Colaiste Lu student through to national poetry finals

A student from Colaiste Lu 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.

Daniel Nordon saw off competition from participants who travelled from 74 schools nationwide and will compete in next month’s final in the junior category.

The event on December 2nd 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 2017.

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.

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 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.