Lovelorn Count Orsino spoke these famous first words from Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night: “If music be the food of love, play on!” Struck with the pangs of unrequited, boundless, and—let’s be honest—purely imaginary love, he fittingly sought sustenance from the most ephemeral and intangible of art forms: music. Which happens to be, of course, this year’s ESU Poetry Recitation Competition theme!

As diverse as musical genres can be, so too were the poems selected for this year’s competition. From music as the vehicle of a puppy’s road to riches, to the thrill of clattering cacophony, and the heartfelt strumming in a lover’s song of devotion, these poems demanded unique approaches and sought to stir different emotions in both speaker and audience. Are we allowed to boast about how incredibly successful—and downright brilliant—our participants were in achieving this?

We had 221 participants in the competition, a third more than last year! Thirty-six schools participated in our virtual Round 1, with 28 schools advancing to the semi-final. Split over two days (Grades 6 to 8 on 7 November; Grades 3 to 5 on 8 November), we had 10 semi-finalists in each grade, from schools spanning La Serena to Puerto Montt—a truly national event!

The days began with our semi-final heats in individual classrooms, from which the top four progressed to the Grand Final, where they recited their poems once more… this time in the big auditorium! Extra jitters to face and a bigger room to fill! Further down below, you can see who our finalists were for each grade.

We’d like to mention that the top 5 schools that were in contention for the Traveling Trophy (Villa María Academy, Colegio Cumbres, Saint George’s College, Lincoln International Academy and The Grange School) are all schools that held internal competitions within each grade level at their school. This allowed them to enter as many participants as possible, some even having 2 participants per grade level in Round 1. As well, many of our participants semifinalists’s teachers had attended the poetry teacher workshop and had done the suggested activities. Don’t miss it next year!