Announcing our 2025 Junior Champions, Senior Semifinalists, and the FutureVerse Shortlist

For immediate release — 11 am EDT, March 13, 2025

 

MONTREAL, QC — Poetry In Voice/Les voix de la poésie announces its 2025 Junior Online Finals winners and its 2025 Senior Online Qualifiers 24 Semi-finalists.

For the 15th year, high school students from across the country participated in classroom and school contests by learning poems by heart from the Poetry In Voice/Les voix de la poésie online anthology. Students in grades 7–9 entered the Junior Online Finals, while students in grades 10–12 entered the Senior Online Qualifiers, in one of the contest’s three streams: English, French, or Bilingual. Each school's champion submitted two recitation videos for consideration. The videos were judged and the winners selected by two panels of Canadian poets, one for the Junior Online Finals and the other for the Senior Online Qualifiers. The selected reciters were chosen from close to 20 000 students across the country. 

 

$25 000 in Prizes

Each Junior Champion earned between $200 and $500, while each Semi-finalist earned $250. The recipient of the People’s Choice Award will receive an extra $500. During the National Finals, a total of nearly $18 000 will be awarded to the winners.

Until March 20th, the public is invited to watch the 24 Semi-finalists’ recitations on the Poetry In Voice/Les voix de la poésie website, and to vote for their favourite in French and English, in the People’s Choice Award. Poetry lovers and neophytes alike will surely find poems and interpretations to their taste!

VOTE NOW!

The judges will have the difficult task of choosing the nine reciters who will participate in the National Finals, to be announced on Thursday, March 20th. The 15th National Finals will be held live on May 15th, at The Centre in Vancouver, and streamed on our website. 

 


 

Here are our 2025 Junior Champions:

English Stream

The first prize of $500 for the best combined score of two recitations in English goes to Daniel Tiwana, St. George's School, Vancouver, BC.

The second prize of $300 goes to Julia Wang, Unionville High School, Unionville, ON.

The third prize of $200 goes to Jill Robertson, Langley Fine Arts School, Fort Langley, BC.

Bilingual Stream

The first prize of $500 for the best combined score of one recitation in English and one recitation in French goes to Aïta Diop, Collège de Lévis, Lévis, QC.

The second prize of $300 goes to Angelina Baazak, Collège St-Alexandre de la Gatineau, Gatineau, QC.

The third prize of $200 goes to Ava Daneshkhah, École Secondaire Êtienne-Brûlé, Toronto, ON.

French Stream

The first prize of $500 for the best combined score of two recitations in French goes to Andréa Cunha Maréchal, Collège St-Alexandre de la Gatineau, Gatineau, QC.

The second prize of $300 goes to Ève-Marie Guay, Collège Notre-Dame-de-Lourdes, Longueuil, QC.

The third prize of $200 goes to Maeve Shaffer, Lycée international de Calgary, Calgary, AB.


Watch their recitations!

 


 

And here are the 2025 Senior Online Semi-finalists:

9 Finalists will be announced on Thursday, March 20th to advance to the National Finals in Vancouver.

English Stream

  • Heart Barabad, Kildonan-East Collegiate, Winnipeg, MB
  • Mateus De Melo, Marshall McLuhan Secondary School, Toronto, ON
  • Zeinab Kesserwan, Edmonton Islamic Academy, Edmonton, AB
  • Amelia King, Little Flower Academy, Vancouver, BC
  • Kyo Lee, Laurel Heights Secondary School, Waterloo, ON
  • Si Yuan Liu, Collège Jean-de-Brébeuf, Montréal, QC
  • Sofia Nenshi Nathoo, Sir Winston Churchill High School, Calgary, AB
  • Adrian, St. Thomas Aquinas Regional Secondary School, North Vancouver, BC
  • Lyric Petty, Elmwood High School, Winnipeg, MB
  • Chloe Tam, Eric Hamber Secondary School, Vancouver, BC
  • Isa Torres Rangel, All Saints High School, Calgary, AB
  • Annabel Wood, École Secondaire Mont-Bleu, Gatineau, QC

French Stream

  • Yasmine Aouchiche, École Internationale de Montréal, Montréal, QC
  • Frida Cuaquentzi Piteev, Collège Beaubois, Pierrefonds, QC
  • Victor Dubé-Marcus, Collège St-Alexandre de la Gatineau, Gatineau, QC
  • Omar Elbatouty, École Secondaire Étienne-Brûlé, Toronto, ON
  • Keziah Midy, Collège Jean-de-Brébeuf, Montréal, QC
  • Gabriela Wortman, École l'Odyssée, Moncton, NB

Bilingual Stream

  • Margot Cadrin, Collège Beaubois, Pierrefonds, QC
  • Mohammad Elnakoury , École Secondaire Étienne-Brûlé, Toronto, ON
  • Norah Kenward-Richard, École Alpha Secondary School, Burnaby, BC
  • Cynthia Li, Collège Jean-de-Brébeuf, Montréal, QC
  • Nour Snani, Glenforest Secondary School, Mississauga, ON
  • Zak Tucker, Eric Hamber Secondary School, Vancouver, BC

 


 

The judges

The judges of the Junior Online Contest are:

  • Daphné B.
  • Lady Vanessa Cardona
  • Carol-Ann Hoyte
  • David Ly
  • Laure Morali
  • Martin Pouliot

The judges of the Senior Online Contest are:

  • Valérie Forgues
  • Richard Harrison
  • Mathew Henderson
  • Sally Ito
  • Meghan Kemp-Gee
  • Charles Leblanc
  • Ian LeTourneau
  • Brendan McLeod
  • Catherine Poulin

 


 

FutureVerse

For the third year, FutureVerse will be held alongside the National Finals, this time in Vancouver.  FutureVerse is an all-expenses-paid poetry intensive that brings together young writers from all over the country for four days of workshops, panels, readings, and activities with renowned authors, publishers, and activists. To apply, students submitted an original poem to VOICES/VOIX, our student poetry journal, or to Voices/Voix Monthly Prize, our monthly poetry contest, and/or applied through our online application form. Below is the shortlist of our FutureVerse applicants. Click on their names to read one of their poems and learn more about them. The 16 students selected for FutureVerse will be announced on March 20th. 

FutureVerse Shortlist

 

About Poetry In Voice/Les voix de la poésie 

Founded by Scott Griffin, chairman and founder of the illustrious Griffin Trust For Excellence In Poetry, Poetry In Voice/Les voix de la poésie encourages all Canadians to speak the language of poetry. They are the essential resource for teaching and learning poetry in Canada — and beyond. The organization started by hosting a recitation contest with 12 schools in Ontario in 2010 and has since become “a cultural force in Canada,” according to Margaret Atwood. 

Every year, the organization hosts two national recitation contests (one for students in Grades 10–12, and another for students in Grades 7–9) and a dozen local team recitation contests. These contests rely on robust online anthologies of classic and contemporary poems in English and French. The organization also publishes an annual bilingual journal of student poetry, VOICES/VOIX, with issue #6 released last September. 

Their website includes comprehensive teaching materials, and to date Poetry In Voice/Les voix de la poésie has sent poets into over 2500 classrooms to work with over 75,000 students through their Poet In Class/Poètes à l’école program. 

MEDIA CONTACT

For all media enquiries, including interviews with the Junior Champions, the Semi-finalists, or with Poetry In Voice/Les voix de la poésie, contact David Smith, Executive Director, david@poetryinvoice.ca, c: 514.668.0768, or Nicole Magas, publicist, e: nicole@zgstories.com, c: 778.697.1394.

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