After receiving a record-breaking number of entries in 2023, the 2024 Poetry By Heart competition will launch with a special live event at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, Shakespeare’s Globe on National Poetry Day, Thursday 5 October. Special guests will include the poets Jean Sprackland, also a judge for the competition, and Coral Rumble.

Poetry by Heart is a national poetry speaking competition for schools and colleges in England. It’s also a website for teaching and learning about poetry – by heart and out loud, and with plenty of choice for young people to explore poems and find the ones they love. Founded ten years ago by then Poet Laureate Sir Andrew Motion and current co-director Dr Julie Blake, 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.

Pupils in Year 3 to Year 13 can enter the national competition but there is nothing to stop schools involving younger pupils in school activities. Participation and registration are free and everyone who registers to take part will receive the Poetry By Heart 2024 competition kit which includes the Poetry By Heart poem-a-month calendar, brand new competition handbook, plus sets of printed posters and resources to use with their pupils.

New for 2024 is a partnership with oracy champion, Voice 21 which sees Poetry By Heart as headline sponsor of the Great Oracy Exhibition taking place on Tuesday 10th October 2023 at Kings House Conference Centre, Manchester. Dr Julie Blake says, ‘Poetry and oracy go hand in hand as Poetry By Heart demonstrates, both in the opportunities the competition creates for public speaking but also in those rich conversations and discussions that happen beforehand as young people choose and explore the poems that speak to them. We are excited to be working with Voice 21, an organisation we admire and whose aims, particularly around equality of opportunity, align with our own.’

The Poetry By Heart launch event at the Sam Wanamaker Theatre is at 11.00am on Thursday 5 October. The 2024 competition closes on Thursday 28^th March 2024. For anyone looking for a poem to learn on National Poetry Day, Poetry By Heart recommends Lament of an Arawak Child by Pamela Mordecai.