 school year.
First, regional, state, and national finals will all be virtual events, hosted online with students participating from their home or classroom. To help facilitate this new format, our regional partners will offer coaching online for small groups and individual students and will work closely with teachers to help them navigate this new approach to the competition.
The second big change this year is that home-schooled students and students attending nonparticipating schools may register themselves for the competition. In lieu of a school-level competition, these students will compete against other individually registered students or advance automatically to the regional finals.
As in years past, schools wishing to participate are registered by the teacher administering the program. Students at registered schools do not need to register individually.
Registration closes Monday, November 23, 2020!
