Some of Scotland’s leading poets, including the Makar Jackie Kay, are writing to their high schools to encourage students to memorize and perform poetry.
Former Maker Liz Lochhead, the Edinburgh Maker Christine De Luca, WN Herbert, the Makar for Dundee and Jim Carruth, the poet laureate of Glasgow are all writing to their old schools to support the drive.
Each has written to their former schools to encourage them to take part in Poetry by Heart Scotland, a national competition encouraging students to memorize and perform poetry.
Ms Kay has written to Bishopbriggs Academy, Ms Lochhead to Dalziel High School in Motherwell, Ms De Luca to Anderson High School in Lerwick; and Mr Carruth to Johnstone High in Johnstone.
Mr Herbert is planning on writing to several high schools in Dundee as part of his role as Dundee Makar.
Today the Scottish Poetry Library will launch the Poetry by Heart competition, and to encourage people, poets or not, to write to their old high school to encourage them to take part.
Launched in 2014, Poetry By Heart Scotland is an annual nationwide schools competition, run by the Scottish Poetry Library, that challenges students in S4-S6 to memorize two poems and perform them before an audience.
The SPL says that "Memorizing and performing poems has many benefits.
"It boosts young people’s confidence and helps to prepare them for public speaking later in life.
"Recent research also suggests that students who memorise passages of literature can actually recall more information overall as it improves concentration."
Elli Mackay, joint winner of the Poetry By Heart 2015, said: "This competition has given me the ability to be confident about new experiences and along the way I’ve developed an unexpected but profound love of poetry."
It is hoped that the five letters written by leading Scottish poets will encourage others to follow their lead.
Ms Lochhead says: "You should learn poems by heart because they come from the heart.
"When I was at school, we learned poems like we learned the times tables.
"I don’t think I would have become a poet, I wouldn’t even have become a person who reads poems, if I hadn’t learned them by heart."
Poetry By Heart Scotland is a competition for pupils in S4-S6.
Students in school contests recite one pre-1914 poem plus one post-1914 poem.
Winners going forward to regional heats and the national finals can recite the same poems as at the school stage competition or select new ones.
At each stage one of the poems selected from the list must be by a Scottish poet.
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