“Poetry is not just for the elite — it is a language that should be spoken in the cafés, the streets and especially the classrooms of the nation.” This was Scott Griffin's goal when he announced the inaugural Poetry In Voice/Les voix de la poésie competition for Canadian high school students last November.
After months of in-school competitions, the 12 most talented performers of poetry from each of the Ontario high schools participating in the pilot program will face off at 7:00 p.m. on Tuesday, April 12, at the Young Centre for the Performing Arts in Toronto's Distillery District. Judges for the Recitation Finals are Karine Glorieux, Robert Lalonde, Diana Leblanc, Dennis Lee, Karen Solie, and Élise Turcotte. Tickets, which are free for students and $10 for adults, are available here.
A grand total of $10,000 in prize money will be awarded after the event, with $5000 going to the winning student and $2,500 to each of the top three students' school libraries, $500 of which is earmarked for poetry books.
Poetry In Voice/Les voix de la poésie (PIV/LVP) shares the same mission as the Griffin Trust for Excellence in Poetry: "to spark the public's imagination and raise awareness of the crucial role poetry plays in our cultural life." To find out more about the competition and why Scott Griffin feels that poetry is just as vital today as it was in times before Twitter, Facebook and reality TV shows, visit the Poetry in Voice website. And who knows? Maybe the winners of April 12th's Poetry in Voice Recitation Finals will be the Griffin Poetry Prize winners of tomorrow.
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