Calling all Edgar Allan Poe Fans! The National Edgar Allan Poe Theatre is holding the inaugural Raven-Off, and everyone over the age of 18 is invited to participate.
The Raven-Off is not the name of a Rocky & Bullwinkle villain, nor a hearty Slovakian dish. It is a free competition celebrating the brilliant and timeless work of Edgar Allan Poe while promoting literary education and a love of classic literature. Participants record and submit their very best recitation of “The Raven” by Poe, and a winner is chosen by Poe Theatre.
The idea came to Alex Zavistovich, founder and artistic director of the National Edgar Allan Poe Theatre, nearly two years ago. He and a friend held their own version of a Raven-Off at the H.L. Mencken House.
“It was an idea that came spontaneously,” Zavistovich told Baltimore Fishbowl. “We thought it was funny and maybe a little bit stupid. We called it a ‘Raven-Off,’ where each of us recited ‘The Raven’ to the small, assembled audience, and they, just by applause, [decided the ‘winner’.] … At first, we thought, ‘Would people sit through two back-to-back readings of The Raven?’ And the answer is, ‘Yeah, they absolutely did and loved it.’”
During Poe Theatre’s Doomsday event in May 2026, Zavistovich thought to expand that friendly competition into an event that engaged more people and promoted their mission of fostering literacy and love of literature.
Raven-Off participants can compete in one of two categories: College Students (must be at least 18) or Lifelong Students (adults). Each category winner will receive $100, a featured video on the National Edgar Allan Poe Theatre’s social media channels, and a spotlight in a future episode of Poe Theatre On The Air, which is broadcast on WYPR radio.
“There is a direct vector between radio drama and literacy, and so everything that we do in theater, in radio, and everything is really to promote literacy, English comprehension, things like that, and we have this platform through National Public Radio, Poe Theater on the Air, that enables us to do largely what we’d like,” Zavistovich said.
Science backs up Zavistovich’s claim connecting radio and literacy.
“[E]ngaging in social learning activities activates specific neural pathways associated with empathy, understanding, and memory retention,” wrote Gorden Rees on Mind, Brain, & Education, a website on neuroscience and education. Rees wrote about teaching English at a foreign language university.
“When students participate in radio dramas, they not only practice language skills but also develop a deeper understanding of context and emotion, which are necessary for becoming more proficient in a new language,” Rees wrote.
According to 2024 MCAP data, only 33 percent of Maryland’s 4th- and 8th-grade students are reading proficiently. In nearly half of Maryland’s school districts, more than 50 percent of students in both 4th– and 8th-grade are not reading proficiently. The Appalachian Learning Initiative reports that 20 percent of Maryland adults read below a 3rd-grade level and only 48.8 percent of adults in the state are proficient in reading above an 8th-grade level.
Radio dramas, contests like the Raven-Off, and other creative ways to experience literature make it fun to improve reading skills, interact with others, and advance comprehension.
Zavastovich said people are welcome to submit a variety of different formats, but video offers the most flexibility for Poe Theatre to share. The theater can extract audio to share on their NPR show and then share the video on their social media platforms.
Finally, do not worry about memorizing the poem. Have fun and be creative! There can even be more than one person in the video or reading, though if that submission is chosen as the winner, participants would split the $100 prize.
“It doesn’t have to be from memory,” Zavistovich said. “It’s a reading. So, they can read it with poem in hand. We really do not mind. We just want them to be creative and not just saying it in that sing-song way that a lot of us were taught. … There’s a flow, an internal flow to the structure of the poem. We want to hear them understand it.”
The contest is open now, and the submission deadline is on Sunday, Oct. 4. Winners will be announced on Saturday, Oct. 31. People can submit their entries through the Poe Theatre’s website, which includes the entry form and contest rules.
