KANE – The Elk County Council on the Arts would like to invite the public to this year’s regional Poetry Out Loud competition taking place Jan. 30, 2025 at 6 p.m. at the PA Wilds Media Lab in Kane.
A partnership of the National Endowment for the Arts, Poetry Foundation, the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts and the Elk County Council on the Arts, 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.
Students from St. Marys Area High School and Ridgway High School will gather to compete and recite the poems they have selected for a panel of esteemed judges.
Since the program began in 2005, more than 4.1 million students and 68,000 teachers from 17,000 schools and organizations across the nation have participated in the program.
Poetry Out Loud begins at the local level with a school or organization. Winners advance to a regional-wide competition, then to the state competitions in March and then to the national finals in the spring.
Arts education programs like Poetry Out Loud matter. National Endowment for the Arts research tells us that children who have arts opportunities in and out of school are much more likely to become adults who participate in the arts.
