Long ago, poems were recited out loud instead of being written down. When the Greeks first started the Olympics, they held poetry contests as well as athletic competitions. Now, poetry competitions have been revived  .This year 120,000 high school students competed in the first Poetry Out Loud National Recitation Contest, performing poems from memory for $100,000 in prizes. The first competitions were held in classrooms. The winners went on to school-wide contests, and then they competed in city and state competitions. Finally, the 50 state champions, along with the District of Columbia champion came to Washington, D.C. last week for the last show down. After the 51 champions competed against one another, 12 went on to the finals. Then the field was narrowed to five. The final five had one last chance to "perform" a poem. The overall champ, Jackson Hille, a high school senior from Ohio, won a $20,000 scholarship. The National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation started Poetry Out Loud because they realized that hearing a poem performed is a different experience from reading it on a page. It's not just a matter of saying the words in the right order. It's the tone of voice, the pauses, the gestures, and the attitude of the person performing that bring the words to life. "Each time we hear somebody recite a poem, we find something fresh and interesting about it, " says National Public Radio Broadcaster Scott Simon, master of ceremonies for the finals. Hearing it in a new voice offers something new to the listener. Not only do the people hearing poems have a new experience, memorizing and presenting poems helps the participants   understand those poems in a new way. Another benefit of a competition such as Poetry Out Loud is that the participants learn public -speaking skills that can help them for life. What's the main idea of the passage?
Reciting poems improves your memory. Remembering a lot of poems is fun. Poets have a great time. Poetry competitions freshen us up.