First Annual Regional Spoken Word Competition for High School Students

This initiative is the concept of spoken word poet and the 2023 Piedmont Laureate Dasan Ahanu. Dasan Ahanu is an artist, educator, scholar, and cultural organizer based in Durham, North Carolina. In addition to performing across the country, Ahanu has hosted or coordinated many poetry, jazz, and hip-hop events across the region.  To launch this program, Ahanu will give performances at four historically under-resourced schools in Wake County and will provide teachers in all three counties with a poetry study guide to utilize in the classroom.  

Beginning September 1, 2023, students from public, private, and home schools in these three counties may submit a video of themselves performing their own original poetry. Videos must be under three minutes. 

Deadline to submit is October 27, 2023. All submissions will be juried by a panel of professional poets and spoken word artists.  

Winners will be announced at a reception at the North Carolina Executive Mansion on December 12, 2023.