Tips On Reciting | Poetry Out Loud

In addition to these tips, teachers, coaches, and students may also find it useful to view the Judge’s Guide. Many of the following categories also have links to videos of student performances which illustrate mastery of that specific category.

Learning Recitation Videos

Created to illustrate the art of poetry recitation.

Watch the series

Physical Presence

Body language, and poise.

Tips:

Present yourself well and be attentive. Use good posture. Be confident and make a direct connection with the audience.
Nervous gestures and lack of confidence will detract from your score.
Relax and be natural. Enjoy your poem—the judges will notice.

Qualities of a strong recitation:

Ease and comfort with the audience. Engagement with the audience through physical presence, including appropriate body language and confidence—without appearing artificial.

Video Examples:

Voice and Articulation

Pace, rhythm, intonation, and proper pronunciation.
Keep in Mind: Contestants will use a microphone at the National Finals.

Tips:

Project to the audience. Capture the attention of everyone, including the people in the back row. However, don’t mistake shouting for good projection.
Proceed at a fitting and natural pace. People may communicate too quickly when nervous, making the poem hard to understand. Do not communicate so slowly that the language sounds unnatural or awkward.
With rhymed poems, be careful not to recite in a sing-song manner.
Make sure you know how to pronounce every word in your poem. Articulate.
Line breaks are a defining feature of poetry. Decide whether a break requires a pause and, if so, how long to pause.

Qualities of a strong recitation:

All words pronounced correctly, and the projection, rhythm, and intonation greatly enhance the recitation. Pacing appropriate to the poem.

Video Examples:

Interpretation

This category evaluates the interpretive and performance choices made by the student. A strong recitation must rely on a powerful internalization of the poem rather than excessive gestures or unnecessary emoting. Effective interpretation enhances the audience’s understanding and enjoyment of the poem without overshadowing the poem’s language. The Learning Recitation videos at PoetryOutLoud.org will help illustrate this point.

Advice for the student:

Movement must not detract from the poem’s voice.
You are the vessel of your poem. Have confidence that your poem is strong enough to communicate its sounds and messages without a physical illustration. Let the words of the poem do the work.
Depending on the poem, occasional gestures may be appropriate, but the line between appropriate and overdone is a thin one. When uncertain, leave them out.
Avoid monotone delivery. However, too much enthusiasm can make your performance seem insincere.

Qualities of a strong recitation:

The interpretation subtly underscores the meaning of the poem without becoming the focal point of the recitation. A low score in this category will result from recitations that have affected accents and character voices, inappropriate tone and inflection, singing, excessive gestures, or unnecessary emoting.

Video Examples:

Evidence of Understanding

This category is to evaluate your comprehension and mastery of the poem. The poet’s words should take precedence, and you should be able to voice them in a way that helps the audience to understand the poem better. To do this, you must effectively use intonation, emphasis, tone, and style of delivery.

Tips:

You must understand the poem fully. Be attentive to the messages, meanings, allusions, irony, tones of voice, and other nuances in your poem.
Be sure you know the meaning of every word and line in your poem. If you are unsure about something it will be apparent to the audience.
Think about how you should interpret the tone and voice of your poem. Is it a quiet poem? Is it a boisterous poem? Should it be recited more quickly or slowly, with a happy or mournful tone? Your interpretation will be different for each poem, and it is a crucial element of your performance.

Qualities of a strong recitation:

The meaning of the poem is powerfully and clearly conveyed to the audience. The interpretation deepens and enlivens the poem. Meaning, themes, allusions, irony, tone, and other nuances are captured by the performance. A low score will be awarded if the interpretation obscures the meaning of the poem.

Video Examples:

Overall Performance

This category is to evaluate the overall success of the poem, the degree to which the recitation has become more than the sum of its parts.

Did you captivate the audience with the language of the poem?
Did you bring the audience to a better understanding of the poem?
Did your physical presence, voice and articulation, and dramatic appropriateness all seem on target and unified to breathe life into the poem?
Did the performance honor the poem?

Judges may also consider the poem complexity and range of your recitations with this score; you are less likely to score well in overall performance when judges note that your style of interpretation remains the same regardless of poem choice. 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.

Tips:

For competitions beyond the classroom level, select poems of various styles, time periods, complexities, themes, and tones. When considering the range and complexity of your poems, remember that a longer poem is not necessarily a more difficult one.

Make sure each poem you choose is one that speaks to you. If you are able to connect with a poem, that internalization will ripple positively throughout all of your scores.

Accuracy

A separate judge will mark missed or incorrect words during the recitation, with small deductions for each. If you rely on the prompter during your recitation, points will also be subtracted from your accuracy score. Eight points will be added to your score for a perfectly accurate recitation. Refer to the accuracy score sheet for details.