Rules & Dates | Poetry In Voice

February 3, 2025
Online Qualifiers open for submissions
March 6, 2025 @ 5pm PST
Online Qualifiers submission deadline
March 13, 2025
24 Semifinalists announced and
People’s Choice Awards voting starts
March 20, 2025
9 Finalists announced
People’s Choice Winners announced
May 12-16, 2025
Senior National Finals in Vancouver

Students must be attending a school in Canada.
No student may be excluded from participation in this competition on the basis of race, colour, religion, sex, gender, sexual orientation, disability, or national origin.
A Poetry In Voice/Les voix de la poesie permission form must be signed and submitted in order for a student to compete in the Junior Online Finals or the Senior Online Qualifiers.

A student can only compete in one prize stream in a given year. A student may compete in both a Team Regional and the Senior Contest.
A teacher supervises their students' participation in the Junior Online Finals or the Senior Online Qualifiers.
Only one student at a school per prize stream may participate in our individual contests.
Homeschooled students who want to participate in the Junior Online Finals or in the Senior Online Qualifiers must first make arrangements to compete at a participating school contest in their area.
A National Champion (a student who places first in the English, French, or Bilingual stream) is not eligible to compete in the same prize stream in subsequent years.

Junior Competition

Students must be in grades 7–9. In Quebec, students must be in Secondary 1, 2 or 3.
A school can have one, two, or three students compete in the Junior Online Finals; that is, one student in each prize stream: English, Bilingual, and French.

Senior Competition

All competitors must be aged 18 or younger by September 30, 2024. Students must be in grades 10–12. In Quebec, students must be in Secondary 4 or 5, or in 1st year of CEGEP.
A school can have one, two, or three students compete in the Senior Online Qualifiers; that is, one student in each prize stream: English, Bilingual, and French.

All poems must be selected from the Poetry In Voice / Les voix de la poésie anthology, tagged for the appropriate grade level of the contest.
Poems must be memorized and recited exactly as they appear in the Poetry In Voice / Les voix de la poésie anthology, including any epigraphs.
A student must start their recitation by saying the title of the poem and the poet’s name. A student’s editorial comments before or after a poem are not allowed.
The titles and the order of students’ poems must be given in advance to the contest coordinators. Students may not change them once they are submitted.
Students recite their poems in rounds: each student recites their first poem, then each student recites their second poem, and then, in some cases, their third poem.
Each competitor must recite individually. Choral recitations are not accepted.
Each member of a school team must recite a different poem.

At every level of the competition, students’ recitations must be assessed according to the Poetry In Voice evaluation criteria, our scoring rubric, and students must be assigned an accuracy score.
Accuracy judges must evaluate students’ recitations against the poems as they appear on our website.
Judges should not convene to discuss performances. Rankings will be based solely on evaluation sheets submitted by judges.
Judges may not reconsider their scores after submitting them.
Scoring is cumulative. The scores from all rounds should be added together to determine the winner.
In the event of a tie, the tied student with the highest overall performance score should win; if that also results in a tie, then look to the highest accuracy score.