Read, Recite, Share Your Voice
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.
Get involved today! Contact your state arts agency.
Featured Poet
Louise Glück grew up on Long Island and attended Sarah Lawrence College and Columbia University. Her poems are elegantly poised and spare, even though their recurrent themes—loss, disenfranchisement, divorce, death—are often dark. She returns again and again to myths and ancient tales, often revivifying them to explore modern topics. Many of her poems are attuned to cycles of nature, through which desire and hope are renewed. She has won the Pulitzer Prize and a National Humanities Medal. In 2020 she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature “for her unmistakable poetic voice that with austere beauty makes individual existence universal.” She teaches at Yale and lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
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For Students
What’s It Like To Compete?
Nervous about reciting? Unsure of where to start? Don’t be—everything you need to help you perform a successful recitation is right here.
““I love the fact that students are not just reading a poem or reading words, but they are actually sharing a part of their identity, sharing what’s important to them. The poems that I chose share a different facet of what I believe in, who I am.”
Sreepadaarchana Munjuluri, 2023 National Champion
For Teachers and Organizers
The Power of Poetry
Every year thousands of teachers integrate Poetry Out Loud into their curricula. This section has everything you need to run a successful program in your classroom.