Poetry By Heart celebrates at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre
The Grand Finale of Poetry By Heart, the national poetry speaking competition for schools, will take place at The Globe, this Monday 26 June 2023. A day in which ‘poetry won’t just be lifted off the page, it will be blasted off’, says founder Dr Julie Blake.
It is ten years since then Poet Laureate Andrew Motion set up Poetry By Heart with Blake and it has become increasingly popular in schools and with young people. The competition invites young people to choose a poem, learn it by heart and perform it aloud. This year saw the biggest ever response: 2,000 video entries of poetry performances; 90,000 young people involved; a staggering 39,000 poems learned by heart.
It’s clear that getting to know a poem from the inside has a powerful impact. 92% of teachers who entered pupils into the competition report increased confidence in their pupils in studying poetry. They also say participation boosts student wellbeing.
Finalists will be travelling from across the country to compete. Schools taking part range from an East London primary school to a Cumbrian academy to a Birmingham sixth form college. The range of poems the young people have chosen to learn is very broad, and the standard of 
performance very high indeed.
The young peoples’ poetry performances will be judged by poets Daljit Nagra, Patience Agbabi, Liz Berry, Valerie Bloom, Jean Sprackland and Glyn Maxwell with the prizes being awarded by Sir Andrew Motion, who is returning from the US specially for it.
Sir Andrew Motion says, ‘Poetry, crucially, is an acoustic form. Its sounds allow us to receive it in our hearts, as well as in our heads. It was for these reasons, among others, that I established Poetry by Heart with Julie Blake. In ten years, it has grown from strength to strength: since 2013 thousands of pupils have had some experience of this kind of poetry learning and sharing. This is both serious and fun: an excitement and a dare. It offers young people new ways of finding pleasure and confidence in poetry. It is about understanding and remembering the deep recurring truths about our experience as humans, in terms that are especially beautiful and resonant.’
‘The Grand Finale is a once-in-a-lifetime experience for those selected’ says Julie Blake, ‘and an unforgettable experience for all those attending, a living breathing anthology of poems old and new, familiar and unfamiliar, being performed by phenomenally talented young people from every corner of the country and every type of school.’
Find out more at Poetry By Heart. Registration to take part in the 2024 competition, which will launch on National Poetry Day, 5th October, is open now.
