Poet Imtiaz Dharker will launch England’s hugely popular national poetry speaking competition, Poetry By Heart, with a special event at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre on National Poetry Day, 3rd October 2024.

Encouraging everyone to learn poetry by heart, Imtiaz Dharker says, “Once you have learned a poem it doesn’t just live in your head, it lives in your heart for ever and keeps giving new gifts back to you. It can mean one thing to you when you are seven, and something quite different when you are seventeen or seventy. It’s like having a superpower that will stay with you for the rest of your life.”

150 young people from schools across the country will join Imtiaz in the Globe’s Sam Wanamaker Playhouse. Together, they will learn a poem, with guidance from Poetry By Heart’s Julie Blake, and then recite it out loud. The audience will also enjoy readings by Imtiaz Dharker from her new book Shadow Reader (Bloodaxe Books) and be treated to performances by seven young people who will take to the stage themselves to perform poems, both classic and contemporary, they have chosen and learned by heart. The young people are coming from schools in London, Devon, the West Midlands, Yorkshire and Essex.

Established in 2013, Poetry By Heart is open to all schools and colleges in England and in 2024 alone it inspired over 110,000 young people to learn a poem by heart. Over 1,500 schools took part in the competition with the national champions chosen in a day of celebration at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, London.

Comments from teachers and young people are proof of the special joy of learning a poem by heart. “I gained confidence and found I love POETRY!!!” says young participant Joshua, of Chorley; “Students engage with a passion with poetry,” says Julie Atkins, a teacher from South Yorkshire, “Taking part raises confidence and expressive abilities.”

Julie Blake says, “We are delighted that Imtiaz will launch this year’s competition and to be celebrating learning poetry by heart on National Poetry Day at Shakespeare’s Globe. We encourage everyone to learn a poem by heart this year. Choose one you love, give yourself time to learn it, and impress friends and family with your new superpower.”

Research carried out by the University of Cambridge in 2017 found that committing a poem to memory has real benefits. The most universal benefit was a deeper connection to the poem itself, and this was closely followed by the poem’s potential as an emotional resource for life.

The top ten poems learned by heart for the 2024 Poetry By Heart competition are:

Remember by Matt Goodfellow

Spellbound by Emily Brontë

Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll

Spring by Karla Kuskin

The Language of Cat by Rachel Rooney

Fire and Ice by Robert Frost

Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley

London by William Blake

Fall, Leaves, Fall by Emily Brontë

Please do not feed the animals by Robert Hull

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