The week before Rice’s annual school-wide Poetry Out Loud recitation, TJ Bird Matarazzo, the English department chair, released a statement to the Rice community: “The students and teachers at Rice Memorial High School are choosing to not participate in a school-wide competition of Poetry Out Loud this year.”
Poetry Out Loud has served as a nationwide recitation competition for high school students since 2005, launched by The National Endowment for the Arts and Poetry Foundation.
Each year, throughout English classes, every Rice student gets to workshop, engage in, and recite a poem from the Poetry Out Loud website.
“One of the main purposes of reading literature and poetry is to expose students perspectives unlike their own,” says Katherine Fischer, a new teacher in the English department.
This experience gives opportunity for growth in public speaking, and often allows students to step outside of their comfort zones. “It allows me to express my creative side and I get to use a part of my brain I don’t often,” says senior March Lumbra. “It is also so important hearing my classmates recite their poems because those poems mean something to them, and everyone.”
Finalists are chosen from each class to participate in the school-wide recitation where they are judged by a panel of teachers on accuracy, presence, voice, and articulation. Previous winners have included Celeste Hines (’25) and Madeline Olsen (’24), who have attended the regional competition against other Vermont high school students held at the Barre Opera House.
“I look forward to POL each year,” expresses Latin teacher, Mr. Cirignano, who was a judge for last year’s event. “Poetry is such a powerful and beautiful language experience, and to see and hear Rice students reciting a wide variety of poems is awesome.”
This year, the Rice English department, the administration, and students made the decision to cancel Poetry Out Loud due to the significant changes in Poetry Out Loud’s anthology.
Poetry Foundation announced that as of the 2026 school year, they would be removing themselves from managing Poetry Out Loud’s anthology to shift its focus in grantmaking to strengthen and broaden the poetry ecosystem because of recent funding cuts to the arts.
While quantitatively the change made the anthology go from 1,300 to 400 poems, this change shifted the outlook of POL and its mission.
“As the nation prepares to commemorate its 250th anniversary, the federal government is emphasizing programming in 2026 that honors American history and culture,” states the POL website. “Accordingly, the poems selected for the 2025-2026 Poetry Out Loud competition highlight American poets as well as poems that embody the nation’s indomitable spirit, creativity, innovation and the nation’s rich cultural and historical heritage.”
In response to this, Matarazzo writes in the POL statement, “While this sounds inspiring, in reality, the changes have resulted in excluding most voices that reflect our nation’s diversity. Female poets, indigenous poets, gay and lesbian poets, and poets of color have been dramatically cut out of the anthology. These changes actually reflect the smothering of voices that has been happening in our country.”
The exclusion of voices “Is an affront to the dignity of many people,” says the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCBB). “The measure of every institution is whether it threatens or enhances the life and dignity of the human person…to participate [in institutions that exclude voices] is to ignore this injustice.”
Many schools alongside Rice are choosing to opt out of this event in protest, standing in solidarity with marginalized communities.
While many students were sad to not be able to continue this beloved event, they were even more proud to be a part of Rice’s decision: “I didn’t feel right [about ignoring the changes and participating],” expresses Celeste Hines who was last year’s school champion and a finalist for this year’s event as well.
Teachers shared this same sentiment.
“The decision for us as an English department and a school to not participate was not taken lightly,” voices Kayleigh Oldham, an English teacher at Rice. “I am so incredibly proud of the work our students do every year to prepare for and participate in Poetry Out Loud. I am just as proud of our school and our students to choose not to participate this year as a statement about human dignity.”
The English department is working together to create a day in April, during National Poetry Month, to gather together and celebrate student voices.
“While we love Poetry Out Loud, we love all our students more. We want you to know that you all are welcome. Your voices matter to us”- TJ Bird Matarazzo.
