Dawid Kocik, a student from Coláiste Chiaráin, Croom has successfully competed in the semi-final of the ninth annual Poetry Aloud competition, organised by the National Library of Ireland (NLI) and Poetry Ireland.
Dawid will now proceed to the national final, which will take place in the National Library of Ireland in Dublin on 2nd December. The event will see 29 students from across the country compete in the junior, intermediate and senior categories for the Seamus Heaney Poetry Aloud Award.
Poetry Aloud is an annual poetry speaking competition for post-primary school students across the island of Ireland and was launched in 2006 as Yeats Aloud, becoming Poetry Aloud in 20017. Since then, it has grown enormously from just a few hundred entries to over 1,600 entries in 2016. The prescribed poems in this year’s competition reflect on 1916, World War 1 and also include the work of contemporary Irish poets.
Dawid from Coláiste Chiaráin in Croom, saw off competition from participants who travelled from 74 schools nationwide and will compete in next month’s final in the intermediate category. Each category winner will receive €300 as well as book tokens to the value of €300 for the winner’s school library. An overall winner will be chosen from the three category winners and will receive a further €200, the Seamus Heaney perpetual trophy and a signed book of poetry.
The late Seamus Heaney was a significant supporter of Poetry Aloud. In 2009, he was presented by the British Library with the David Cohen Prize for Literature. In addition to the main award, the winner each year nominates the recipient of a subsidiary prize. In nominating Poetry Aloud for the award, Seamus Heaney cited the extraordinary way in which the competition seeks to celebrate the joy of speaking and listening to poetry as well as the fact that there is a strong North-South dimension to the competition.
For further information, visit www.nli.ie and www.poetryireland.ie
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