Poetry Out Loud celebrates its 19th year with its new National Champion Niveah Glover. The Poetry Out Loud National Semifinals were held May 1 and the National Finals on May 2 hosted by poet, editor, and National Council on the Arts member Huascar Medina in Washington D.C. After advancing to the national finals, Niveah won judges over with her last recitation, performing the poem ‘Self Portrait as Kendrick Lamar Laughing to the Bank” by Ashanti Anderson. Niveah Glover is a 12th-grade student at Douglas Anderson School of the Arts in Jacksonville, Florida. As national champion she will receive $20,000.
Congratulations also goes to the second-place winner Tiana Renee Jones, a 10th-grade student at Whitefield Academy in Mableton, Georgia, who will receive a $10,000 prize. The third-place winner is Nyla Dinkins, a 10th-grade student at Benjamin Banneker Academic High School in Washington, DC, who will receive a $5,000 prize.
The other six national finalists were Grisham Locke (Louisiana); Ariana Kimball (Minnesota); Jessie Leitzel (South Carolina); Grace Powell (South Dakota); Oluwabori Fadairo (Texas); and Willow Peyton (West Virginia). Each receives a $1,000 prize. The representing schools and organizations of all the top nine finalists will each receive $500 to purchase poetry materials. The Poetry Foundation generously provides and administers all monetary prizes awarded for Poetry Out Loud. The Poetry Out Loud National Semifinals and Finals are administered by Mid Atlantic Arts.
National Finals Judges Included:
H-Dirksen L. Bauman
Amber McBride
Lupe Mendez
Mei Ann Teo
Laura Tohe
The state champions competing at the National Finals not only showcased their excellent recitation skills but also had the opportunity to create orginal poetry for the competition, Poetry Ourselves. The competition is optional, and students are allowed to submit poetry in one of two categories: either a written poem or a video of a spoken poem, both categories were judged this year by poet José Olivarez at the National Finals. The winner in the written category is Jessie Leitzel from South Carolina. The winner in the spoken category is Jennifer Shon from Rhode Island. Niveah Glover is runner-up in the written category. The runner-up in the spoken category was Lexie Wilson from Kentucky. All of these winning poems are available to view on the NEA’s website at the links above.
This year, more than 160,800 students participated in Poetry Out Loud, a program of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and the Poetry Foundation along with state and jurisdictional arts agencies. Since the program began in 2005, it has reached more than 4.4 million students from 20,000 schools.
As a national program, Poetry Out Loud: National Recitation Contest encourages high school students to learn about great poetry through analysis, memorization, performance, and competition. The National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation, in conjunction with state arts agencies, support this nation-wide program with participants from all fifty states plus Washington, D.C., the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, American, Samoa, and Puerto Rico.
To find out more information please visit https://www.poetryoutloud.org/
