Hub Quick Hits: POL follow-up
Floridian takes top prize, S.C. continues ‘Poetry Ourselves’ dominance
Niveah Glover, a 12th-grade student at Douglas Anderson School of the Arts in Jacksonville, Florida, is the 2024 Poetry Out Loud® national champion.
After reciting poems by Patricia Smith, Paul Laurence Dunbar, and Ashanti Anderson during last night’s national finals, Glover was named champion and will receive a prize of $20,000.
The second-place 2024 Poetry Out Loud winner is Tiana Renee Jones, a 10th-grade student at Whitefield Academy in Mableton, Georgia, who will receive a $10,000 prize. The third-place winner is Nyla Dinkins, a 10th-grade student at Benjamin Banneker Academic High School in Washington, who will receive a $5,000 prize.
The other six national finalists, which includes Charleston’s Jessie Leitzel, receive a $1,000 prize each. The representing schools/organizations of all the top nine finalists will each receive $500 to purchase poetry materials. The Poetry Foundation provides and administers all aspects of the monetary prizes awarded for Poetry Out Loud. The Poetry Out Loud National Semifinals and Finals are administered by Mid Atlantic Arts.
Visit the NEA release for more detail and video of Glover’s final performance.
Leitzel tops ‘Poetry Ourselves’ competition
The state champions also had the opportunity to showcase their creativity through an optional competition, Poetry Ourselves. The students could submit an original work of poetry in one of two categories: either a written poem or a video of a spoken poem, both of which were judged by poet José Olivarez and announced at last night’s National Finals. The winner in the written category is Jessie Leitzel from South Carolina. The winner in the spoken category is Jennifer Shon from Rhode Island. Glover is runner-up in the written category. The runner-up in the spoken category is Lexie Wilson from Kentucky. Winning poems are available on the NEA’s website at the links above.
South Carolina is a Poetry Ourselves powerhouse. 2022 state champion Emily Allison won the written competition in 2022, and 2023 champion Catherine Wooten was spoken-word runner-up.
CORRECTION, 3 May 2024 at 11:16 a.m. ET
The initial version of this post did not include mention of the Poetry Ourselves competition. The Hub had not been made aware of those results until the NEA release went out via email.-Ed.