CONTEST ORGANISER’S HANDBOOK 2015-16
“Taking a poem into your
heart makes it part of you.
Saying the poem aloud
makes you part of its life in
the world. This is a rich and
nourishing relationship that
can last a lifetime.”
Jean Sprackland, Poet
2
Introduction
03
County Contests
24
What’s new for 2015-16
04
26
FAQs - What is Poetry By Heart
05
Step 6 - H
elp students polish
their performances
10 steps to success
06
Step 7 - P
repare your judges
28
What a good performance
looks and sounds like
29
Rules
30
Judging criteria
32
Step 8 - P
ick a winner
34
Contest score sheet
35
Accuracy score sheet
36
Scoring totaliser
37
Step 9 - C
elebrate everyone’s
achievements
38
Press Release Template
40
Step 1 - Set a competition date, 08
time and place
Step 2 - Inspire your students to 10
take part
FAQs - What poems do the
students learn
11
Pre-1914 poems
12
Post-1914 poems
14
Step 3 - Plan your competition
event
16
FAQs - Your college/school
competition
18
Step 4 - Help students believe
they can do it
20
National Finals weekend
42
First World War Poems
21
44
Step 5 - Find some volunteers
to help run the
competition
22
Step 10 - S upport your winner
in preparing for the
county contest
1
POETRY BY HEART:
WHAT WE KNOW NOW
When we launched Poetry By Heart in 2013, we were convinced it
could be good for poetry and young people. We were ambitious in
the poems we selected, in the scope and scale of a new national
competition, and in our hopes for high quality recitations. But we didn’t
know very much.
We know more about how Poetry By Heart is happening in schools
and colleges. Often English teachers or Literacy Coordinators take the
lead, but an increasing number of competitions are run by school/
college librarians as part of their work in promoting the joy of reading.
Now in our fourth year, we are starting to hear how competitions have
developed from little contests in a lunch break with a few brave souls
to one of the highlights of the academic year.
We know more about the impact on student learning. In our 2014-15
survey, teachers reported significant increases in the following by
students, after taking part in one Poetry By Heart competition:
Poetry by Heart
The timeline anthology, featured on the Poetry By Heart
website, is available in handsome hardback book form
by Penguin RRP £16.99. Schools and colleges registered
for Poetry By Heart 2016 can purchase copies with a 50%
discount until 10th December 2015. The discount form is
in your registration pack!
• More active participation in poetry lessons
• Greater enjoyment of poetry lessons
• Better understanding of how poetry works
• Increased confidence in public speaking
Lots of teachers told us Poetry By Heart had a positive impact on
their teaching and some went as far as saying that it helped to raise
student attainment.
We know that in 2014-15 over 3,500 students competed and more than
15,000 students had a new experience of poetry because of Poetry By
Heart. Those involved tell us the competition is giving students a new
appetite for poetry, with all the lifelong pleasures that might entail. We
hope even more students will have that opportunity in 2015-16 and we
look forward to hearing all your stories!
www.penguin.co.uk
www.poetrybyheart.org.uk
2
3
WHAT’S NEW
FOR 2015-16
The poems
We’ve simplified the county round and it goes like this now:
1. Choose 2 poems in the school/college contests, and only 2 poems
in the county contests.
• 1 poem published before 1914 from the Poetry By Heart Anthology.
• 1 poem published after 1914 from the Poetry By Heart Anthology.
OR
1 poem from the Poetry By Heart First World War Showcase collection.
FAQS – WHAT IS
POETRY BY HEART?
What exactly is Poetry By Heart?
Poetry By Heart is a competition designed to encourage pupils
aged 14-18 and at school or college in England to learn and to recite
poems by heart. Not in an arm-waving, props-supported thespian
extravaganza, but as the outward and audible manifestation of an
inwardly-understood and enjoyed poem. The competition is a pyramid
of participation from individual classrooms to whole school/college
contests, then county contests, regional semi-finals and the grand
final. In the process, pupils foster deep personal connections with the
poems chosen and bring poetry alive for their friends, families and
communities.
2. Choose 3 poems at the national finals weekend
• 1 poem published before 1914 from the Poetry By Heart Anthology.
• 1 poem published after 1914 from the Poetry By Heart Anthology timeline.
• 1 poem from the Poetry By Heart First World War Showcase collection.
The judging criteria
We’ve simplified this too! We’ve taken out the difficulty criterion from the main
scoring process, sharpened the focus of the 3 main criteria and made their
scoring equal. We’ve made accuracy easier to calculate and it now looks
like this:
Voice – 1-7 points
Understanding – 1-7 points
Performance – 1-7 points
Accuracy – 1-4 points
More time for school/college competitions
We’ve allowed an extra week. As long as you’re done and dusted, and the
winners reported to us by 15th January 2016, your school/college winner will
be able to take their place in the next round, the county contest!
4
Who organises the school/college competition?
That’s up to you! In many schools/colleges, the Librarian organises
it; in others it might be the English or Drama teacher, or the Literacy
Coordinator. But it could be any parent or staff member who loves
poetry enough to get it off the ground. And this year we have registered
as an Arts Award supporting organization so we’d love to hear about
students getting involved in running the competition.
Which students can take part?
Students in Years 10-13 in schools/colleges in England. Schools are
very welcome to organise additional events for Years 7-9 but there is
not currently a national competition for this age range.
How many students do we need for a valid competition?
You only need THREE eligible students (Year 10-13) for a valid school/
college competition. You can have many more than this if you wish,
with different heats in form group, class or year group. Lots of schools/
colleges start with a small number in their first year of taking part, and
soon find it builds from there!
5
10 STEPS TO SUCCESS
1
2
Set a competition date, time
and place.
Inspire your students to take part.
6
Help students polish their performances.
7
Prepare the judges.
3
Plan your competition event.
8
Pick a winner.
4
Help students believe they can do it.
9
Celebrate everyone’s achievements.
5
Find some volunteers to help run the
competition.
10
6
Support your winner in preparing for the
county contest.
7
STEP
1
Set a competition date, time and place
You can hold your school/college competition on any date in the
Autumn term 2015 and even just into the Spring term as long as all
winners and runners up are notified to the Poetry By Heart team by 12
noon on Friday 15th January 2016.
Your competition could happen in class, in a lunch break, in assembly,
after school or as a razzmatazz evening event. It’s up to you to decide
what works best in your situation. Bear in mind that everyone always
says how moving and special the students’ poetry recitations are why not invite an audience to share that experience? Other students?
Parents? Teachers? Governors?
If your competition is small, a familiar classroom might be the perfect
place, but there are lots of other spaces you might want to consider:
drama studios, the school or college library, the hall or theatre. You
don’t need fancy equipment (though you’re welcome to use it!) – you
just need to make sure everyone present, especially the judges, can
see and hear the competitors.
Tell us your competition date!
Tell us your competition date by the end of November and
we’ll send you a bunch of our gorgeous bookmarks to
share with your students. Contact us at:
info@poetrybyheart.org.uk
0117 905 5338
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STEP
2
Inspire your students to take part
National Poetry Day is on Thursday 8th October and the theme is Light.
What better day to launch your competition in school/college? If you
took part last year, why not get your school/college winner to launch this
year’s contest?
Have teachers, lunch staff, parents, librarians, learning mentors, and
whoever else wants to get involved, sharing a poem they love aloud.
They might not know it by heart yet, but you could get them involved in
the challenge too!
Have a taster session in class or assembly or at lunchtime where
everyone gives it a go. Make the poem short, make the activity fun
and give it a go together. Be prepared for surprises! It’s not always the
students you think that will be good at it!
There are more ideas to inspire students to get started in the Inspiring
Students resources in your registration pack.
10
FAQS – WHICH POEMS DO
THE STUDENTS LEARN?
How many poems do students need to learn?
TWO for the school/college and county contests, and three if they make
it through to the national finals weekend.
How do students choose their poems?
In the school/college and county contests, students must recite one
pre-1914 poem from the Poetry By Heart Anthology timeline AND one
post-1914 poem either from the Poetry By Heart Anthology timeline or the
Poetry By Heart First World War Poetry showcase.
Where will I find the Anthology timeline and First World War
showcase?
At www.poetrybyheart.org.uk. You will also find loads of other resources
there including video and audio versions of the poems, read or recited
by contemporary poets and by students who have previously competed
in Poetry By Heart national finals.
What help is there for students to learn their poems?
Schools/colleges have all sorts of ideas about this but we provide some
help too. On the Poetry By Heart website you can find many videos of
student performances from previous finals, and also audio recordings
of contemporary poets reading their own poems and most of the pre1914 poems. There are also notes about every poet and poem to help
students get started.
11
PRE 1914 POEMS
1 Beowulf poet - Beowulf lines 736-789
2 Gawain Poet - Gawain and the Green Knight
lines 713-739
3 Geoffrey Chaucer - The Wife of Bath’s
portrait in The General Prologue to the
Canterbury Tales
4 Anonymous - I sing of a maiden
5 Thomas Wyatt - They flee from me that
sometime did me seek
6 Philip Sidney - Song from Arcadia
7 Christopher Marlowe - In summer’s heat
and mid-time of the day
8 Chidiock Tichborne - Tichborne’s elegy
9 John Donne - The good morrow
10 Walter Ralegh - Walsingham
11 Mary Sidney Herbert - O
12 Robert Southwell - The burning babe
13 Edmund Spenser - Amoretti LV: so oft as I her
beauty do behold
14 William Shakespeare - When that I was and
a little tiny boy
15 Ben Jonson - Song to Celia
16 George Herbert - Love (III)
17 Richard Lovelace - To Althea from prison
18 Robert Herrick - To the virgins, to make
much of time
19 Andrew Marvell - Bermudas
20 Katherine Philips - Epitaph
21 Henry King - An exequy to his matchless
22 never to be forgotten friend lines 81-120
23 Anne Bradstreet - Verses upon the burning
of our house
24 John Milton - Paradise lost book 1
lines 242-315
25 John Dryden - A song for St Cecilia’s Day
lines 1-47
12
26 Aphra Behn - A thousand martyrs
27 John Wilmot - The mistress
28 Anne Finch - The hog, the sheep and the
goat, carrying to a fair
29 Alexander Pope - Epistle to Miss Blount, on
her leaving the town after the coronation
30 Jonathan Swift - A satirical elegy on the
death of a late famous general
31 Mary Leapor - The visit
32 Mary Wortley Montagu - A receipt to cure
the vapors
33 Thomas Gray - Elegy written in a country
church yard lines 1-80
34 Christopher Smart - My cat, Jeoffry (from
Jubilate Agno)
35 Samuel Johnson - On the death of Dr Robert
Levet
36 Charlotte Smith - On being cautioned
against walking on a headland
37 William Cowper - Epitaph on a hare
38 Hannah More - Slavery: a poem
39 William Blake - The chimney sweeper (when
my mother died...)
40 Joanna Baillie - A mother to her
waking infant
41 Robert Burns - Song: ae fond kiss, and then
we sever
42 Anna Laetitia Barbauld - The rights
of woman
43 Robert Southey - After Blenheim
44 Mary Robinson - Female fashions for 1799
45 Anonymous - Lord Randall
46 Anonymous - The wife of Usher’s well
47 William Wordsworth - The solitary reaper
48 George Gordon, Lord Byron - The
destruction of Sennacherib
49 Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Kubla Khan
50 Charles Wolfe - The burial of Sir John Moore
after Corunna
51 Walter Scott - Proud Maisie
52 Percy Bysshe Shelley - Ozymandias
53 John Keats - Ode to a nightingale
54 Felicia Hemans - Casabianca
55 Thomas Love Peacock - The war song of
Dinas Vawr
56 John Clare - I found a ball of grass among
the hay
57 Robert Browning - Porphyria’s lover
58 Alfred, Lord Tennyson - Ulysses
59 Emily Bronte - Remembrance
60 Elizabeth Barrett Browning - Sonnets from
the Portuguese XXIV
61 Arthur Hugh Clough - There is no God
62 William Barnes - My orcha’d in Linden Lea
63 Frederick Tuckerman - An upper chamber in
a darkened house
64 Adelaide Anne Proctor - Envy
65 Lewis Carroll - You are old, father William
66 Emily Dickinson - Snake
67 Matthew Arnold - Dover beach
68 Walt Whitman - Dirge for two veterans
69 W.E. Henley - Invictus
70 Algernon Swinburne - A forsaken garden
lines 1-40
71 Gerard Manley Hopkins - Inversnaid
72 George Meredith - Lucifer in starlight
73 Christina Rossetti - A frog’s fate
74 Amy Levy - Philosophy
75 Robert Bridges - London snow
76 Thomas Hardy - Thoughts of Phena
77 Robert Louis Stevenson - Sing me a song of
a lad that is gone
78 Mary Elizabeth Coleridge - The witch
79 Paul Dunbar - Invitation to love
80 Oscar Wilde - The ballad of Reading
gaol lines 1-36
81 E. Nesbit - The things that matter
82 W.E.B. du Bois - The song of the smoke
83 Rudyard Kipling - The way through
the woods
84 C.P. Cavafy - The God abandons Antony
85 Walter de la Mare - Miss Loo
86 G.K. Chesterton - The rolling English road
87 Amy Lowell - A blockhead
13
POST 1914 POEMS
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Ezra Pound - The river merchant’s wife
W.H. Davies - The inquest
Hilda Doolittle - Sea rose
Robert Frost - Out, out
Charlotte Mew - Fame
Anna Wickham - Divorce
May Wedderburn - Cannan Rouen
Ivor Gurney - Strange hells
Edward Thomas - Lights out
Wilfred Owen - The show
W.B. Yeats - The second coming
A.E. Housman - Tell me not here, it needs
not saying
Claude McKay - Harlem shadows
Hilaire Belloc - Ha’nacker mill
Edna St Vincent Millay- I, being born a
woman and distressed
T.S. Eliot - The journey of the Magi
Robert Graves - Welsh incident
D.H. Lawrence - Bavarian gentians
Dylan Thomas - The force that through the
green fuse drives the flower
Marianne Moore - Poetry
Elizabeth Daryush - Still life
John Masefield - Partridges
John Betjeman - The arrest of Oscar Wilde at
the Cadogan Hotel
Louis MacNeice - Bagpipe music
W.H. Auden - Musée des beaux arts
William Empson - Aubade
Alun Lewis - Goodbye
Henry Reed - Naming of parts
Theodore Roethke - My papa’s waltz
Keith Douglas - How to kill
Edith Sitwell - Heart and mind
Elizabeth Bishop - The fish
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Philip Larkin - Mr Bleaney
Allen Ginsberg - A supermarket in California
E.J. Scovell - After midsummer
Ted Hughes - Wind
Denise Levertov - To the snake
Robert Lowell - Skunk hour
Patrick Kavanagh - Epic
Thom Gunn - Considering the snail
Sylvia Plath - Morning song
Christopher Logue - War music (excerpt
from Patrocleia)
R.S. Thomas - On the farm
Rosemary Tonks - Badly chosen lover
John Berryman - Dream Songs No 67: I don’t
operate often
Frank O’Hara - The day lady died
Charles Causley - Ballad of the bread man
Basil Bunting - What the chairman told Tom
Elma Mitchell - Thoughts after Ruskin
Edwin Morgan - Strawberries
W.S. Graham - The beast in the space
Geoffrey Hill - Mercian Hymns XXI
Derek Walcott - Sea canes
Stevie Smith - The galloping cat
Michael Longley - Wounds
David Jones - A, A, A, Domine Deus
Derek Mahon - A disused shed in
County Wexford
Yehuda Amichai - My father in a white
space suit
Anne Stevenson - A summer place
Fleur Adcock - The ex-queen among
the astronomers
Elizabeth Bartlett - W.E.A. course
Craig Raine - A Martian sends a
postcard home
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Rita Dove - Ö
Linton Kwesi Johnson - Sonny’s lettah
Carolyn Forché - The colonel
Tony Harrison - Timer
Patricia Beer - The lost woman
James Fenton - God, a poem
Peter Porter - Your attention please
Kit Wright - The boys bump-starting the
hearse
David Dabydeen - Catching crabs
U.A. Fanthorpe - The cleaner
Wendy Cope - Proverbial ballade
Sujata Bhatt - What is worth knowing?
Gwendolyn Brooks - Boy breaking glass
Kathleen Jamie - The way we live
Paul Muldoon - Meeting the British
Gillian Clarke - Border
Carol Ann Duffy - Originally
Eavan Boland - The black lace fan my
mother gave me
Maura Dooley - Explaining magnetism
Mimi Khalvati - Rubaiyat
Lavinia Greenlaw - Love from a foreign city
Glyn Maxwell - The eater
Jo Shapcott - Phrase book
Moniza Alvi - The country at my shoulder
Michael Hofmann - Marvin Gaye
Jackie Kay - Dusting the phone
Carol Rumens - The emigrée
Vicki Feaver - Judith
Roy Fisher - Birmingham river
James Berry - On the afternoon train from
Purley to Victoria, 1955
Seamus Heaney - St Kevin and the blackbird
Grace Nichols - Blackout
Alice Oswald - Wedding
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15
Imtiaz Dharker - Minority
Paul Farley - A minute’s silence
Jane Draycott - Prince Rupert’s drop
Michael Donaghy - Machines
Denise Riley - A misremembered lyric
Benjamin Zephaniah - It’s work
Sean O’Brien - Cousin coat
Ian Duhig - The Lammas hireling
Don Paterson - Waking with Russell
Choman Hardi - Two pages
Michael Symmons Roberts - Pelt
Kamau Brathwaite - Bread
Colette Bryce - The full Indian head trick
Owen Sheers - Mametz Wood
John Agard - Toussaint L’Ouverture
acknowledges Wordsworth’s sonnet “To
Toussaint L’Ouverture”
Daljit Nagra - Look we have coming to Dover
Jean Sprackland - The stopped train
Patience Agbabi - Josephine Baker
finds herself
Mick Imlah - Maren
E.A. Markham - A verandah ceremony
Anthony Joseph - Conductors of his mystery
Jacob Sam-La Rose - A life in dreams
Jacob Polley - Langley Lane
Simon Armitage - The death of King Arthur
lines 4209-4253
Andrew Motion - The fish in Australia
STEP
3
Plan your competition event
You must have a minimum of 3 competitors to select a school/college
winner to take part in the next round. Ideally you will have 6-12
students competing in the school/college final, though you could have
many more involved than that in classroom taster sessions, trials or
preliminary heats.
How long your competition takes will depend on how many students
are taking part. As a guide, you should allow five minutes for each
poem for each student – that gives plenty of time for the poem recital,
for the judges to do their scoring and the scorer to tally up the scores.
It also allows for students to move on and off the stage or other
performance space.
Draw up a running order with the names in sequence of the students
performing and which poems they will perform in which round.
A sample schedule is shown over the page. You will need this in order
to prepare the judges and their materials, as well as to ensure the
smooth running of the competition.
Sample schedule for a competition with 7 contestants
3.00pm Welcoming remarks by the MC and introduction of the competitors, judges
and prompter, and any special guests. Explanation by the MC of what will
happen when, and how the recitations will be judged.
3.05pm
Round 1: pre-1914 poems
1) Khaled Ahmed: Rudyard Kipling, The Way Through the Woods
2) Tracy Mears: Mary Elizabeth Coleridge, The Witch
3) Richard Jones: Christina Rossetti, A Frog’s Fate
4) Lewin Angelotti: Chidiock Tichborne, Elegy
5) Kristina Langer: WEB du Bois, The Song of the Smoke
6) Shona Johnson: Percy Bysshe Shelley, Ozymandias
7) Jade Lee: Ben Jonson, Song to Celia
3.40pmShort break with encouraging words from the MC while scorers tally the
scores and judges have a breather; at more elaborate events you could
have student musicians performing as an interlude.
3.50pm
Round 2: post-1914 poems
1) Khaled Ahmed: Alun Lewis, Goodbye
2) Tracy Mears: Allen Ginsberg, A Supermarket in California
3) Richard Jones: Kit Wright, The Boys Bump-Starting the Hearse
4) Lewin Angelotti: Michael Hofmann, Marvin Gaye
5) Kristina Langer: Alice Oswald, Wedding
6) Shona Johnson, Grace Nichols, Blackout
7) Jade Lee: Seamus Heaney, St Kevin and the Blackbird
4.25pm Judges complete scoring and identify winner and runner-up.
Announcements, certificates and prize-giving. Thank yous.
4.30pm End.
16
17
FAQS - YOUR SCHOOL/
COLLEGE COMPETITION
When do we have to run our school/college competition?
If you want your school/college winner to be eligible for the county contest,
your school/college competition must take place between 1st September
2015 and 15th January 2016. The name and full details of your winner and
runner-up MUST be submitted to the Poetry By Heart team by noon on 15th
January 2016.
How much time does a competition take?
That all depends on how elaborate your plans are, but for the no-frills,
3-4 students in a lunch-break model, allow 4-5 minutes per student per
poem for the recitation, judging and spaces in between. So, 4 students will
take 16-20 minutes for the pre-1914 round and 16-20 minutes for the post1914 round; with a 5 minute interval between, 5 minutes at the beginning to
welcome everyone and 5 minutes at the end to announce the winner and
runner-up and congratulate everyone, that’s approximately 45-55 minutes.
How do we judge the students?
There are FOUR key criteria: voice, understanding, performance and
accuracy. There are detailed descriptions of these criteria from page 32,
as well as score sheets and guidance about how to apply the criteria.
How many judges do we need?
You will need at least two judges: one to score voice, understanding and
performance; and another to follow the poem accurately and score for
accuracy. You can have more if you wish!
What do we do about prizes?
We provide an official Poetry By Heart certificate template that you can
download from our website and adapt with your students’ names. If you
want to add material prizes, that’s up to you! Some schools/colleges like to
present book vouchers or poetry books, others are happy with the glory of
winning! At the county contest every competitor receives a prize provided
by Poetry By Heart.
18
Poetry By Heart Certificate
Found at
www.poetrybyheart.org.uk
19
STEP
4
Help students believe they can do it
Ask students to find one poem they like. Encourage inclusivity and a
wide definition of poetry. It could be as basic as a nursery rhyme or
a limerick, something heartfelt or humorous – as long as it gets them
started. Ask them to learn it by heart. Next time you have a lesson,
or form group, or poetry lunch club, invite them to recite. Give lots
of praise and encouragement.
Set a homework challenge of learning the first four lines of a shorter,
more straightforward poem from the competition anthology. See how
far everyone has got and then learn the rest together. Have pairs
learning a line or two each; do repeat-after-me; invent actions; have
the lines on the board and gradually cover over the rhyme words, then
whole lines and stanzas until they have it.
Have non-competing friends or members of staff volunteering to
mentor competing students. They might help choose poems, practise
memorizing them, try out different ways of performing them, and
prepare for the competition.
There are more ideas to help students believe they can do it in the
Inspiring Students resources in your registration pack.
20
FIRST WORLD WAR POEMS
1 Anna Akhmatova - In memoriam,
July 19, 1914
2 Guillaume Apollinaire - Gala
3 Laurence Binyon - For the fallen
4 Edmund Blunden - In Festubert
5 Edmund Blunden - Concert party:
Busseboom
6 Mary Borden - Song of the mud
7 Rupert Brooke - The soldier
8 May Wedderburn Cannan - Rouen
9 Charles Causley - On seeing a poet of the
First World War at Abbeville
10 Tommy Crawford - The stretcher bearer
11 Elizabeth Daryush - For a survivor of the
Mesopotamian campaign
12 Eleanor Farjeon - Easter Monday (In
memoriam E.T)
13 Wilfrid Wilson Gibson - The messages
14 Robert Graves - The legion
15 Julian Grenfell - Into battle
16 Ivor Gurney - Strange hells
17 Ivor Gurney - To his love
18 Ivor Gurney - The silent one
19 Thomas Hardy - Channel firing
20 Thomas Hardy - In time of ‘the breaking
of nations’
21 F.W. Harvey - Ducks
22 Seamus Heaney - In memoriam Francis
Ledwidge
23 A.P. Herbert - The cookers
24 Mick Imlah - London Scottish
25 David Jones - In Parenthesis, part 2, pp23-24
26 David Jones - In Parenthesis, part 7,
pp165-166
27 David Jones - In Parenthesis, part 7,
pp183-186
28 Rudyard Kipling - My boy Jack
29 Philip Larkin - MCMXIV
30 Francis Ledwidge - The dead kings
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Michael Longley - In memoriam
Amy Lowell - Convalescence
Rose Macaulay - Picnic
Helen Mackay - Train
Glyn Maxwell - My grandfather at the pool
Charlotte Mew - The cenotaph
Andrew Motion - Death of Harry Patch
Paul Muldoon - Truce
Wilfred Owen - Arms and the boy
Wilfred Owen - The send-off
Wilfred Owen - The show
Ezra Pound - Hugh Selwyn Mauberley (Part 1)
Edgell Rickword - Trench poets
Edgell Rickword - The soldier addresses his
body
Isaac Rosenberg - Autumn 1914
Isaac Rosenberg - Break of day in
the trenches
Isaac Rosenberg - Returning we hear
the larks
Siegfried Sassoon - The counter-attack
Siegfried Sassoon - The death bed
Vernon Scannell - The Great War
Alan Seeger - I have a rendezvous with Death
Owen Sheers - Mametz Wood
May Sinclair - Field ambulance in retreat
Edith Sitwell - The dancers
Edward Słonski - She who has not died
Charles Sorley - All the hills and vales along
Charles Sorley - When you see millions of the
mouthless dead
Ernst Stadler - Setting out
Mary Symon - The soldier’s cairn
Sara Teasdale - There will come soft rains
Edward Thomas - Lights out
Edward Thomas - Rain
Edward Thomas - Roads
Georg Trakl - Grodek
Arthur Graeme West - The night patrol
STEP
5
Find some volunteers to help
run the competition
How many people you need depends upon how big you make
your competition and how many people you want to involve! But
here’s a guide.
MUST HAVE
1 performance judge
Small competitions can easily be judged by one adult eg a teacher,
librarian or any other poetry loving member of the school/college
community. The judge must be prepared by reading through all our
judging guidance – see pages 28-37. The judge must sit at the front
where they can see and hear the student clearly.
1 accuracy judge/prompter
This person can double up as the prompter though it is often easier to
have two people. S/he will need a copy of the poems that are being
recited so they can follow along and note accuracy issues. This person
needs to sit at the front too.
1 scorer
This person collects the score sheets from the judges and adds them up,
then informs the judges of the scores. The scores are used as guidance
to support the judgment of the overall winner, though discretionary
discussion is valid too.
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NICE TO HAVE
More performance judges
Some schools/colleges invite a V.I.P judge too but always make sure
you appoint a Chair of the judging panel who really understands our
judging criteria and rules and will make sure they are applied fairly
and consistently.
An MC
If you have a big competition or an audience, an MC makes sure
everyone feels comfortable and the competition runs smoothly, and
creates a sense of occasion.
Someone to take photos (if students are comfortable with this)
Always nice to have some pictures to share with your local newspaper
or put on your school/college website or social media. We love seeing
them too!
Example volunteers
Head of English/Drama, English/Drama teachers, other teachers or
members of the school community who love poetry, Head Teacher
or SLT, Head of Year, Literacy Coordinator, Teaching Assistants, School
Librarians, Student teachers, local PGCE tutor, local poet, local actors/
singers, senior students, students working for their Arts Award, Duke of
Edinburgh Award or IB Community Action Service, parents.
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COUNTY CONTESTS
All the county contests will take place between 29th January and
27th February 2016. As soon as you send us your school/college
competition date we will allocate you to an appropriate county
contest and confirm this by email to you. We will send you full
details of the date, time and venue and there will be more
information on our website about each competition.
Your winner’s place in the county contest is guaranteed as long as
you send us all the information we need by noon on Friday 15th
January 2016.
NORTH EAST
County Durham
North Yorkshire
South and West Yorkshire
Northumberland and Tyne & Wear
Hull and the East Riding
EAST
Bedfordshire & Hertfordshire
Cambridgeshire
Essex
Norfolk
Suffolk
LONDON PLUS
Central & South London
North London
East London
West London
NORTH WEST
Cheshire
Cumbria
Manchester
Lancashire
Merseyside
CENTRAL WEST
Birmingham & West Midlands &
Staffordshire
Herefordshire & Worcestershire
Shropshire
Warwickshire
SOUTH
Sussex
Hampshire
Kent
Surrey
Dorset
CENTRAL EAST
Nottinghamshire & Derbyshire
Leicestershire & Northamptonshire
Lincolnshire
Oxfordshire & Berkshire
Buckinghamshire
SOUTH WEST
Bristol & Avon
Cornwall
Devon
Gloucestershire
Somerset & Wiltshire
Poet Jacob Sam-La Rose at the South London County contest 2015
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STEP
6
Help students polish their performances
The Poetry By Heart website includes lots of videos of students from
previous finals reciting their poems. Find them from the home page,
the <filter poems> tab, or on individual poem pages. Select a range of
videos and invite discussion of what performance features they like or
would want to change.
Inspire your students with videos
of Poetry By Heart finalists
Go to www.poetrybyheart.org.uk > click on ‘From the 2015 finals’
for last year’s top 8.
Or go to www.poetrybyheart.org.uk/anthology/ > click on the
“filter timeline” button in the grey bar above the timeline > click
“Video Link” and the green “go” button for all the poems for which
we have a video recording of a student competitor reciting the
poem (currently only out-of-copyright poems).
Have little rehearsal sessions where students can try out their poems
in front of supportive peers or adults, and get feedback on how
it sounds.
Get students judging two or three of the video performances using
the score sheets, so they can explore how the judging criteria work
and how they might want to develop their own performances in the
light of that.
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STEP
7
Prepare your judges
Your judges need briefing about their roles and responsibilities. Getting
them together in advance of the competition is the most effective way of
doing this, but if that’s not possible at least make sure they are briefed
well in writing.
Judges need to know how the scoring system works and the judging
criteria they need to apply. Copies of the scoring sheets and judging
criteria are available as PDF downloads from the “About the competition”
section of the website, and are reproduced in this handbook. Send them
a copy in advance and explain how the rounds of the competition will be
organised. Invite questions.
Judges can prepare – together or on their own – to score poem performances. In the “About the competition” section of the website there are
videos in which Andrew Motion talks through a couple of performances
from the 2013 contest, explaining what each of the students does well.
From the homepage judges could also follow the link to watch videos of
all eight finalists from the 2015 contest. Having a go at scoring a few will
help judges “get their eye in” before your event.
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PERFORMANCE
What a good performance looks
and sounds like
In his book On Poetry, our poet-judge Glyn Maxwell describes four
important dimensions of poems: the sunlit side of its immediate meanings;
the moonlit side of the meanings it gives up more deeply; its musicality;
and its visual dimension. The very best Poetry By Heart performances
are able, in different ways, to realise those dimensions, not necessarily
equally, but in some measure.
In less successful performances the sunlit side tends to dominate. These
performances often treat poems as dramatic monologues to be enacted,
with the emphasis on personalising the voice and drawing attention
to the speaker. How much of a place there is for that depends on the
poem, but we’re also listening for some attention to the cooler, shadier
side of the meanings.
The best performers have a good ‘ear’ for the musicality of the poem, an
eye for its shape and a recognition that these dimensions are important
to its meaning and how that is communicated and enjoyed. In performance, it means paying attention to sound patterns and rhythm, and to
the shapes the lines and stanzas make. Performances in which the
poem becomes prose don’t tend to fare well in the higher rounds of
the competition.
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RULES
These rules will apply throughout the competition. If you are in any doubt,
talk to us at info@poetrybyheart.org.uk, on 0117 905 5338, or via Twitter
@poetrybyheart or facebook.com/poetrybyheartcompetition.
Student eligibility
•S
chool registration: only schools and colleges that have registered with
Poetry By Heart and provided their winner and runner-up details by 15th
January 2016 are eligible to progress a student to the county phase of the
competition. Register via the website or info@poetrybyheart.org.uk
• Year group: only students currently enrolled in Years 10, 11, 12 or 13 are
eligible for progression to county Poetry By Heart competitions.
•P
rogression: a student may not advance to the county round without
competing in a lower-level competition at school or college.
Poem selection
• Anthology: all poems MUST be selected from the 2015-16 Poetry By Heart
anthology available online at www.poetrybyheart.org.uk.
• C
lass or form group heat (optional): students must perform 1 poem from
any part of the Poetry By Heart anthology.
•S
chool/college competition: students must perform 2 poems, 1 poem
published before 1914 from the Poetry By Heart Anthology timeline PLUS
EITHER 1 poem published after 1914 from the Poetry By Heart Anthology
timeline OR 1 poem from the Poetry By Heart First World War Showcase
collection.
•C
ounty competition: students must perform 2 poems: 1 poem published
before 1914 from the Poetry By Heart Anthology timeline PLUS EITHER 1
poem published after 1914 from the Poetry By Heart Anthology timeline
OR 1 poem from the Poetry By Heart First World War Showcase collection.
These may be the same poems as performed in the school/college
competition or different.
Competition
• Valid contests: for a contest to be valid at any stage, at least 3 eligible
students must compete.
• J udging criteria: students must be judged fairly according to the Poetry
By Heart judging criteria available in this booklet and online at www.
poetrybyheart.org.uk.
•S
coring: judges must use the official scoring sheets to evaluate each
performance. These scores should be added together at the end of the
contest to provide a basis for agreeing the winner and runner-up. Judges
must not discuss performances or scores during the contest but may retire
to discuss the cumulative scores before selecting the winner.
•N
umber of winners: 1 winner only should be selected to progress to the
next round. If that champion is unable to attend the next round, the runnerup should be sent. Please keep the Poetry By Heart team informed of all
changes.
•S
mall contests: in the event that there is low uptake for a county contest,
school/college runners-up may be invited to compete as well. For this
reason, all participating schools/colleges must provide winner and
runner-up details.
• T ies: in the event of a tie, or judges not being able to announce a clear
winner, the top-performing students must recite 1 poem again for a
separate tie-break score. Students may choose which poem to recite from
the ones already recited in that contest.
•P
rops: students must not use props,stage furniture, music or costumes
during their recitations.
•C
ounty contest entries: schools/colleges must report the required details
of their school/college winners and runners-up to the Poetry By Heart
team no later than 12 noon on Friday 15th January 2016.
•S
chool/college competition date: should be reported to the Poetry By
Heart team as soon as it is known.
• Regional and national finals: students must perform 3 poems: 1 poem
published before 1914 from the Poetry By Heart Anthology timeline PLUS
1 poem published after 1914 from the Poetry By Heart Anthology timeline
PLUS 1 poem from the Poetry By Heart First World War Showcase collection.
These may be the same poems as performed in previous rounds of the
competition or different.
•S
tudent chaperones: students must be accompanied by a responsible
adult to the contests which take place out of school/college. For the
national finals, it is expected that this will be a teacher or other staff
member from the student’s school or college, unless exceptional circumstances require otherwise.
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JUDGING CRITERIA
Student performances in all rounds of the competition must be judged
and scored using these criteria. Please note that these have changed
slightly from the criteria used in 2014-15: we have tweaked the scoring
and made the poem difficulty category a tie-break matter.
Voice 1-7 points
This category is to evaluate the auditory nature of the recitation. Consider
the student’s volume, pace, rhythm, intonation and pronunciation. In a
strong performance, all words are pronounced appropriately in the
student’s natural accent and the volume, rhythm and intonation greatly
enhance the recitation. Pacing is appropriate to the poem.
Understanding 1-7 points
This category is to evaluate whether the student exhibits an
understanding of the poem in his or her recitation. A strong performance relies on a powerful internalisation of the poem rather than
distracting dramatic gestures. In a strong performance, the sense
of the poem is powerfully and clearly conveyed to the audience. The
student displays an interpretation that deepens and enlivens the
poem. Meanings, messages, allusions, irony, tones of voice and other
nuances are captured by the performance. A low score is awarded if
the interpretation obscures the meaning of the poem or makes use of
affected character voices and accents, inappropriate tone and inflection,
singing, distracting and excessive gestures, or unnecessary emoting.
Performance 1-7 points
This category is to evaluate the overall success of the performance, the
degree to which the recitation has become more than the sum of its
parts. Has the student captivated the audience with the language of the
poem? Did the student bring the audience to a better understanding
of the poem? Did the contestant’s physical presence enhance the
recitation, engaging the audience through appropriate body language,
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confidence and eye contact? Does the student understand and show
mastery of the art of recitation? The judges will use this score to measure
how impressed they were by the recitation, and whether the recitation
has honoured the poem. A low score will be awarded for recitations
that are poorly presented, ineffective in conveying the meaning of the
poem, or conveyed in a manner inappropriate to the poem.
Accuracy 1-4 marks
A separate judge will mark missed or incorrect words during the
recitation. Students will score a full 4 marks for a word-perfect recitation;
3 for a small number of errors which do not significantly affect meaning
and/or flow; 2 for a recitation where the errors do affect meaning and/
or flow; 1 for a recitation where occasional use is made of the prompter;
0 for a recitation which requires considerable prompting.
Additional considerations in the event of a close tie: variety, difficulty,
diversity
In the event of a very close tie between two or more students, judges
should consider the level of challenge the student has chosen. This
might be indicated in the variety of poems selected for recitation, with
different styles, moods, language varieties, voices or settings. It might
also be indicated by poem difficulty. A poem with difficult content conveys
complex, sophisticated ideas, that the student will be challenged to
grasp and express. A poem with difficult language will have complexity
of diction and syntax, metre and rhyme scheme, and shifts in tone or
mood. Poem length is also considered in difficulty but bear in mind
that longer poems are not necessarily more difficult than shorter ones.
Judges may also consider the diversity of a student’s recitations with
this score; a student is less likely to score well in this category when
judges note that a student’s style of interpretation remains the same
regardless of poem choice or challenge.
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ADEQUATE
GOOD
VERY GOOD
EXCELLENT
OUTSTANDING
TITLE OF POEM
WEAK
CONTEST SCORE SHEET
NAME OF STUDENT
VERY WEAK
7
7
6
6
5
5
4
4
3
3
2
2
35
1
1
7
VOICE
UNDERSTANDING
6
POINTS
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5
A winner must be selected, and a runner-up named in case the winner
is unable for any reason to progress to the county contest.
FINAL SCORE (Max. 25 points)
Once the scorer has calculated the scores of both rounds, the judges may
retire to consider their verdict. In 99% of cases this will be straightforward,
with the scores confirming a clear winner. In the event of a draw, judges
should try to come to an agreement about the winner; only if that is not
possible should the tied students be invited to pick one of their poems
and perform it again.
4
If a performance is interrupted, eg by someone entering the room, a
coughing fit by another student or audience member, or a loud noise
outside the building, it is fair and reasonable to allow the student to
re-start their recitation. It is a good idea to have water available for all
performers to help prevent coughing.
3
TOTAL (Max. 21 points)
POINTS
POINTS
The poem must be delivered by heart using only the prompter for support
if required. The prompter should give the students a few seconds to
recover the line, and then provide just a word or two and only if the
student asks for it.
ACCURACY JUDGE’S SCORE (Max. 4 points)
The organizer or MC should welcome each student briefly by name as
they come up to recite, and if appropriate invite applause. They should
not intrude on the students’ concentration and should create a calm
and encouraging atmosphere. The student must state clearly the poet
and poem they have chosen, eg “This is ‘Ozymandias’ by Percy Bysshe
Shelley.” No other comments are allowed.
2
Pick a winner
1
8
PERFORMANCE
STEP
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37
STEP
9
Celebrate everyone’s achievements
There is a Poetry By Heart certificate available as a pdf download in
the “About the competition” section of the website. Some schools and
colleges choose to supplement that with extra prizes for the winner and
runner-up. Learning two poems by heart, performing them in public and
being judged for doing so is no mean feat: lots of praise and recognition
is richly deserved!
Read and listen to
the poem here
Think about having someone take photographs at the event so that
you can prepare nice material for your school website or parents’
e-newsletter. If students are nervous, avoid taking pictures during
the recitations unless this can be done very unobtrusively but have
a big photo-shoot at the end as part of the prize-giving and general
celebration of achievement.
Don’t be shy about contacting the local press or radio about your
students’ achievements. There follows in this handbook a template
press release you could use or adapt to do this. Why not set a mediakeen student the task of doing this?
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Tell local radio and newspaper
journalists what you’re doing
The former Poet Laureate Andrew Motion is Co-Director of the Poetry Archive and plays
a lead role in Poetry By Heart. He commented:
Use or adapt this template press release to tell local newspapers,
magazines and radio stations about your contest and winner’s
achievements. Why not get some non-competitors to take photographs and organise this? You could use this material on your
school website, blog, or parents’ newsletter too.
“Poetry By Heart has gone from strength to strength since its launch in 2013. Many
thousands of students have not only learned great poems for life but they have also
shared them with friends and families in the inspiring and moving performances that
are at the heart of every competition. I am constantly surprised and delighted by the
quality of the students’ achievements.”
POETRY BY HEART - Press Release Template
For use by: Competition Organisers
From: Your Address/ Contact Details
To: Recipient Address/Contact Details
Photograph details and caption if available and sent with press release.
Notes to Editors:
1. Poetry By Heart is the principal educational initiative of the Poetry Archive
(poetryachive.org), developed in partnership with The Full English (thefullenglish.org.
uk) and supported by the Department for Education. The Poetry Archive is a registered
charity (no. 1093858) supported using public funding by Arts Council England.
2. The Poetry By Heart website is at poetrybyheart.org.uk and includes information
about the competition and the selection of poems students choose from.
3. Students recite one poem from the Poetry By Heart anthology published before 1914,
and one poem published after 1914.
Re: Poetry By Heart Competition at (insert name of school/college)
Talented students (insert name of school/college) have been taking part in an inspiring
competition designed to encourage students in England to learn and to recite poems
by heart.
(Insert short description of who organised the competition, where it was held and
when.)
(Insert number of students) recited two poems from the 200+ available in the online
anthology which supports the competition at poetrybyheart.org.uk.
The winner was (insert student’s name) who recited (insert poem details in format
- poem 1 by poet 1 and poem 2 by poet 2 - and add any descriptive detail, such as
what the judges said about the winning performance, or a quote from the winner).
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4. School/college competitions take place 1st September 2015 to 15th January 2016;
winners of these progress to county contests taking place 29th January to 27th
February 2016; county winners compete in the national finals, 17-19 March 2016 at
Homerton College, Cambridge.
5. Over 3,500 students competed in Poetry By Heart competitions in 2014-15 and more
than 15,000 had a new experience of poetry learning by heart.
6. Oxford University Press as part of a partnership with Poetry By Heart has provided
a selected number of free links to entries in the Oxford English Dictionary, the Oxford
Dictionary of National Biography, and the American National Biography Online for
the duration of the competition. The free content can be accessed by clicking on
highlighted text within the anthology of poems.
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NATIONAL FINALS
17-19 March 2016 / Homerton College, Cambridge
The national finals are part of the expenses-paid winners weekend
for all county contest winners and their teachers. This year it will be in
the beautiful and relaxing setting of Homerton College, Cambridge.
The weekend will start with a special welcome reception with the
opportunity to get to know some of the other contestants and to
meet some of our top poet judges. There will be a programme of
regional semi-finals and fun activities, culminating in the national
finals on Saturday afternoon and the chance to lift the national
champion’s trophy!
Judges for the 2015-16 National Finals weekend will be announced in
our newsletter during the Autumn term
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STEP
10
Support your winner in preparing
for the county contest
First your student will need to decide which poems to recite. (You
might want to have your runner-up prepare too in case your winner is
ill.) Students must recite one pre-1914 poem from the Poetry By Heart
Anthology timeline AND one post-1914 poem either from the Poetry
By Heart Anthology timeline or the Poetry By Heart First World War
Poetry showcase. They can reprise their existing poems or they can
choose new ones.
For the regional and national finals your student will also need to
choose a third poem, so that they are reciting one pre-1914 poem,
one post-1914 poem, and one First World War poem. They need to
choose a poem they love but they might also think about the range and
variety of poems in their selection of 3. This can become significant in
the judges awarding higher scores.
We will give you all the detail you need about the county contest
and put you in contact with the county contest organisers. You might
want to check whether students will need to speak into a microphone.
If so, get them some practice in school until they feel as comfortable as
possible performing in this way.
Take them there if you can, or arrange for a parent or other trusted adult
to take them. It can be more daunting than it needs to be if one student
turns up with a support crew worthy of Andy Murray and another has
no-one…
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WHO’S BEHIND POETRY
BY HEART?
Poetry By Heart is the principal educational initiative of the Poetry Archive
(www.poetryarchive.org) It was co-founded by Andrew Motion and Julie
Blake in 2012 and was launched in January 2013. It is now in its fourth
iteration. All aspects of the website and competition structure were
developed in partnership with The Full English, a research-informed
curriculum workshop which creates innovative designs for learning
about English language and literature (ww.thefullenglish.org.uk) Poetry
By Heart is supported by Poetry Archive staff and led by this dedicated
Poetry By Heart team:
Co-Directors
Andrew Motion - Creative direction
Julie Blake - Educational direction
Senior development team, since 2012
Mike Dixon - Editorial, media and the Poetry By Heart blog
Tim Shortis - Research, development and sustainability
HQ team
Kath Lee - Project Coordinator
Tom Boughen - Project Assistant
Lily Owens-Crossman - Project Assistant
Regional development team
Abigail Campbell - Midlands
Alison Powell - South West and Professional Development
Griselda Goldsborough/Gill Greaves - North East
Karen Lockney - North West
Mike Dixon - South and London
Tim Shortis - East and London
We are also very grateful to have regular and ongoing support with our
financial systems from the Poetry Archive’s Fiona Meadley, with printing
and distribution from Peter Griffin, with our IT systems from Phil Barker at
Quadgem and with artwork copyrights from Lucy Drury.
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THE POETRY ARCHIVE
The Poetry Archive exists to help make poetry accessible, relevant
and enjoyable to a wide audience. It came into being as a result of a
meeting, in a recording studio, between Sir Andrew Motion, soon after
he became U.K. Poet Laureate in 1999, and the recording producer,
Richard Carrington. They agreed about how enjoyable and illuminating
it is to hear poets reading their work and about how regrettable it
was that, even in the recent past, many important poets had not been
properly recorded.
The outcome is The Poetry Archive, a not-for-profit organisation with
charitable status, funded by Arts Council England and other public
bodies, charitable trusts and generous individuals. The website
www.poetryarchive.org is now the premier online collection of
recordings of poets reading their own work. This has recently been
enhanced by a collection of new recordings of classic poems from the
past read by contemporary poets. There is also a related Children’s
Archive featuring recordings of some of the best-loved children’s poets,
and a download store allowing people to download single poems
or full ‘albums’ of poetry.
The Poetry Archive download store
On the Poetry Archive website you can hear poets reading their
own work as well as poems by their favourite classic poets who
were never recorded. But now you can download recordings of
single poems and full albums by a huge variety of poets, as well
as special audio collections to support teaching and learning of
poetry at GCSE.
The teaching collections include bundles such as - AQA GCSE Anthology poems
- Edexcel GCSE Anthology poems
- WJEC Eduqas GCSE Anthology poems
- OCR GCSE Anthology poems
Most of the pre-1914 and many of the post-1914 poems in the Poetry By Heart
Anthology Timeline have links to Poetry Archive recordings of poets reading them.
To browse and download from the collection visit www.poetryarchive.org/store
WWW.POETRYARCHIVE.ORG
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- Power and Conflict (GCSE Anthologies)
- Love and Relationships (GCSE Anthologies)
- AQA Unseen (Prescribed poets)
- Edexcel Unseen (Prescibed poets)
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PARTNERS
Poetry By Heart has been made possible in its first four years by the generous
support which has been given by a very wide range of people and agencies.
We would like to thank the Department for Education for continuing to back
Poetry By Heart’s ability to make a difference to poetry education; Oxford
University for funding our original website and continuing to provide free
access to world class reference sources in our website; and all the image
and text copyright holders who have supported the development of the
website. We thank Howoco for the brilliance of their design and super-smart
IT work; all the venues who host county contests for us, and NAWE and
Writing West Midlands for their particular roles in that.
Coming soon - Poetry By Heart
Primary resource
We are very pleased to announce that Poetry By Heart - Primary
is coming soon! We’re hard at work behind the scenes on
the production of a special showcase collection of poems for
younger children (Key Stages 1 and 2) to learn by heart and recite.
Our resource will include a wide variety of poems, recordings to
share and explore, and a widget for children to record and share
their recitations. For teachers there will also be a free pdf guide to
introducing poetry recitation in the classroom. The launch will be
announced on Twitter and in our newsletter - sign up for it now at
www.poetrybyheart.org.uk.
We would especially like to thank the Principal, Fellows and staff of Homerton
College, Cambridge. Their logistical support for the finals weekend is
outstanding; the provision of a college office has enabled our Education
Director to benefit from countless conversations with world class experts in
poetry education.
Above all we wish to thank the pupils, families, and teachers participating
in the life of this year’s competition with such energy and imagination. May
the force of poetry be with you always.
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