The Maine Arts Commission invites you to attend the 2015 Northern Maine Regional Finals of the national, Poetry Out Loud program. The competition will take place Friday, February 27 at the Hampden Academy Performing Arts Center. Joshua Bodwell, executive director of Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance will be the emcee at this free event. Doors open to the public at 2:30 p.m. and the event begins at 3 p.m.—no tickets are required.

Now celebrating its tenth anniversary, Poetry Out Loud encourages high school students to learn about great poetry through memorization, performance, and competition. Since it began, millions of students at more than 7,300 schools nationwide have participated. This great program also gives students an opportunity to master public-speaking skills, build self‐confidence, and learn about their literary heritage. 

“Ten years ago, we launched the first national Poetry Out Loud competition, and since then, nearly 2.5 million high school students have discovered the art of poetry recitation,” said National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Chairman Jane Chu. “Together with the Poetry Foundation, state arts agencies, local arts organizations, schools, and teachers, we are thrilled to encourage the next generation of poetry ambassadors."

Poetry Out Loud is organized by the NEA and the Poetry Foundation, and is administered at the state level by the Maine Arts Commission. It begins in Maine’s high schools where each school selects a school champion to compete in two regional finals at which 10 students are ultimately selected to participate in the Maine State Finals. One student moves on from the State Finals to represent Maine at the National Finals in Washington D.C., where students from all 50 states, the District of Columbia, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico will compete for a total of $50,000 in awards and school stipends for the purchase of poetry books.