Teen champions from the 2011 Poetry Out Loud competition showcased their poetry recitation skills at the 2011 National Book Festival's Poetry & Prose Pavilion. Before they took the stage, they talked about how the Poetry Out Loud program has affected them, and offered encouragement for other teens who are curious about this national poetry competition. Featured are 2011 National Champion and Alabama State Champion Youssef Biaz, 2011 Nevada State Champion Emily Orellana, and 2011 Colorado State Champion Samuel Opoku. Opoku was also a finalist at the 2012 Poetry Out Loud National Finals. Poetry Out Loud is a national arts education program that encourages the study of great poetry by offering educational materials and a dynamic recitation competition to high schools across the country. Poetry Out Loud uses a pyramid structure. Participating teachers use the Poetry Out Loud toolkit to teach poetry recitation and run classroom competitions. Students select, memorize, and recite poems from an anthology of more than 650 classic and contemporary poems. Beginning at the classroom level, winners will advance to the school-wide competition, then to the state competition, and ultimately to the National Finals in Washington, DC. Some 365,000 students from more than 2,000 high schools took part in the 2011--2012 Poetry Out Loud program. Poetry Out Loud is sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation. To learn how to get involved in the 2012-2013 Poetry Out Loud National Recitation Contest, visit www.poetryoutloud.org.