WASHINGTON — Isavel Mendoza, a Lehigh Valley Charter High School for the Arts senior, was crowned the 2025 Poetry Out Loud National Champion Wednesday evening at George Washington University’s Lisner Auditorium.
Mendoza, who represented Pennsylvania after winning the state championship earlier this year, emerged victorious from a field of nine finalists and claimed the $20,000 grand prize.
The finalists had advanced from state and jurisdictional competitions involving more than 157,000 students nationwide.
Mendoza captivated judges with powerful performances of Keith S. Wilson’s “Black Matters,” a contemplative poem exploring race and perception; Kabir’s enigmatic “Brother, I’ve seen some,” which challenges conventional understanding through paradoxical imagery; and E.E. Cummings’ tender love poem “[i carry your heart with me(i carry it in].”
“It feels awesome to be moving on to the finals,” Mendoza said in an interview before the final round. “It feels like everything that you think about when you’re practicing or everything that you might have or might do is like real.”
The 20th anniversary national finals were hosted by Mac Barnett, National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature, and featured a performance by singer, songwriter, and poet Jamila Woods.
Poetry Out Loud, a partnership between the National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation, has reached more than 4.5 million students since its inception in 2005.
As Pennsylvania’s champion, Mendoza earned $200 from the Poetry Foundation and an all-expenses-paid trip to Washington, D.C. for the national competition. Mendoza’s school will also receive $500 for poetry materials.
“The freedom of poetry inspires me, and how much it can relate to people that have no correlation other than the fact that they relate to the same poem,” Mendoza said.
