Senior National Finals

2025 National Finals in Vancouver

From May 12 to May 15, 2025, Vancouver will host Poetry In Voice’s National Finals, bringing together the nation’s top reciters. For the third year, the National Finals will run alongside FutureVerse, our writing-focused program for high school poets.

In the lead-up to the National Finals Show on May 15, youth from across Canada will immerse themselves in poetry through various activities. Here’s a glimpse of the 2025 highlights:

• Poetry Hunt: In this activity, students will form bilingual teams to explore downtown Vancouver, completing poetic challenges while discovering the city’s vibrant cultural scene in a fun and interactive way.
• Eco-poetic walk with Rita Wong: Poet and activist Rita Wong will take the high schoolers around Stanley Park to talk about the link between poetry and ecology.
• Ekphrastic workshop and Indigenous Studies Experience at MONOVA: Students will learn about Vancouver’s Indigenous Nations and wool weaving, and get inspired by artwork at the Museum & Archives of North Vancouver.
• Braided languages with Dominique Bernier-Cormier: The students will learn how to use the two official languages to braid bilingual poetry together
• FutureVerse Public Reading: After an intensive series of workshops and writing sessions, students will share their poetry on stage with a live audience.

Every year, high school students from across the country memorize and perform poems in English and French by Canadian, Indigenous, and international poets, competing against one another for their ability to embody the essence of the poem. Organized by Poetry in Voice, the best go on to compete in a national competition judged by a panel of acclaimed poets.

The top-scoring students from our Senior Online Qualifiers are invited to compete at the National Semifinals. Then at the National Finals, the top 3 students in each of our three contest streams (English, Bilingual, and French) compete and we award the following:

• 1st place: $3,000 
• 2nd place: $2,000 
• 3rd place: $1,000

Mesmerising, emotional and powerful, these youth distill life through the poetry they voice—to echo the great Gwendolyn Brooks—and bring to life one of our oldest art forms. These youth believe in the power of their words to transform us and, after hearing them, so will you.

With poetry-themed cultural activities, National Finals is a truly immersive event: to date, we’ve hosted a Q&A with Margaret Atwood for finalists and their teachers; poetry-themed gallery tours of the Vancouver Art Gallery and the Art Gallery of Ontario; a screening of Al Purdy Was Here followed by a Q&A with director, Brian Johnson; the Amazing Recitation Race in Vancouver; the Epic Toronto Poetry Showdown; the Epic Winnipeg Poetry Hunt; writing workshops for students; and best-practice workshops for teachers.

2024 National Finals and FutureVerse in Ottawa

From April 22 to 26, 2024, the top reciters from across the country were in Ottawa on the unceded, unsurrendered Territory of the Anishinaabe Algonquin Nation to compete in our National Finals. For the second year, National Finals was taking place alongside FutureVerse, our writing-intensive for high school poets.

In the days leading up to the National Finals Show on April 24, 2024, young poets from all over Canada were immersed in poetry. Here are some highlights of the 2024 workshop activities that took place:

• Indigenous Learning and Creation. The day began with an Indigenous walk led by Jaime Morse. Students then enjoyed frybread tacos for lunch, courtesy of Four Nothing. Post-lunch, they collaborated with renowned Cree & Metis poet Tyler Pennock to craft a centos poem from Indigenous poets’ works. The session concluded with students publishing their centos via silk screening at Nordic Lab, located in the Annie Pootoogook Studio at the SAW center.
• Yoga and Poetry. Brenda Leifso, a poet, publisher, and yoga instructor, will guide students through a session that merges yoga and poetry. This experience aims to rejuvenate students and inspire them to find poetry within their own bodies.
• “Poetry During a Time of Eco Crisis” Panel Discussion. A bilingual panel featuring Susan Musgrave, Armand Garnet Ruffo, Chloé Savoie-Bernard, and Marie-Célie Agnant discussing the role of poetry in our current environmental crisis. Their conversation focused on the impact of poetry in a changing world and how it can contribute to positive transformation.

The 2024 competition was guided by former CBC and CTV personalities, Johanne Blais and Evan Solomon, and judged by Canadian poetry luminaries Marie-Célie Agnant, Michael Crummey, Armand Garnet Ruffo, Natasha Kanapé Fontaine, Susan Musgrave, and Chloé Savoie-Bernard.

2023 National Finals and FutureVerse in Calgary

In 2023, at the end of the National Finals and FutureVerse week, FutureVerse participants presented their original poetry, and National Finalists took to the stage. The National Finals Show took place on Thursday, April 20, 2023 at the Patricia A. Whelan Performance Hall, at the Calgary Central Public Library. Watch the full show here!

2022 National Online Finals