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Poetry Out Loud Semi Finals
February 16, 2023 @ 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm
Since Poetry Out Loud’s founding in 2005, tens of thousands of students from across New Hampshire have participated in the program, choosing poems to memorize and recite from a roster curated by the Poetry Foundation. Their recitations are judged on several criteria, including physical presence, voice and articulation, dramatic appropriateness, evidence of understanding and accuracy.
Each year, competitions begin at the classroom level, advance to school championships and then to semi-finals prior to the state championship.
For New Hampshire’s 2022 Poetry Out Loud semi-finals, twenty-six high school champions recorded their recitations “live to tape,” supervised by the Arts Council to ensure continuity. The recordings were then submitted to be scored by judges who used the same criteria that are applied when competitions take place in person.
Eight finalists then advanced to the 2022 New Hampshire state championship on March 11 where, in the two qualifying rounds, each student recited a poem they had selected from a roster curated by the Poetry Foundation. The four students with the highest scores then recited a third poem that was evaluated by the judges.
Administered in New Hampshire by the N.H. State Council on the Arts, Poetry Out Loud is a partnership of the National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation.
New Hampshire’s Poetry Out Loud supporters include the New Hampshire Learning Initiative and the Putnam Foundation – a donor-advised fund of the N.H. Charitable Foundation. Other partners include Brightspot Consultants, Currier Museum of Art, Granite State Ambassadors, New England College, New Hampshire Public Radio, the Poetry Society of New Hampshire, the New Hampshire Writers’ Project and Slam Free or Die.
To learn more about 2022 New Hampshire Poetry Out Loud, visit nh.gov/nharts and click on the Poetry Out Loud button.
The New Hampshire State Council on the Arts is a division of the New Hampshire Department of Natural and Cultural Resources. It began in 1965 with legislation designed “to insure that the role of the arts in the life of our communities will continue to grow and play an ever more significant part in the education and welfare of our citizens.” Funding for programs is provided through state appropriations, a partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts and the Conservation License Plate fund.
