Poetry In Voice/Les voix de la poésie (PIV) is a registered charity that wants all Canadians to speak poetry. To achieve this, they are striving to become the essential resource for teaching and learning poetry in Canada — and beyond. They provide educators with engaging content and experiences, in English and French, to inspire their students to read, recite, and write poetry.

Through its bilingual online platform, PIV offers students and teachers across the country the opportunity to engage with poetry through classroom resources and recitation contests. Monarq has been the digital partner behind PIV’s Drupal-based platform since its creation in 2014, maintaining and improving the system for over more than a decade.

Originally built by Monarq on Drupal 7, the system has made it possible for thousands of students across Canada to participate in recitation contests that start in their classroom and can lead them to the National Online Qualifier and Semifinal and allow them to win cash prizes. Students can compete in three language categories, English, French and Bilingual. Teachers across the country can register students for the Online Qualifier by submitting their Champion’s recitation performances videos through the platform. Each submission is scored by a panel of judges through the website’s user interface. Judges are well known Canadian poets from all origins and are required to evaluate each recitation based on criteria including physical presence, voice and articulation, interpretation and accuracy. The platform collects and processes all the scores and generates rankings to determine winners at various stages of the competition. The semifinalists get to compete in the National Finals, a yearly event held in person in a theatre.

The original Drupal 7-based system was in use until 2021. That year Monarq refactored the entire platform and system to Drupal 9, preserving core features while improving accessibility and performance for site users and usability for administrators.
 

While PIV has been using the Drupal platform for online contests, live events have continued to rely on paper score sheets and tables for judging recitations and score compilation. PIV live events include the Team Regional competitions and the National Finals. In Team Regional competitions up to eight schools enroll a trio of students to compete in person. The National Finals is a yearly event taking place in a theatre where judges score each performance live as the competition unfolds.

In the Spring of 2025 PIV asked Monarq to make the live contest fully digital by expanding the existing Drupal platform. Monarq developed a system similar to the online competition tools but usable in the context of a live performance with real-time judging, scoring and score tabulation.
 

Monarq designed and developed a new Live Contest system within the existing Drupal platform. At the center of this system is the Monitor Dashboard giving the event host full control over the competition scoring process. As students perform, the Monitor controls the timing of score submission. When a recitation ends, the system activates the score forms for that student. Judges, using tablets connected to the platform, see the scoring interface light up, enter their evaluations, and submit their results. Once a score is submitted, the tablet display goes dark to minimize distraction in the theatre. The Dashboard reflects judge activity in real time, enabling the host to follow the process and respond to any issues.

The system takes the language of each performance into account and prompts only the relevant judges to score each recitation, ensuring that English, French, and bilingual performances can be mixed within the same event. Judges are authenticated on their tablet through individual accounts, and their interface is synchronized with the competition schedule controlled by the Monitor.

As scores are submitted, the platform updates rankings continuously. It applies predefined rules that factor in both performance and accuracy, with built-in tie-breaking mechanisms. When the final recitation ends, results are immediately available for announcement.
 

The new Live Contest feature introduces real-time judging to PIV competitions, maintaining an organised and consistent process. It eliminates the need for paper-based forms and manual compilation of scores, allowing in-person events to benefit from the same powerful platform as PIV’s online competitions.

The National Finals competition held in May 2025 in Vancouver marked the Live Contest feature's official debut and was a resounding success.

This addition is part of Monarq’s ongoing collaboration with PIV to enhance the platform and support its mission of bringing poetry to students across Canada.