For immediate release — 11:30 am EDT, March 12, 2026
MONTREAL, QC — Poetry in Voice/Les voix de la poésie announces its 2026 Junior Online Finals winners, 2026 Senior Online Qualifiers 24 Semifinalists, and 2026 FutureVerse shortlist.
Ever since 2011, students from across the country have participated in annual 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.
$40,000 in Prizes!
This year, thanks to our new presenting supporter The Hilary and Galen Weston Foundation, each Semifinalist will win $250 and each Junior Champion will earn between $300 and $1,000! The recipients of the People’s Choice Award will receive an additional $500. During the National Finals, a new total of $30 000 will be awarded to the winners.
Until March 18, the public is invited to watch the 24 Semifinalists’ recitations on the Poetry in Voice/Les voix de la poésie website, and to vote for their favourite recitation in French and in English, in the now classic People’s Choice Award. Poetry lovers and neophytes alike will surely find poems and interpretations to their liking!
https://poetryinvoice.ca/peoples-choice
https://lesvoixdelapoesie.ca/prix-du-public
The judges will now have the difficult task of choosing the nine reciters who will participate in the National Finals, to be announced next Thursday, March 29. The 2026 National Finals will be held in person on April 28, at Le Diamant in Quebec City, and streamed live on our website.
Here are our 2026 Junior Champions:
Visit the link above to watch their recitations.
English Stream
The first prize of $1,000 for the best combined score of two recitations in English goes to Rickie Wang, St. George's School, Vancouver, BC.
The second prize of $500 goes to Jasmine Padigos, Ottewell School, Edmonton, AB.
The third prize of $300 goes to Ella McFarland, Stem Innovation Academy, Calgary, AB.
Bilingual Stream
The first prize of $1,000 for the best combined score of one recitation in English and one recitation in French goes to Amrutha Thevarajan, École secondaire publique Pierre-de-Blois, Nepean, ON.
The second prize of $500 goes to Chloe Tremblay, Lycée Francais de Toronto, Toronto, ON.
The third prize of $300 goes to Kayla Donnelly, École Alpha Secondary School, Burnaby, BC.
French Stream
The first prize of $1,000 for the best combined score of two recitations in French goes to Lily-Anne Micheletti, Collège Notre-Dame-de-Lourdes, Longueuil, QC.
The second prize of $500 goes to Diana Radan, Lycée Francais de Toronto, Toronto, ON.
The third prize of $300 goes to Ella Cohen, Academy for Gifted Children - P.A.C.E., Richmond Hill, ON.
And here are the 2026 Senior Online Semifinalists:
Visit the People’s Choice Award page to watch their recitation and vote for your favorite one!
English Stream
- Aeyla Antique, St. John's High School, Winnipeg, MB
- Harper Arato, Crofton House School, Vancouver, BC
- Frederick Chan, Vancouver Christian School, Vancouver, BC
- Keisha Columbres, St. Gabriel the Archangel School, Chestermere, AB
- Jette Green, St. Mary's High School, Calgary, AB
- Safeyyah Imam, University of Toronto Schools, Toronto, ON
- Zeinab Kesserwan, Edmonton Islamic Academy, Edmonton, AB
- Amelia King, Little Flower Academy, Vancouver, BC
- Melody Ovuakporoyecha, St. Malachy's Memorial High School, Saint John, NB
- Melissa Pauls, Kildonan-East Collegiate, Winnipeg, MB
- Sylvie Tait-Kuhnle, Parkdale Collegiate Institute, Toronto, ON
- Sylvia Zhang, The Sacred Heart School of Montreal, Montréal, QC
Bilingual Stream
- Aïta Diop, Collège de Lévis, Lévis, QC
- Isabel Ijenyo, École Secondaire Mont-Bleu, Gatineau, QC
- Catherine Ji, University of Toronto Schools, Toronto, ON
- Norah Kenward-Richard, École Alpha Secondary School, Burnaby, BC
- Bernice Ko, Vancouver Christian School, Vancouver, BC
- Cianna Rukundo, École Secondaire Êtienne-Brûlé, Toronto, ON
French Stream
- Taonsa Angéla Boudo, École Secondaire Marcellin-Champagnat, Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, QC
- Myriam Desgagnés, Cégep du Vieux Montréal, Montréal, QC
- Juliette Lezzoni, Collège Mont St-Louis, Montréal, QC
- Kristy Murangwa, École Alexandre-Taché, St-Albert, AB
- Nour Snani, Glenforest Secondary School, Mississauga, ON
- Ghita Zahrib, Collège Jean-de-Brébeuf, Montréal, QC
The judges
Our esteemed judges for the Junior Online Finals were:
- Véronique Grenier
- Kyla Jamieson
- Noémie Pomerleau-Cloutier
- Greg Santos
- Alison Smith
- Emmanuelle Tremblay
The renowned judges for the Senior Online Contest are:
- Francine Cunningham
- Alexandre Dostie
- Carol-Ann Hoyte
- Doyali Islam
- Lorrie Jean-Louis
- Sophie Jeukens
- Ian LeTourneau
- Jacob Scheier
- Kevin Spenst
FutureVerse
Thanks to the McCall MacBain Foundation, FutureVerse is back for a fourth year and will again be held alongside the National Finals, this year in Quebec City from April 25-29. 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 professional authors, publishers, and artists. To apply, students submitted an original poem to VOICES/VOIX, our student poetry journal. 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 19.
New this year, students on the FutureVerse shortlist can also win $500 in their own FutureVerse People's Choice Award! Vote for your favourite poem in both French and English written by one of the 32 shortlisted students.
Visit the link above to vote for your favourite poem.
- Kaniq Allerton, École Secondaire Kelvin High School, Winnipeg, MB
- Naré Armenian, Collège Ste-Marcelline, Montréal, QC
- Camille Audette, Cégep de L'Outaouais – Campus Gabrielle-Roy, Gatineau, QC
- Vanessa Chen, Crofton House School, Vancouver, BC
- Valarie Crockett, Abbotsford School of Integrated Arts, Abbotsford, BC
- Ava Daneshkhah, École Secondaire Étienne-Brûlé, Toronto, ON
- Mythili Garikiparthi, École Riverside Secondary School, Port Coquitlam, BC
- Eloise Gibbens, École Secondaire Sentinel Secondary School, West Vancouver, BC
- Rose Haberer, Central Toronto Academy, Toronto, ON
- Emma Rose Hawkins, Bellerose Composite High School, St. Albert, AB
- Estelle Heaver, Glendale Secondary School, Hamilton, ON
- Madelyn Hook, Loyalist Collegiate & Vocational Institute, Kingston, ON
- Georgia James, St. Michaels University School, Victoria, BC
- Japleen Joshi, Aurora Academic Charter High School, Edmonton, AB
- Sophia Joulani, Alexander MacKenzie High School, Richmond Hill, ON
- Monica Kelada, Collège Ste-Marcelline, Montréal, QC
- Hortense Léon, Collège Jésus-Marie de Sillery, Québec, QC
- Sophia Leopold-Muresan, Bishop Allen Academy, Etobicoke, ON
- Sophia Liang, Collège Jésus-Marie de Sillery, Québec, QC
- Kupakwashe Mambudzi, Cobequid Educational Centre, Truro, NS
- Ava Marleau, Ponteix School, Ponteix, SK
- Hubert Martin, École Secondaire Publique de la Salle, Ottawa, ON
- Evans N'Goran, École Maurice-Lavallée, Edmonton, AB
- Melody Ovuakporoyecha, St. Malachy's Memorial High School, Saint John, NB
- Chetveer Kaur Sangha, Mississauga Secondary School, Mississauga, ON
- Archie Shah, Woburn Collegiate Institute, Scarborough, ON
- Harper Swan, Bishop Carroll High School, Calgary, AB
- Nadine Telesford, Martingrove Collegiate Institute, Etobicoke, ON
- Jiten Thapar, Aurora Academic Charter High School, Edmonton, AB
- Poppy Walsh, Sacred Heart School of Halifax, Halifax, NS
- Finn Ye, Richmond Secondary School, Richmond, BC
- Tanya Yong, University of Toronto Schools, Toronto, ON
About Poetry In Voice/Les voix de la poésie
Founded by Scott Griffin, chairman and founder of The 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 regional 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 #8 to be released next September.
Their website includes comprehensive teaching materials, and, to date, Poetry in Voice/Les voix de la poésie has sent poets into over 2800 classrooms to work with over 80,000 students through their Poets in Class/Poètes à l’école program.
MEDIA CONTACT
For all media enquiries, including interviews with the Junior Champions, the Semifinalists, the FutureVerse shortlisted students, or with Poetry in Voice/Les voix de la poésie, contact Ariane Tapp, Co-Executive Director, at ariane@lesvoixdelapoesie.ca.