Throughout England secondary school pupils aged 14-18 are standing up to recite in public two poems that they have learned by heart. The regional and county contests for Poetry By Heart, an organisation set up by the former poet laureate, Sir Andrew Motion, are taking place, to find finallists to battle it out next month in Cambridge. I was at the Surrey heat on Wednesday night, as a member of the judging panel, and to hear Mike Dixon, one of Poetry By Heart’s regional coordinators, say that the scheme had been launched four years ago at the National Portrait Gallery. “We weren’t 100% sure that it was going to work. This is not a new idea – it’s a very, very old idea ... so there were worries that some people might think it was backward-looking.”

I know that my parents had to learn famous poems by heart at school in the 1920s and 1930s. But Dixon said: “There is a big difference, we think, between learning by rote, and learning by heart – really taking that poem inside you.” Many performance poets up and down the country would second that, of course.

Our chair of judges, novelist and poet Adrienne Dines, who was also a judge last year, agreed. She would be looking for deliveries that were not too dramatic, she said. “I want to see them owning the poem – just letting the poem do the talking.”

Pupils from seven schools took part in the Surrey contest at Woking library. All are required to recite two poems – one pre-1914, and another post-1914 - from an online anthology that you can find here. There is also a selection of first world war poems to choose from as well.

The teenagers delivered poems that included Shelley’s ‘Ozymandias’, an extract from Milton’s Paradise Lost, Rupert Brooke’s ‘The Soldier’, and others by modern poets including James Fenton, Imtiaz Dharker and Jacob Polley. Wednesday night’s winner, Maya Ahuja-Hofheiz, pictured above, from Caterham school, recited George Meredith’s ‘Lucifer in Starlight’ (1883) in the first half, and Vicki Feaver’s ‘Judith’ (1994) in the second. The runner-up was William Davies, from Charterhouse school, and Adrienne Dines, in her judges’ comments, also commended the performance of Bobby Hedgeland, from Sunnydown school, whose joy and excitement at being on the stage was wonderful to see. There were very few fluffed lines, and the overall standard was extremely high. Mike Dixon paid tribute to the “passion, support and determination” of teachers who had organised recitation contests in their schools: “I’d like to thank all the teachers in this room today for engaging in this process.” 

Wednesday night at Woking library was enhanced by background music in between the performances that was provided by a trio from nearby Winston Churchill school – Adam Grainger (piano), Ben Moore (violin), and Philip Norman (cello).  

The national finals of Poetry By Heart will take place at Homerton College, Cambridge, on 18-19 March.

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