CONTEST ORGANISER’S HANDBOOK 2014

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The student performances gave a new depth, a fresh angle to some of my favourite poems

Daljit Nagra, poet

Introduction

Poetry By Heart at a glance

10 steps to success

Rules

Step 1 - Launch your competition:tell everyone when and where it will be happening.

Step 2 - At the school/college level, get students fired up and ready to take part.

Pre 1914 poems

Post 1914 poems

Step 3 - Get your contest logistics in place.

Step 4 - Get the people you need lined up.

Step 5 - Make sure your judges know what they have to do.

Step 6 - Hold your contest.

National finals weekend

Step 7 - Tell the Poetry By Heart team the name of your contest winner and runner-up.

Step 8 - Tell local radio and newspaper journalists about your winner.

County contest Dates

Step 9 - Support your contest champion in preparing for the next round.

Step 10 - Argue with the anthology.

Contest score sheet

Accuracy score sheet

Judging criteria

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A PIONEERINGNATIONAL COMPETITION

Poetry recitation and remembering has had a troubled history in England, dating back to a “payment by results” inspection regime in the 19th century. When we started to talk about Poetry By Heart, it was little wonder, after almost a century of decline, that some people immediately invoked the spectre of “by rote”, a cruel taskmaster beating children into heartless submission.

But for every one of these invocations, there were two or three people wanting to tell a different tale: the cabbies who remembered little else from their schooling but had half of Tennyson’s ‘Ulysses’ out before the lights had changed; the person whose great aunt suffered dementia or a stroke but could still recite all of Keats’s ‘Ode to a Nightingale’; the surprising number of English teachers who laughed as they suddenly recalled winning a prize at school, in the Scouts, or the church or the village festival for their recitation of “something that rhymed”.

In an age in which we have started outsourcing memory to computers, the 2013 Poetry By Heart competition was a bold step into the unknown. We didn’t know if teachers would take on the idea, let alone young people. We expected controversy for selecting 600 years of great poetry from which students had to choose, rather than letting them choose poems or recite their own. We said there was a distinct difference between “by heart” and “by rote” – and there is – but we were harder pressed to define the more complex interplay between them.

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The student performances gave a new depth, a fresh angle to some of my favourite poems.

Daljit Nagra, poet

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In November 2012, we took a deep breath and stepped into that unknown. Working on an incredibly tight timescale to make it happen in the same academic year, the mantra we quietly repeated to ourselves was from the 1989 baseball movie, Field of Dreams: “If you build it, they will come”. And come you did: students supported and encouraged by teachers, parents and librarians, prepared to take a risk, to go beyond the ordinary, to put your passion for poetry and commitment to young people’s reading and learning into the spotlight.

Throughout Poetry By Heart 2013, young people amply demon- strated the power of memorisation in arriving at a committed, textured and heartfelt understanding of a poem. They showed no fear in choosing poems, constantly surprising us with the ambition of their choices. They proved beyond doubt that to speak a poem which has been remembered is to voice a text which has come to be owned and embodied by the act of memorisation. Poetry By Heart 2013 provided a pioneering public demonstration, by young people, of this almost lost act of encountering, inhabiting and sharing a poem.

If you took part last year, thank you. You brought Poetry By Heart off the drawing board and into the life of young people, your schools, colleges, libraries, arts centres and communities. The standard of performance at the national finals took our breath away. We hope you will enjoy the 2014 quest for a national champion even more.

If you are new to Poetry By Heart, welcome. We now have a network of teachers, librarians, arts centre staff and writers in education who are keen to support your journey. Please let us know how we can help you to have a fantastic competition.

We look forward to hearing your stories!

Julie Blake and Andrew Motion,Co-founders, Poetry By Heart

POETRY BY HEART AT A GLANCE

WHOtakes part?

WHAT do competitors have to do?

WHEN is it all happening?

WHERE is the action?

HOW do we get involved?

• Students in Years 10-13 – as competitors; non-competitors can also be given supporting roles in running your contest

• Teachers, librarians, learning assistants, parents, governors, local poets, actors, readers, journalists and community leaders – as judges, as well as mentors to the competing students

• Memorise and recite poems by heart, bringing them alive for the audience from Poetry By Heart anthology of 200 poems

• School/college contests: 1 poem published before 1914 plus 1 poem published after 1914

• County contests and beyond: pre-1914 poem plus post-1914 poem plus a third from the Poetry By Heart special 2014 showcase of World War 1 poetry

• Class heats and school/college finals by 20th December 2013

• County contests 13th January to 13th February 2014 - see website for details

• Regional semi-finals and national final weekend 13-15th March 2014

• First rounds in any of the 4,500+ secondary schools and colleges in England

• County contests in up to 50 English towns and cities, in libraries and community arts centres

• Regional heats and national final at the National Portrait Gallery in London

• Schools/colleges MUST register to participate - via our website www.poetrybyheart.org.uk or 0117 905 5338. Schools/colleges which took part in 2013 must re-register

• For school/college contests and county contests, follow our 10 step guide to holding a successful event – and have fun!

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10 STEPS TO SUCCESS

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Launch your competition: tell everyone when and where it will be happening.

Hold your contest.

At the school/college level, get students fired up and ready to take part.

Tell the Poetry By Heart team the name of your contest winner and runner-up.

Get your contest logistics in place.Tell local radio and newspaper journalists about your winner.

Get the people you need lined up.Support your contest champion in preparing for the next round.

Make sure your judges know what they have to do.

Argue with the anthology.

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RULESThese rules will apply throughout the competition. If you are in any doubt, talk to us at info@poetrybyheart.org.uk, on 0117 905 5338, or via Twitter @poetrybyheart or facebook.com/poetrybyheartcompetition.

Student eligibility

• School registration: only schools and colleges that have registered with Poetry By Heart by 20th December 2013 are eligible to send their competitors forward to the county rounds of the competition. Register via the website or info@poetrybyheart.org.uk.

• Year group: only students currently enrolled in Years 10, 11, 12 or 13 are eligible for progression to county Poetry By Heart competitions.

• Progression: a student may not advance to the county round with-out competing in a lower-level competition at school or college.

Poem selection

• Anthology: all poems MUST be selected from the 2013-14 Poetry By Heart anthology available online at www.poetrybyheart.org.uk.

• Class or form group heat: students must perform 1 poem from any part of the Poetry By Heart anthology.

• School/college competition: students must perform 2 poems from the Poetry By Heart anthology - 1 published before 1914 AND 1 published in or after 1914.

• County competition: students must prepare to perform 3 poems from the Poetry By Heart anthology - 1 published before 1914 AND 1 published in or after 1914 AND 1 from the 2014 Poetry By Heart showcase of World War 1 poems. These may be the same poems as performed in the school/college competition or different.

• Regional and national finals: students must perform 3 poems from the Poetry By Heart anthology - 1 published before 1914 AND 1 published in or after 1914 AND 1 from the 2014 Poetry By Heart showcase of World War 1 poems. These may be the same poems as performed in the county contest or different.

Competition

• Valid contests: for a contest to be valid at any stage, at least 3 students must compete.

• Number of winners: 1 winner only should be selected to progress to the next round. If that champion is unable to attend the next round, the runner-up should be sent. Please keep the Poetry By Heart team informed of all changes.

• Judging criteria: students must be judged fairly according to the Poetry By Heart judging criteria available in this booklet and online at www.poetrybyheart.org.uk.

• Scoring: Judges must use the official scoring sheets to evaluate each performance. These scores should be added together at the end of the contest to provide a basis for agreeing the winner and runner up. Judges must not discuss performances or scores during the contest but may retire to discuss the cumulative scores before announcing the winner.

• Ties: in the event of a tie, or judges not being able to announce a clear winner, the top-performing students must recite 1 poem again for a separate tie-break score. Students may choose which poem to recite from the ones already recited in that contest.

• Props: students may not use props, music or costumes during their recitations.

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STEP 1

Launch your competition: tell everyone when and where it will be happening.

You will need to make some decisions about how big you think your contest might be in order to book an appropriate space for it. Think about the number of competitors you hope to have and how big an audience you think you can encourage to come. As long as you have 3 students competing to become champion, your contest is valid, but how far you take it after that is up to you.

In 2013 we had everything from 3 students battling it out in a classroom in a lunch break to week-long whole-school festivals of poetry, in which the Poetry By Heart contest featured as a culminating event. Some schools/colleges offered it as an extra-curricular option; others made it part of English lessons for a week; a few had every class selecting a champion to progress to the school/college contest.

There are posters in your pack to help you promote the event widely and schools/colleges and libraries were hugely inventive in this last year. There were special assemblies with teachers reciting poems of their choice from the timeline to show it could be done – not just English teachers, either! Libraries put on special displays of poems from the anthology in their exhibition spaces, and poetry books related to the competition. As long as the contest abides by the Poetry By Heart rules and scoring, we welcome all your creative ideas for bringing poetry alive in your community.

And this year, of course, you may have the opportunity to invite a former contestant to recite a poem at your launch! If you’re new to it, we have a network of teachers, librarians and arts centre staff who may be able to offer advice and information about how they made it work – get in touch and we’ll hook you up!

We would love to know when every school/college competition is happening.

Tell us your date now!

info@poetrybyheart.org.uk / +44 (0) 117 905 5338

One of the posters to help promote your events.

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STEP 2

At the school/college level, get students fired up and ready to take part.

After the initial launch, the most important thing to do is to make sure students know about the website as this has all the poems available on it in an interactive timeline. This has been rebuilt for 2014 so that it is much, much faster than it was last year, and it also works on mobile phones and tablets for students who have access to these devices.

There are also many new features for discovering new poems.

1) On the homepage there is a random poem lucky dip button – just click it and see what you get.

2) Click on the timeline and it will start randomly at any one of 20 points. Today you find yourself in 1977, tomorrow it might be 1758! Then scroll left or right for a journey through time.

3) Click open the <filter timeline> screen and have some fun making your own mini-timelines. Want to see just pre-1914 poems? There’s a filter for that. Just poems by female poets? Just ballads, or just poems about heroes, or just Caribbean poets? There are filters for those too. By all means get your students suggesting new filters too – we’ll be adding to this!

4) Use the search box to find particular poems, poets or even words within poems.

Remember that students need to select 1 poem published before 1914 and 1 poem published in or after 1914. The full list of the 200 timeline poems is on pages 14-17 of this handbook.

There are also videos on the website of some of last year’s finalists which might be useful for inspiring students to take part.

In 2013 some schools and colleges went a step further to develop their students’ confidence to sign up and take part. There were lessons involving whole class learning of a simple poem and choral recitations in small groups. There were lunchtime mentoring sessions for individual competitors to work through the poems and their meanings. There were rehearsals to try out and develop performance styles. There was buddying up of younger and older students, and involvement by librarians, support staff and teachers of all subjects. What do you want to do?

Website timeline

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PRE 1914 POEMS

The Beowulf poet - Beowulf The Gawain Poet - Sir Gawain and the Green knightGeoffrey Chaucer - The wife of BathAnonymous - I sing of a maidenThomas Wyatt - They flee from me that sometime did me seekSir Philip Sidney - Song from ArcadiaChidiock Tichborne - Tichborne’s elegyWalter Ralegh - WalsinghamMary Sidney Herbert - OEdmund Spenser - Amoretti LV: so oft as I her beauty do beholdChristopher Marlowe - In summer’s heat and mid-time of the dayWilliam Shakespeare - When that I was and a little tiny boyRobert Southwell - The burning babeGeorge Herbert - PrayerJohn Donne - The good morrowBen Jonson - Song to CeliaRichard Lovelace - To Althea from prisonRobert Herrick - A meditation for his mistressHenry King - An exequy to his matchless never to be forgotten friendAnne Bradstreet - Verses upon the burning of our houseJohn Milton - Paradise lost, book 1 Katherine Philips - EpitaphAphra Behn - A thousand martyrsAndrew Marvell - BermudasJohn Dryden - A song for St Cecilia’s DayAnne Finch - The hog, the sheep and the goat, carrying to a fairJohn Wilmot - The mistressAlexander Pope - Epistle to Miss Blount, on her leaving the town after the Coronation

Matthew Prior - Answer of Chloe jealousMary Leapor - The visitThomas Gray - Elegy written in a country churchyardSamuel Johnson - On the death of Dr Robert LevetCharlotte Smith - On being cautioned against walking on a headlandWilliam Cowper - Epitaph on a hareHannah Moore - Slavery: a poemJoanna Baillie - A mother to her waking infantAnna Laetitia Barbauld - The rights of womenRobert Burns - Song: ae fond kiss, and then we severRobert Southey - The battle of BlenheimMary Robinson - Female fashions for 1799Anonymous - The wife of Usher’s WellWilliam Blake - Auguries of innocenceAnonymous - Lord RandallWilliam Wordsworth - The solitary reaperGeorge Gordon Byron - The destruction of SennacheribSamuel Taylor Coleridge - Kubla KhanCharles Wolfe - The burial of Sir John Moore after CorunnaWalter Scott - Proud MaisiePercy Bysshe Shelley - Ozymandias John Keats - Ode to a nightingaleFelicia Hemans - CasabiancaThomas Love Peacock - The war song of Dinas VawrJohn Clare - I found a ball of grass among the hayRobert Browning - Porphyria’s loverAlfred Tennyson - UlyssesEmily Brontë - Remembrance

Arthur Hugh Clough - There is no GodElizabeth Barrett Browning - Sonnets from the Portuguese XXIVWilliam Barnes - My orcha’d in Linden LeaFrederick Tuckerman - An upper chamber in a darkened houseAdelaide Anne Proctor - EnvyLewis Carroll - You are old, father WilliamMatthew Arnold - Dover beachWalt Whitman - Dirge for two veteransW.E. Henley - InvictusAlgernon Swinburne - A forsaken gardenGerard Manley Hopkins - InversnaidGeorge Meredith - Lucifer in starlightChristina Rossetti - A frog’s fateEmily Dickinson - SnakeAmy Levy - PhilosophyRobert Bridges - London snowThomas Hardy - Thoughts of PhenaRobert Louis Stevenson - Sing me a song of a lad that is goneMary Elizabeth Coleridge - The witchOscar Wilde - The ballad of Reading gaol linesE. Nesbit - The things that matterW.E.B. DuBois - The song of the smokeRudyard Kipling - The way through the woodsC.P. Cavafy - The God abandons AntonyWalter de la Mare - Miss LooG.K. Chesterton - The rolling English roadPaul Dunbar - Invitation to loveAmy Lowell - A blockhead

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POST 1914 POEMS

Ezra Pound - The river merchant’s wifeW.H. Davies - The inquest Anna Wickham - DivorceRobert Frost - Out, out -Hilda Doolittle (H.D.) - Sea rosesCharlotte Mew - FameMay Wedderburn Cannan - RouenEdward Thomas - Lights outIvor Gurney - Strange hellsWilfred Owen - The showW.B. Yeats - The second comingA.E. Housman - Tell me not here, it needs not sayingClaude McKay - Harlem shadowsHilaire Belloc - Ha’nacker millRobert Graves - Welsh incidentT.S. Eliot - The journey of the MagiD.H. Lawrence - Bavarian gentiansDylan Thomas - The force that through the green fuse drives the flowerMarianne Moore - PoetryJohn Masefield - PartridgesElizabeth Daryush - Still life John Betjeman - The arrest of Oscar Wilde at the Cadogan HotelLouis MacNeice - Bagpipe musicWilliam Empson - AubadeW.H. Auden - Musée des beaux arts Theodore Roethke - My papa’s waltzAlun Lewis - GoodbyeKeith Douglas - How to killEdith Sitwell - Heart and mindElizabeth Bishop - The fishPhilip Larkin - Mr BleaneyE.J. Scovell - After midsummerAllen Ginsberg - A supermarket in California

Denise Levertov - To the snakeRobert Lowell - Skunk hourSylvia Plath - Morning songTed Hughes - February 17th Thom Gunn - Considering the snailRosemary Tonks - Badly chosen loverFrank O’Hara - The day lady diedJohn Berryman - Dream Songs No 67: I don’t operate oftenCharles Causley - Ballad of the bread manBasil Bunting - What the chairman told TomEdwin Morgan - StrawberriesW.S. Graham - The beast in the spaceDerek Walcott - Sea canesStevie Smith - The galloping catMichael Longley - WoundsDavid Jones - A, A, A, Domine DeusLinton Kwesi Johnson - Sonny’s lettahDerek Mahon - A disused shed in County WexfordYehuda Amichai - My father in a white space suitAnne Stevenson - A summer placeFleur Adcock - The ex-queen among the astronomersElizabeth Bartlett - W.E.A. courseCraig Raine - A Martian sends a postcard homeRita Dove - ÖTony Harrison - TimerAndrew Motion - The letterCarolyn Forché - The colonelChristopher Reid - At the wrong doorSelima Hill - Below HeklaLiz Lochhead - After the warPeter Porter - Your attention please

Patricia Beer - The lost womanKit Wright - The boys bump-starting the hearseJames Fenton - God, a poemDavid Dabydeen - Catching crabsU.A. Fanthorpe - The cleanerWendy Cope - Proverbial balladeSujata Bhatt - What is worth knowing?Elma Mitchell - Thoughts after RuskinKathleen Jamie - The way we livePaul Muldoon - Meeting the BritishGillian Clarke - BorderCarol Ann Duffy - OriginallyEavan Boland - The black lace fan my mother gave meMaura Dooley - Explaining magnetismMimi Khalvati - RubaiyatGlyn Maxwell - The eaterJo Shapcott - Phrase bookLavinia Greenlaw - Love from a foreign cityMoniza Alvi - The country at my shoulderMichael Hofmann - Marvin GayeCarol Rumens - The émigree Jackie Kay - Dusting the phoneVicki Feaver - JudithRoy Fisher - Birmingham riverJames Berry - On the afternoon train from Purley to Victoria, 1955Grace Nichols - BlackoutSeamus Heaney - St Kevin and the blackbird Alice Oswald - WeddingImtiaz Dharker - MinorityPaul Farley - A minute’s silenceJane Draycott - Prince Rupert’s dropMichael Donaghy - MachinesDenise Riley - Oleanna

Benjamin Zephaniah - It’s workSean O’Brien - Cousin coatIan Duhig - The Lammas hirelingDon Paterson - Waking with RussellVahni Capildeo - LiliesJacob Polley - SmokeSimon Armitage - The shoutChoman Hardi - Two pagesColette Bryce - The full Indian rope trickOwen Sheers - Mametz WoodKamau Brathwaite - Bread John Agard - Toussaint L’Ouverture acknowledges Wordsworth’s sonnet “To Toussaint L’Ouverture”E.A. Markham - A verandah ceremonyJean Sprackland - HandsDaljit Nagra - Look we have coming to Dover Mick Imlah - MarenPatience Agbabi - Josephine Baker finds herself Anthony Joseph - Conductors of his mysteryJacob Sam-La Rose - A life in dreams

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STEP 3

CompetitorsYou must have a minimum of 3 competitors to select a school/college champion and take part in the next round. Ideally, you will have 6 to 15 students competing in the school/college final – that makes for a nice competition lasting 1-2 hours. Of course, you can have many more students than that taking part if you wish. Last year, some schools and colleges held form group heats with winners from these going forward to the final, others held English class heats and year group heats. It’s up to you!

Rounds and scoringIf you have heats, students may simply recite 1 poem from any part of the Poetry By Heart anthology. The student with the highest judging score wins.

In the school or college final to select a winner to go through to the county contest, there must be 2 rounds. Students must recite 1 poem from the Poetry By Heart anthology in each round, 1 published before 1914 and 1 published in or after 1914. Students must recite one poem in each round, not their 2 poems consecutively. The first round will be the pre-1914 round; the second round will be the post-1914 round.

Students must provide the titles and authors of their poems in advance to the competition organiser. Students may not change their selections once they have been submitted. This will enable the organiser to have copies of the poems collated for the judges and prompter, and competition judging sheets prepared.

VenueReserve the school/college theatre, hall, library, learning resource centre or other appropriate venue. The ideal setting will have a stage and theatre style seating with an enthusiastic and supportive audience. Competitors will stand alone on stage in front of the audience while reciting their poems. Other competitors may either be seated to the side of the stage, in the front row of the audience or backstage. Depending on the size of the venue, amplification and lighting may be appropriate.

TimingsA school/college final should be timed to run no longer than 2 hours; any longer than that can be difficult for the audience. In structuring your competition, keep in mind that each recitation takes approximately 3 to 4 minutes. Judging will require another minute to mark scores, yielding a rough average of 4 to 5 minutes per recitation. If you have more than 12 students taking part, you might like to alter the structure so that some students go out of the competition after the first round, leaving a smaller number to battle it out in the second round. By all means call us if you want some help working it out!

Score sheetsDownload the Poetry By Heart competition score sheet from the website www.poetrybyheart.org.uk and print enough copies for the judges to have one for each contestant in each round. These are also available on page 44 of this handbook. Fill in the names of the participants and titles of the poems they will recite. Have these in the order of recitation before the competition, with 1 set for each judge.

Sample schedule A typical school/college competition may look something like the sample schedule on the next page, based on 10 students, an average recitation time of 3-4 minutes each, and 1 minute between recitations for scoring. You can run the competition during the school/college day or as a twilight or evening event, as you prefer.

Plan a lively contest and invite an audience.

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At the county stage, there will be a third round involving recitation of one of the poems from the 2014 special showcase collection of World War 1 poetry.

Schedule

Welcoming remarks and introduction of the judging panel, prompter, and accuracy judge. Thank supporters and special guests. Recap the judging criteria.

Round 1: students recite their pre-1914 poem.

Short break with encouraging words from your MC, maybe a poet reading, some music or whatever else your audience might enjoy that is in keeping with the event.

Round 2: students recite their post-1914 poem.

Judges complete scoring and identify winner and runner-up.

Announcement of winner and runner-up, then closing thank yous.

End: you could extend this with a performance of music, a poetry reading, refreshments or other social occasion for the performers to be

cheered and congratulated by their peers, families and communities.

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3.00pm

What our 2013 champion said

What her teacher said

‘The finals weekend was nothing shy of extraordinary. It seems unanimous that what we had gained by offering ourselves as orators of the poems was more than just the memory of the poem itself. What I gained was far more remarkable; I discovered the importance of poetry to human beings, and how this importance has spanned generations.’

Kaiti Soultana, Poetry By Heart 2013 champion

“I have always understood the power of learning poetry by heart but I have never before had a student come up to me at morning break and tell me that she wants to recite Gawain in the original and that she’s already learnt ten lines. “Go on then,” I said, “let’s hear it.” She hadn’t just learnt it, she had understood it. When she recited it for the other students in our college round of the competition, they understood it too. Kaiti Soultana is a remarkable young woman but without the Poetry By Heart competition she would not have had such an outlet for her talent”

Jane Bluett, English teacher

Kaiti Soultana from Bilborough College, Nottingham, with her English teacher, Jane Bluett, after accepting her winner’s trophy.

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STEP 4

Get the people you need lined up.

In addition to you, the organiser, you will need a team of people to help you. It’s best to get these lined up as soon as possible. If you want to involve a local poet and aren’t sure where to find one, do give us a call and we’ll see what we can do to help! Your organiser’s role is to stimulate and support participation by students and teachers, organise the smooth running of your competition, make sure the judging is fair and follows all the Poetry By Heart rules and criteria, and communicate with the Poetry By Heart team.

Class judge: class or form group heats need only be judged by 1 adult, usually the class teacher, though it is acceptable to involve others from school/college or the wider community. Contest judges: there must be at least 3 judges, including 1 accuracy judge, but you can have a bigger panel if you prefer. Judges could be drawn from teaching and library staff, or you may invite some community members to judge the competition. Appropriate judges might be local poets, actors, professors, PGCE tutors, arts reporters, politicians, governors or community leaders and mentors. Judges should have some knowledge and enthusiasm for poetry although they need not be experts.

Prompter: it is important to have someone following along with the recitations, ready to prompt a student who may get stuck on a line. Have a copy of the poems to be recited ready for the prompter, in order of recitation. This role can be combined with that of the accuracy judge.

Scorer: while the competition is taking place, someone needs to tabulate the judges’ scores so that no time is wasted totalling scores after the recitations are finished. A spreadsheet works well for this purpose but remember to test it works beforehand. It is useful to have a runner who can collect score sheets from the judges after each recitation.

Ushers: depending on how much of an event you want to make your competition, you may like to create a program for the event that lists the competitors and the poems they will be reciting. Ushers could give these out and direct audience members to their seats.

MC: an MC will guide the competition from start to finish, providing welcoming remarks, introducing judges and students, and announcing winners. The MC will make sure judges have enough time to complete their scoring before the next student begins to recite. The MC may entertain the audience, share biographical information about the poets or student performers, introduce live or recorded music, or otherwise fill time between recitations or rounds.

John Agard, MC East Sussex county contest, 2013

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STEP 5

Make sure your judges know what they have to do.

The judging criteria and scoring system has been simplified this year, following feedback from last year’s school/college and county contests. Whether your judges were part of last year’s events or not, they will need time to prepare. Some organisers did this through email and phone contact before the event; some supplemented that with a short judges’ meeting before the students arrived.

The evaluation criteria and scoring process for judging a competition are on page 48 and on the website www.poetrybyheart.org.uk. There are also videos on the website of some of last year’s finalists, which judges could use to practise scoring. Judges might also like to read the poems they will be judging recitations of: all available on the website too.

Once settled in, give your judges their stack of scoring sheets, on which the competitors’ names and the poems chosen should already be written, in the order of recitation. Make sure they have the evaluation criteria available in front of them. Only the accuracy judge should have a copy of the poems; only the accuracy judge should judge accuracy!

The accuracy judge may also function as the prompter. S/he should sit directly in front of the stage, in case a student gets stuck. The use of a prompter will primarily affect the student’s accuracy score, but may also affect their overall performance. As each student recites, the prompter should follow the text of the poem. If the

student gets stuck, they should pause and look directly at the prompter. At that point, they will be given the next few words of the poem. If they are still stuck, they may be given a few more words. If a contestant forgets a line, but moves ahead to a later part of the poem without looking at the prompter, the prompter should just follow the text and note the missing lines.

Judges in all phases of the competition must use the official scoring sheets to evaluate each performance. Judges must not discuss performances or scores during the rounds of the contest. After each student’s performance, the score sheets should be collected by a scorer and added together. Students will each have 1 score for the pre-1914 round, and 1 score for the post-1914 round.

In school/college contests, these 2 scores should be added together and the total score for each student returned to the judging panel to provide a basis for agreeing the winner and runner up.

In county contests with up to 6 competitors, there will be a third round of World War 1 poems and a third score. These 3 scores should be added together and the total score for each student returned to the judging panel to provide a basis for agreeing the winner and runner up.

In county contests with 7 or more competitors, the judges should use the total scores of the first 2 rounds as a basis for selecting the top three student performers to compete in the third round. The scores for the third round poem should be added to the totals for the first 2 rounds to give a cumulative score for each student. These cumulative scores should be returned to the judging panel to provide a basis for agreeing the winner and runner up.

In each type of contest, judges may retire to discuss the cumulative scores before announcing the winner.

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In the event of a tie, or judges not being able to announce a clear winner, the top-performing students must recite 1 poem again for a separate tie-break score. They may choose to recite any of the poems they have already recited in that contest.

If a judge feels that he or she has a conflict of interest they should say so as soon as possible. Early disclosure of any potential conflicts of interest (or the appearance of any) will help organisers to keep the integrity of the competition, and make it fair for all competitors. Potential conflicts of interest include:

• Being a friend or relative of 1 of the contestants (applies in all contests)

• Being a teacher or coach of 1 of the contestants (applies in county contests)

• Being an alumni of the competing schools (applies in county contests)

• Being a poet whose work appears in the anthology (applies in all contests)

People have grown sixthsenseand sonic ways, like bats,

from ‘Blackout’, 1996Grace Nichols

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STEP 6

Hold your contest.

This is the exciting bit! Make sure you’ve pulled in every favour you’re owed to make sure you have enough help on the day getting your venue ready, preparing score sheets, testing micro-phones (if you’re using them), making sure you have someone to take photographs, and whatever else you’re doing to make your contest lively, fun and smooth-running.

Some organisers last year invited their judges in a little earlier to make sure everyone was briefed and clear about the scoring system. It’s also nice if they have a chance to get to know each other a little. Lots of organisers also had a little walk-through with the students before the audience arrived, just to make sure they knew where they needed to stand, the running order and likely timings, and how they should introduce their poem and poet (see below). This is likely to make everyone feel more relaxed and comfortable.

Introducing the poemAt the competition, the MC should introduce students as they come to the stage to recite. It is the student’s job to identify the poem by announcing the title and the poet, e.g. “‘Ozymandias’ by Percy Bysshe Shelley”. A student’s own comments before or after the poem are not permitted. The poem must be delivered by heart, from memory.

Judging During the competition, seat the judges a little away from the rest of the audience so they are not distracted. Judges should not

have any interaction with the contestants or the audience until the competition has ended. Judges must not discuss their scores during the rounds - they should rate recitations individually on their own merit. After each recitation, the scorer or his/her runner will collect the completed score sheets and tabulate the scores; warn judges that they will not be able to change scores after this. The scores from each round are totalled to provide a basis for selecting the winner and runner-up. Judges may retire to discuss the scores before announcing the winner and runner-up.

PrompterSeat the prompter in the centre of the front row and show students where s/he is sitting before the competition begins. If a competitor is stuck for several seconds and looks to the prompter for help, the prompter may provide the next few words of the poem to get the student back on track.

AwardsA certificate of participation is available on the Poetry By Heart website. For the county contests, Poetry By Heart will send prizes in advance to give out.

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NATIONAL FINALS

The national finals are part of the expenses-paid winners weekend for county contest winners and their teachers. It starts with dinner and a welcome reception on Thursday, then regional semi-finals and a special activities programme all day Friday and Saturday morning, culminating in the national finals on Saturday afternoon.

13-15 March 2014National Portrait Gallery, London

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STEP 7

Tell the Poetry By Heart team the name of your contest winner and runner-up.

After your contest, please let the Poetry By Heart team know the outcome as soon as possible. We need to know about the winner and about 1 runner-up. Only the winner can progress to the next round, but we need to know who the runner-up is in case the winner is unable to attend for any reason. We want to know which poems were recited so that we can keep track of which poems are and aren’t popular in the timeline.

WINNER

Name of student:Year group of student:School/college name: Pre-1914 poem recited in this contest:Post-1914 poem recited in this contest:WW1 poem recited in this contest (in county contests):

RUNNER UP

Name of student:Year group of student:School/college name: Pre-1914 poem recited:Post-1914 poem recited:WW1 poem recited (in county contests):

After we have the results logged, we will be in touch with winners’ teachers via email to confirm the choice of poems for the next round, in case your student wishes to change their selection. Please reply promptly to this email so that we can get the information to the organisers of the next round in good time.

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STEP 8

Tell local radio and newspaper journalists what you’re doing.

To help you promote your contest, we’ve prepared a template release you can use to tell local newspapers, magazines and radio stations about your contest event and winner. You could get some students who aren’t taking part in the competition to take care of this dimension, adapting the template and adding photographs. And why stop there? You or the students could also blog about it, tweet it, write about it on your web-page, or whatever mechanisms you have in place to share the story with people in your community.

It was wonderful to see so much local news coverage last year, celebrating young people and their magnificent achievements – let’s see how much more we can generate this year!

POETRY BY HEART - Press Release Template For use by: Competition Organisers

From: Your Address/ Contact Details To: Recipient Address/Contact Details

Photograph details and caption if available and sent with press release.

Re: Poetry By Heart Competition at xxxxxxxxxxx

Talented students [EITHER at XXX school/college OR from across the county] have been entering a pioneering national competition designed to encourage pupils at school and college in England to learn and to recite poems by heart.

[EITHER A short description of what activity led up to the school/college final OR After a round of school and college competitions winners progressed to the county finals.] The xxxxxxx competition was organised by xxxx and took place in xxxxxxx at the xxxxxx on xxxxxxxxxxxx

X (number of students) took part reciting two poems from the 200 available in the online anthology which supports the competition at www.poetrybyheart.org.uk.[County contests only: students also recited a World War 1 poem from the 2014 showcase collection on the website.}

The xxxx competition was judged by xxxxx [judges details – if possible a quote from the chair of judges. Add any further relevant details of this particular competition e.g. some of the poems recited and the Name and poem choices of winner]

A Poetry By Heart spokesperson explains the thinking behind the competition:

“Throughout the Poetry By Heart competition, young people have amply demonstrated the power of memorisation in arriving at a committed, textured and heartfelt understanding of a poem. They have showed no fear in choosing poems, constantly surprising us with the ambition of their choices. Poetry By Heart provides a pioneering public demonstration, by young people, of the act of encountering, inhabiting and sharing a poem.

The former Poet Laureate Andrew Motion who set up the Poetry Archive is the driving force behind the idea. He has commented,

“…we want it to be fun, as it encourages pupils to discover new pleasures and fulfilments, but we want it to be serious as well: an excitement and a dare.To demonstrate, in fact, the marvellous form of two-way travelling that poetry allows us: into ourselves, and out into the world, at one and the same time.”

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Note to Editors:

1. Poetry By Heart is an educational initiative of The Poetry Archive developed in association with The Full English.

2. The website can be found at www.poetrybyheart.org.uk In addition to the 200 poems and poets in the competition anthology the site holds information about the competition, the philosophy behind the initiative and more resources for teachers and students.

3. The search for the 2014 Poetry By Heart national champion was launched in October 2013.

4. County competitions are being held in up to 50 different towns and cities up and down the country in association with public libraries and community arts centres.

5. The Regional and National finals will be held March 13th-15th 2014 at the National Portrait Gallery in London. Sir Andrew Motion will chair the judging panel.

6. Workshops on poetry recitation and remembering are taking place around England to support teacher professional development.

7. Oxford University Press as part of a partnership with Poetry By Heart has provided a selected number of free links to entries in the Oxford English Dictionary, the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, and the American National Biography Online for the duration of the competition. The free content can be accessed by clicking on highlighted text within the anthology of poems.

Press Release Ends

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The Curfew tolls the knell of parting day,The lowing herd wind slowly o’er the lea,The plowman homeward plods his weary way,And leaves the world to darkness and to me.

from ‘Elegy written in a country church yard’, 1751Thomas Gray

COUNTY CONTEST DATESWe want every one of the 49 county contests to be serious fun, a fantastic live poetry event, and a well-contested competition. All timings, addresses and venue details will be sent to school/college organisers when we receive your champion’s name and poem details. All school/college champions’ names and poem details will be sent to county contest organisers in advance to allow for preparation of timing, running order and judging. EAST MIDLANDS

• Derbyshire: Derby Theatre, 22nd January 2014• Leicestershire & Rutland: Melton Mowbray Library, 11th February 2014• Lincolnshire: Louth Town Hall, 7th February 2014• Northamptonshire: Northampton Central Library, 6th February 2014• Nottinghamshire: Nottingham Arts Theatre, 14th January 2014

EAST OF ENGLAND

• Bedfordshire: Bedford Central Library, date to be confirmed• Cambridgeshire: St Ives Corn Exchange, 7th February 2014• Essex: Colchester Arts Centre, 4th February 2014• Hertfordshire: The Maltings Arts Theatre, St Albans, 22nd January 2014• Norfolk: Norwich Arts Centre, 21st January 2014• Suffolk: County Library Ipswich, 13th February 2014

LONDON

• Central London: to be confirmed• East London: Romford Central Library, 5th February 2014• North London: Chipping Barnet Library, 12th February 2014• South London: Sutton Life Centre, 20th January 2014• West London: Paul Robeson Theatre, Centre Space, Hounslow,

28th January 2014

NORTH EAST & YORKSHIRE & THE HUMBER

• County Durham: The Arc, Stockton-on-Tees, 12th February 2014• Northumberland and Tyne & Wear: Newcastle City Library,

8th February 2014• East Riding of Yorkshire: The Guildhall, Hull, 5th February 2014• North Yorkshire: Acomb Library, York, 1st February 2014• South Yorkshire: to be confirmed• West Yorkshire: Central Library, Halifax, 11th February 2014

NORTH WEST

• Cheshire: Ellesmere Port Library, 4th February 2014• Cumbria: Carlisle Library, 5th February 2014• Greater Manchester: Wigan Library, 1st February 2014• Lancashire: Lancaster Library, 7th February 2014• Manchester: to be confirmed• Merseyside: The Lantern Theatre, 11th February 2014

SOUTH EAST

• Berkshire: Guildhall, 15th January 2014• Buckinghamshire: High Wycombe Library, 29th January 2014• East Sussex: Jubilee Library, Brighton, 8th February 2014• Hampshire & IOW: to be confirmed• Kent: Colyer Ferguson Hall, University of Kent, Canterbury,

16th January 2014• Oxfordshire: The Old Fire Station, Oxford, 28th January 2014• Surrey: Woking Library, 10th February 2014• West Sussex: to be confirmed

SOUTH WEST

• Avon: Bristol City Library or J3 Easton (to be confirmed), 29th January 2014

• Cornwall: Truro Community Library, 30th January 2014• Devon: Ivybridge Library, 12th February 2014• Dorset: The Council Chamber, Dorchester, 29th January 2014• Gloucestershire: Blackfriars, Gloucester, 13th February 2014• Somerset: The Egg, Bath, 11th February 2014• Wiltshire: The Arc Theatre, Trowbridge, 6th February 2014

WEST MIDLANDS

• Birmingham: to be confirmed• Hereford and Worcestershire: Droitwich Library,

28th January 2014• Shropshire: Library at The Lantern, Shrewsbury,

22nd January 2014• Staffordshire: Hothouse Lecture Theatre, Sutherland Institute,

Stoke-on-Trent, 5th February 2014• Warwickshire: Rugby Library, 6th February 2014• West Midlands: Shenstone Theatre, Halesowen Library,

15th January 2014

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STEP 9

Support your contest champion in preparing for the next round.

New to the Poetry By Heart competition this year is a requirement that all students learn a third poem for county contests and beyond. It was, in fact, a requirement of the competition in 2013, but everything had to happen in such a rush that we dropped it in the interests of sanity and simplicity. Now it’s back!

Every year there will be a special showcase collection of poems from which students must choose their third poem. In 2014 this is the poetry of World War 1, to coincide with the centenary commemorations. The selection of poems will be announced on November 11th 2013, in plenty of time for school/college winners to prepare their third poem for the county contests.

In smaller county contests – with up to 6 competitors – students will be required to recite all 3 poems, one in each of 3 rounds. In larger county contests – with 7 or more competitors – students will first recite their two main timeline poems (1 pre-1914 and 1 post-1914), then the three top-performing students will battle it out for a place at the winners’ weekend in London by reciting their third poem, the one from the World War 1 showcase.

In helping your champion prepare for the regional semi-finals and national finals, you might encourage them to think about the increasing challenge they will face as they battle it out with other county winners. You might encourage them to review the judging

criteria and scoring system to help think about any areas they might improve. You might review videos of 2013 performances available on the site, to encourage them to reflect on their own performance.

The key tip is this: less is more.

Remember that students can change their poems at this stage if they want to, as long as the final selection is confirmed to the Poetry By Heart team at least one week before the date of the next round.

KaitI Soultana, Poetry By Heart champion 2013.

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STEP 10

Argue with the anthology.

Poetry By Heart is the newest addition to a global family of national poetry recitation competitions, including Poetry Out Loud in the United States, the bilingual Poetry In Voice in Canada, and Poetry Aloud in Ireland. All of these competitions require students to select poems for performance from a specially chosen collection. Having an anthology makes the competition fairer as no-one is privileged by prior knowledge of poems and poets. It avoids the danger that students merely reprise poems specified for their exams, or a favourite rap lyric they already know off by heart, or only simple poems that they think will be easy to remember. And for all students who want to roam further, it offers a “walled garden” with sufficient diversity to enjoy and find one’s own pleasures and the security of knowing any choice made will be valid.

Poets Andrew Motion and Jean Sprackland have selected 200 poems for the main anthology; the shortest are sonnets, the longest about a page and a half. The anthology is serious and playful, accessible and ambitious, ‘classic’ and contemporary, and balanced between pre-1914 and post-1914 poems. The poems are as diverse in language, style and form as the poets who wrote them, and the anthology offers a chronologically coherent range of poems from different periods, such that interested teachers and students have a foundation for exploring poetry over time. Above all, it has the character and spice of an anthology selected by poets.

The valuing inherent in making any selection of poems will - and should always be – open to questioning, discussion and debate. We hope that you, your students, your library readers and arts centre users will join us in that debate during the life of this year’s competition. You could make this part of a lesson, a survey, a panel debate, a reading group discussion – or any number of other opportunities your community might enjoy.

Which poems and poets would you add?

Which poems and poets would you remove?

Which poems would you replace by existing poets?

Talk to us:info@poetrybyheart.org.uk Twitter @poetrybyheartfacebook.com/poetrybyheartcompetition

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CONTEST SCORE SHEET

NAME OF STUDENT

TOTAL (Max. 26 points)

ACCURACY JUDGE’S SCORE (Max. 4 points)

T ITLE OF POEM

VOICE AND ARTICULATION

VERY WEAK

1

1

1

1

WEAK

2

2

2

2

LEVEL OF DIFFICULTY

OVERALL PERFORMANCE

EVIDENCE OF UNDERSTANDING

POINTS

POINTS

F INAL SCORE (Max. 30 points)

AVERAGE

3

3

3

4

GOOD

4

4

4

6

EXCELLENT

5

5

5

7

OUTSTANDING

6

6

6

8

POINTS

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ACCURACY SCORE SHEET

NAME OF STUDENT

F INAL ACCURACY SCORE

TITLE OF POEM

GRADING CRITERIA

4 points: a word perfect reci tat ion

3 points: a reci tat ion with no more than 10% minor inaccuracies

2 points: a reci tat ion with more than 10% minor accuracies

1 ponts: a reci tat ion with 1 major inaccuracy

0 points: a reci tat ion with more than 1 major inaccuracy.

HOW TO CALCULATE % INACCURACY

minor inaccuracies divided by lines in poem x100 = %

e.g

5 minor inaccuracies divided by 25 lines in poem x100 = 20%

MINOR INACCURACIES INCLUDE

• Confusing a pronoun (‘he’ instead of ‘she’)

• Confusing an article (‘a’ instead of ‘the’)

• Pluralising a word or vice versa (‘kangaroo’ instead of ‘kangaroos’)

• Replacing a word with a similar word (‘jump’ instead of ‘leap’)

• Confusing word order (‘pans and pots’ instead of ‘pots and pans’)

• Missing out a word

• Repeating a word

• Adding a word

MAJOR INACCURACIES INCLUDE

• One line out of order

• Repeating a line

• Skipping a line, or three or more words in the same line

• Reversing two stanzas

• Missing out a stanza

POINTS

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JUDGING CRITERIAStudent performances in all rounds of the competition must be judged and scored using these criteria. Please note that these have changed slightly from the criteria used in 2013.

Voice and articulation 1-6 pointsThis category is to evaluate the auditory nature of the recitation. Consider the student’s volume, pace, rhythm, intonation and pronunciation. In a strong performance, all words are pronounced appropriately in the student’s natural accent and the volume, rhythm and intonation greatly enhance the recitation. Pacing is appropriate to the poem.

Evidence of understanding 1-6 pointsThis category is to evaluate whether the student exhibits an under-standing of the poem in his or her recitation. A strong performance relies on a powerful internalisation of the poem rather than distracting dramatic gestures. In a strong performance, the meaning of the poem is powerfully and clearly conveyed to the audience. The student displays an interpretation that deepens and enlivens the poem. Meaning, messages, allusions, irony, tones of voice and other nuances are captured by the performance. A low score is awarded if the interpretation obscures the meaning of the poem or makes use of affected character voices and accents, inappropriate tone and inflection, singing, distracting and excessive gestures, or unnecessary emoting.

Level of difficulty 1-6 pointsThis category is to evaluate the comparative difficulty of the poem, which is the result of several factors. A poem with difficult content conveys complex, sophisticated ideas, that the student will be challenged to grasp and express. A poem with difficult language will have complexity of diction and syntax, metre and rhyme scheme, and shifts in tone or mood. Poem length is also considered in difficulty but bear in mind that longer poems are not necessarily more difficult than shorter ones. Judges may also consider the diversity of a student’s recitations with this score; a student is less

49

likely to score well in this category when judges note that a student’s style of interpretation remains the same regardless of poem choice or challenge.

Overall performance 1-8 pointsThis category is to evaluate the overall success of the performance, the degree to which the recitation has become more than the sum of its parts. Has the student captivated the audience with the language of the poem? Did the student bring the audience to a better understanding of the poem? Did the contestant’s physical presence enhance the recitation, engaging the audience through appropriate body language, confidence and eye contact? Does the student understand and show mastery of the art of recitation? The judges will use this score to measure how impressed they were by the recitation, and whether the recitation has honoured the poem. A low score will be awarded for recitations that are poorly presented, ineffective in conveying the meaning of the poem, or conveyed in a manner inappropriate to the poem.

Accuracy 1-4 marksA separate judge will mark missed or incorrect words during the recitation. Students will score a full 4 points for a word-perfect recitation; 3 for a recitation with no more than 10% minor inaccuracies; 2 for a recitation with more than 10% minor inaccuracies; 1 for a recitation with 1 major inaccuracy; 0 for a recitation with more than 1 major inaccuracy.

Maximum score: 30 points

Further Scoring Tips For each of the evaluation criteria, a solid performance scores 4 (or 6 in the Overall Performance category). Judges should keep this in mind at all times, and especially when scoring the early recitations, since these will set the standard for everything that follows. A score of 8 for Overall Performance is rare. It should be saved for truly exceptional recitations.

Judges should be careful to score each category separately. Judges should also check they have circled a number in each category before handing in their score sheets.

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This handbook is published by The Poetry Archive & The Full English

www.poetryarchive.org

The Poetry ArchivePO Box 286StroudGloucestershireGL6 1ALUK

twitter.com/poetryarchivefacebook.com/poetryarchive

Poetry By Heart is an educational initiative of the Poetry Archive, developed in association with The Full English.

In the academic year 2013-14, Poetry By Heart is again being supported by the Department for Education.

© Crown Copyright 2014

Additional copies of this handbook can be downloaded at www.poetrybyheart.org.uk

Patience Agbabi, poet

“ It was the most electrifying performance of poetry from the past I have ever experienced, a very special day. Hearing the work of dead poets live and kicking was an absolute treat. The finalists inhabited their chosen poems so completely that a magical thing happened: the poems inhabited them. They spoke from the heart. Their enthusiasm, their delight in the language inspired everyone in that room. This was serious fun.

www.thefullenglish.org.uk

The Full EnglishPO BOX 3007BristolBS8 9ETUK

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twitter.com/realfullenglish