Next stop Shakespeare’s Globe – finalists of Poetry By Heart competition 2025 announced

Poetry By Heart, the national poetry speaking competition, has revealed the names of the young people chosen to compete in its 2025 Grand Finale, taking place at Shakespeare’s Globe, London on Monday 7 July. Amongst those cheering them in the audience will be Minister of State (Minister of School Standards) Catherine McKinnell MP.

Founded by former Poet Laureate Sir Andrew Motion and current co-director Dr Julie Blake MBE, Poetry By Heart is open to all schools and colleges in England. It invites young people to choose poems they love, learn them by heart and perform them in a school or college performance event. School staff then select students to enter the national round of the competition, submitting videos of their poem performances.

As the Poetry By Heart competition continues to grow, and with participation levels up almost 20% on 2024, the judges watched no less than 3,547 filmed poetry performances submitted by schools across the country. From these, they selected 40 finalists for the Classic competition, which celebrates outstanding achievement in speaking poems. These young people will now compete for the title of Poetry By Heart National Champion.

A further 15 schools have finalists coming to London in the competition Freestyle category, which showcases creative, inclusive achievement in speaking a poem and includes group performances. Three schools will receive special awards for outstanding contributions to creativity and inclusion.

Poetry By Heart encourages school staff to learn poetry by heart too and 10 teachers have been chosen to showcase their skill in speaking poetry out loud onstage at Shakespeare’s Globe.

Poetry By Heart Co-Director Dr Julie Blake announced the finalists in an online event live from the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, Shakespeare’s Globe. Reflecting on the competition entries, she says, ‘Congratulations to every one of the 128,000 young people who dared to learn a poem by heart and perform it for others. In so doing, you gave yourselves a gift you will keep for life, and you gave everyone who heard it a gift they will never forget. Thank you!’

She adds, ‘We are delighted to see the competition grow and grow, as more schools discover that when young people choose a poem, learn it by heart and perform it for others they grow in confidence, spread happiness and joy, and learn skills for life. Pupils have told us powerful stories about their choices, their feats of memorisation and the difference taking part in Poetry By Heart has made to their lives.

‘We look forward to meeting 800 of them at the Grand Finale and to welcoming the Minister to watch our finalists. We are delighted too that Estelle Morris, Baroness Morris of Yardley, a longtime supporter of Poetry By Heart, will also attend. It will be a day to remember!’

The Poetry By Heart website features a huge selection of poems and video performances by this year’s finalists will now be added. Favourite poems this year include Instructions for Growing Poetry by Tony Mitton, The Potatoes My Dad Cooks by Joanne Limburg, Leisure by W.H. Davies and Sleeping Black Jaguar by Pascale Petit.

Judging the finalists at Shakespeare’s Globe in July are poets Daljit Nagra, Patience Agbabi, Liz Berry, Valerie Bloom, Glyn Maxwell and Jean Sprackland. They will select National Champions in each key stage of the Classic competition and present the awards after a day of poetry performances plus added extras, including sword fighting demonstrations.

Read the full list of finalists in all categories on the Poetry By Heart website.