2025 Eastern Illinois Regional Poetry Out Loud Contest

Name: 2025 Eastern Illinois Regional Poetry Out Loud Contest
Start: 2025-02-13T17:30:00-06:00
End: 2025-02-13T19:30:00-06:00
Location: Champaign Public Library

Schedule

Thu Feb 13 2025 at 05:30 pm to 07:30 pm

UTC-06:00

Location

Champaign Public Library | Champaign, IL

Join us for the 2025 Eastern Illinois Regional Poetry Out Loud recitation contest! Students from several area high schools will be reciting poems they personally chose from the Poetry Out Loud archive. With a catalog of more than 1,200 classic and contemporary poems at their disposal, students can explore language and themes that resonate with their own experiences. Both recitation and accuracy judges will be on hand to score the students.
Poetry Out Loud uses a pyramid structure that starts with classroom contests between September and January that are coordinated by the schools and teachers. The school-wide champion and runner-up from each school then compete at the Regional Final (the Eastern Illinois Regional Contest is coordinated by 40 North | 88 West). The top 2 students from the Regional Contest win trips to Springfield to compete at the State Final in March. Ultimately, 1 student from each state competes at the National Finals in Washington, D.C.
Poetry Out Loud is a 100% FREE program, there are no costs to teachers, schools, or students wishing to participate. This program is sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts, the Poetry Foundation, and by the Illinois Arts Council in partnership with 40 North.