 The Death of Allegory by Billy Collins I am wondering what became of all those child abstractions by W.S. Merwin Comet of stillness, princess of what is over The Albatross by Kate Bass When I know you're coming home, I put on his necklace Glass beads on a soaking thread, a blue that used to match my eyes I deem the secret lost, the spirit gone Love song by Dorothy Parker My own dear love, he is strong and bold, and he carries not what comes after Avery Freigum, The Lamb by Linda Gregg It was a photo I had after the war A bombed English child Hold to the hotel near the children's hospital by Kevin Young Praise the restless beds The Conqueror Worm by Edgar Allan Poe Low to the gallinite within the lonesome latter years Personal by Tony Hoagland Don't take it personal, they said Friendship After Love by Ella Wheeler-Wilcox After the fierce midsummer all ablaze Has burned itself to ashes I am trying to break your heart by Kevin Young I am hoping to hang your head on my wall in shame Very Large Moth by Craig Arnold after DHL Your first thought when the light snaps on And the black wings clatter about the kitchen Mingus at the Showplace by William Matthews I was miserable, of course, for I was seventeen Friendship After Love by Ella Wheeler-Wilcox After the fierce midsummer all ablaze Has burned itself to ashes and expires Rondo by Lee Hunt Jenny kissed me when we met The Last Laugh by Wilfred Owen Oh, Jesus Christ, I've hit, he said, and died The Conqueror Worm by Edgar Allan Poe Low to the gallinite within the lonesome latter years Joy of my life, full oft for loving you by Edmund Spencer Joy of my life, full oft for loving you I bless my lot that was so lucky placed Check, one, two, one, two, check, check How'd it work, Jim? Perfect Check, check, check That's podium Check, check, check, check, one, two, check, check Check, check, check, check, check Check, check, check, check, check, one, two one two, eight, check, check, check, eight, one two, eight, one two, check, one two, check, check, one two, check, check, one two, eight, one two, eight, eight, one two, eight, eight, He, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, one, two. Check one, two, he, he. I don't have any idea where she is. I haven't seen her for 20 minutes. Do you want to know how loud she is? Yeah, we're just framing it. Oh, I see. Oh, I see if there's any shadows. Okay, there you go. How long do I have to stand here? This is Erica. Hello. Welcome to the Vermont Poetry Out Loud State semifinals. My name is Erica Lowe and I'm the Arts Education Program news manager here at the Vermont Arts Council. I would like to begin today's competition with a poem by Albertus All We Have. One river gives its journey to the next. We give because someone gave to us. We give because nobody gave to us. We give because giving has changed us and giving has changed us. We give because giving could have changed us. We have been better for it. We have been wounded by it. Giving has many faces. It is loud and quiet, big though small, diamond and wood nails. Its story is old. The plot worn the pages too. But we read this book anyway over and again. Giving is first and every time hand to hand mine to yours, yours to mine. You gave me blue and I gave you yellow. Together we are simple green. You gave me what you did not have and I gave you what you gave. Together we made something greater from the difference. Together we made something greater from the difference. The Vermont Arts Council wants to acknowledge the more than 5,400 students who participated in this year's Poetry Out Loud program. We want to thank the 143 teachers who gave time and support helping their students rise and perform poems. Organizing a school competition and participating in Poetry Out Loud requires grit and good spirits. And we especially want to thank each of the 35 school champions for standing on this stage and declaiming a poem for us today. For putting yourselves out there. For taking a risk. We hope this program has connected you to poetry for life and giving you new confidence in your abilities. Each of today's regional semifinals is separated into two rounds. Students will recite a single poem in the first round. And then another as they move through the order a second time. The names of the students as well as the order of their recitations can be found in your program. The five students with the highest cumulative score in both rounds will move on to the finals which will be held on Thursday, March 17th at Vermont PBS. Each recitation will be evaluated using the following criteria. Physical presence, voice and articulation, dramatic appropriateness, evidence of understanding, overall performance and accuracy. Evaluating today's recitations will not be an easy task which is why we have assembled an esteemed panel of judges who I would like to introduce and thank now. Author and poet, Rick Agrin, and Vermont Arts Council board member, Reeve Lindberg, poet and the director of Harbor Mountain Press, Peter Money, performer, director and education manager at Vermont Stage, Allie Perry and finally, artist and community programs manager, Sarah Mutrix, who will serve as our accuracy judge. Thank you to all of our judges without whom this competition would not be possible. I also want to acknowledge our prompter, Michelle Bailey. Michelle is here to assist students should they need a hand or a word as well as the rest of the Vermont Arts Council staff. I'd like to thank them. They have worked tirelessly to make this event possible. Thanks to the Barry Opera House for hosting us and this beautiful space to our technical team from CVTV and Orca Media and to Sam Simon, our photographer. Let's give them a round of applause. As we begin today's competition I ask that you mute your cell phones and refrain from exiting the theater during a performer's recitation so as not to distract them. We do have a hashtag for this event so if you're watching the live stream and you want to communicate with us we'll communicate back. Our hashtag is P-O-L-V-T or P-O-L-16 and if you are in the house and want to tweet we just ask that you do that in between recitations or breaks so as not to distract their performers with the glowing of your screens. So once again, I would like to thank all the students, teachers, and audience members who are here today and via live stream and celebration of poetry and community. If our judges and contestants are ready our first recitation will be by Abigail Dietrich from Northfield High School. The Death of Allegory by Billy Collins I am wondering what became of all those tall abstractions that used to pose robed and statuesque in paintings and parade about on the pages of the Renaissance displaying their capital letters like license plates. Truth cantering thoughtful horse chastity eyes downcast fluttering with veils each one was marble come to life a thought in a coat courtesy bowing with one hand always extended villainy sharpening an instrument behind a wall reason with her crown and constancy alert behind a helm. They are all retired now consigned to a Florida for tropes justice is there standing by an open refrigerator Valor lies in bed listening to the rain even death has nothing to do but mend his cloak and hood and all their props are locked away in a warehouse hourglasses globes blindfolds and shackles even if you call them back there are no places left for them to go no garden of mirth or bower of bliss the valley of forgiveness is lined with condominiums and chainsaws are howling in the forest of despair here on the table near the window is evasive peonies and next to it black binoculars and a money clip the kind of thing we now prefer objects that sit quietly on a line in lower case themselves and nothing more a wheelbarrow an empty mailbox a razor blade resting in a glass ashtray for the others the great ideas on horseback and the long haired virtues and embroidered gowns it looks as though they have traveled down that road you see on the final page of story books the one that winds up a green hillside and disappears into an unseen valley where everyone must be fast asleep our next recitation will be by Anna Van Dyne from Harwood Union High School Vixen our next recitation Woodman from Montpelier High School our next recitation will be by Megan Abishon from Hayeson Union School Flaxman by Margaret Fuller we deem the secret lost the spirit gone which spake in Greek simplicity of thought and in the forms of gods and heroes wrought eternal beauty from the sculptured stone a higher charm than modern culture one with all the wealth of metaphysical lore gifted to analyze dissect explore a many colored light flows from one sun art, neath its motley thread has spun the prism modifies the perfect day but thou hast known such mediums to shun and cast once more on life of pure white ray absorbed in the creations of thy mind forgetting daily self my truest self I find our next recitation will be by Maggie Fitzgerald from Rice Memorial High School our next recitation will be by Avery Friggin from Spalding High School by Linda Gregg it was a picture I had after the war a bombed English church I was too young to know the word English or war but I knew the picture the ruined city still seemed noble the cathedral with its roof blown off was not less godly the church was the same plus rain and sky birds flew in and out of the holes God's fist made in the walls all our desire for love or children is treated like rags by the enemy I knew so much and sang anyway like a bird who will sing until it is brought down when they take away the trees the child picks up a stick and says this is a tree this the house the family as we might through a door of what had been a house into the field of rubble walks a single lamb tilting its head curious unafraid hungry our next recitation will be by Jamie Decchette from St. John'sbury Academy the hotel near the children's hospital by Kevin Young praise the restless beds praise the beds that do not adjust that won't lift the head to feed or lower for shots or blood or raised watch the tinny TV praise the hotel TV that won't quit its murmur and holler praise the room service that doesn't exist just the slow delivery to the front desk of cooling pizzas and brown bags leaky greasy and clear praise the vending machines praise the change praise the hot water and the heat or the loud cool that helps the helpless sleep praise the front desk like womb 120 when the hospital rings praise the silent phone praise the dark drawn by thick daytime curtains after long nights of waiting awake praise the waiting and then praise the nothing that's better than bad news praise the wake-up call at 6am praise the card hung on the door like a whisper lips pressed silent praise the stranger's hands that change the sweat of sheets praise the checking out praise the going home to beds unmade for days beds that won't resurrect or rise that lie there like a child should sleeping too bliss praise this mess that can be left and the next recitation will be by Kaylee Groth from Mt. Mansfield Union High School The Conqueror Worm by Edgar Allen Poe Lowe, Tisza Gallonite within the lonesome latter years an angel throng bewinged, bedight in veils and drowned in tears sit in a theater to see a play of hopes and fears while the orchestra breathes the music of the spheres minds in the form of God on high mutter and mumble low and hither and thither fly mere puppets they who come and go at bidding a vast formless things that shift the scenery to and fro flapping from out their condor wings invisible woe that motley drama woe be sure, it shall not be forgot with its phantom chased forevermore by a crowd that sees it not through a circle that ever returneth into the self-same spot and much of madness and more of sin and horror the soul of the plot but see amidst the mimic route a crawling shape intrude a blood-red thing writhes from out the scenic solitude it writhes it writhes with mortal pangs the mimes become its food and serifs saw at vermin fangs in human gore imbued out are the lights, out all and over each quivering form the curtain a funeral paul comes down with the rush of a storm the angels all pallid and won, uprising unveiling a firm that the play is the tragedy man and its hero the conqueror worm excitation will be by Hailey Bouchard from South Burlington High School by Tony Hoagland don't take it personal they said but I did, I took it all quite personal and the river and the color of the fields the price of great fruit and stamps the wet hair of women in the rain and I cursed what hurt me and I praised what gave me joy the most simple-minded of possible responses the government reminded me of my father with its deafness and its laws and the weather reminded me of my mom with her tropical squalls enjoy it while you can they said of happiness think first they said of talk get over it they said at the school of broken hearts but I couldn't and I didn't and I don't believe in the clean break I believe in the compound fracture served with a sauce of dirty regret I believe in saying it all and taking it all back and saying it again for good measure while the air fills up with I'm sorry's like wheeling birds and the trees look seasick in the wind oh life can you blame me for making a scene you were that yellow caboose the moon disappearing over a ridge of cloud I was the dog chained in some fool's backyard barking and barking trying to convince everything else to take it personal too our next recitation will be by Trisha Potter from Linden Institute Friendship After Love by Ella Wheeler-Wilcox After the fierce mid-summer all ablaze has burned itself to ashes and expires in the intensity of its own fires there come the mellow, mild Saint Martin days crowned with the calm of peace but sad with haze so after love has led us till he tires of his own throes and torments and desires there comes large-eyed friendship with a restful gaze he beckons us to follow in a cross cool veredin veils we wander free from care is it a touch of frost lies in the air why are we haunted with a sense of loss we do not wish the pain back or the heat and yet and yet these days are incomplete our next recitation will be by Alaya Burr from Burlington High School Trying to Break Your Heart by Kevin Young I am hoping to hang your head on my wall in shame the slightest taxidermy thrills me fish forever leaping on the living room wall paper weights made from skulls of small animals I want to wear your smile on my sleeve and break your heart like a horse or its leg weeks of being bucked off then all at once your mind put me down I want to call you thine to tattoo mercy along my knuckles I assassin down the avenue I hope to have you forgotten by noon to know you by your knees pulsed by prayer loneliness is a science consider the taxidermists tender hands trying to keep from losing skin the bobcat grin of the living our next recitation will be by Tate Clark from the Sharon Academy Very Large Moth by Craig Arnold after DHL your first thought when the light snaps on and the black wings clatter about the kitchen is a bat the clear part of your mind considers rabies the other part does not consider knows only to startle and cower away from the slap of its wings though it is soon clearly not a bat but a moth and harmless still you are shy of it it clings to the hood of the stove not black but brown its orange eyes sparkle like televisions its leg joints are large enough to count how could you kill it where would you hide the body a creature so solid must have room for a soul and if this is so why not in a creature half its size or half its size again and so on down to the ants clearly it must be saved caught in a shopping bag and rushed to the front door afraid to crush it to grattle loosened into the night air it batters the porch light throwing fitful shadows around the landing that was a really big moth is all you can say to the doorman who has watched your whole performance with a smile the half compassion and half horror we feel for the creatures we want not to hurt and prefer not to touch our next recitation is by Eliza Goodell from Oxbow High School our next recitation is by John A. Keith from Otter Valley Union High School Friendship After Love by Ella Wheeler Wilcox after the fierce mid-summer all ablaze has burned itself to ashes and expires in the intensity of its own fires there come the mellow mild saint martin days crowned with the calm of peace but sad with haze so after love has led us till he tires of his own throes and torments and desires comes large-eyed friendship with the restful gaze he beckons us to follow and across cool verdant veils we wander free from care is it a touch of frost lies in the air why are we haunted with a sense of loss we do not wish the pain back or the heat and yet and yet these days are incomplete our next recitation is by Joshua Huffman from Randolph Union High School Rondo by Lee Hunt Jenny kissed me when we met jumping from the chair she sat in time youth thief who loved to put sweets into your list put that in say I'm weary say I'm sad say that health and wealth have missed me say I'm growing old but ad Jenny kissed me our next recitation is by Brandon Racine from Milton High School The Last Laugh by Wilfred Owen oh Jesus Christ I'm hit he said and died whether he vainly cursed or prayed indeed the bullets chirped in vain vain machine guns chuckled in the big gun gaffaud another sigh oh mother dad and then smiled at nothing childlike being dead in the lofty shrapnel cloud leisurely jessered fool and the splinters spat and tittered my love one moaned love languid seemed his mood till slowly lowered his whole face kissed the mud and the bayonet's long teeth grinned rables of shells hooded and groaned and the gas hissed our next recitation will be by Brandon Berge from Proctor Jr. Senior High School The Conqueror Worm by Edgar Allen Poe low to Zagala Knight within the some latter years an angel throng bewinged bediton veils and drowned in tears sit in the theater to see a play of hopes and fears while the orchestra breathes fitfully the music of the spheres mimes in the form of God on high mutter and mumble low and hither and thither fly mere puppets they who come and go at bidding a vast formless things that shift the scenery to and fro flapping from out their condor wings in visible world that motley drama oh be sure it shall not be forgot when its phantom chased forevermore by a crowd that sees it not through a circle that ever returneth in to the self-same spot and much of madness and more of sin and horror the soul of the plot but see amid the mimic routes a crawling shape intrude a blood-red thing that rives from out the scenic solitude it rives it rives with mortal pangs the mimes become its food and seraph sabbath vermin fangs in human gore and butte out out of the lights out all and over each quivering form the curtain a funeral pole comes down with the rush of a storm while the angels all pallid and wan up rising unveiling a firm that the play is the tragedy man and its hero the conqueror worm our next recitation is by Megan Kehoe from twin valley middle I bless my lot that was so love so mean love and based in this as in the rest he might invent heavenly wit whose verse could have relent to me your thought shall lift you up degree she enjoys sketching cooking baking and gardening in the summer she also loves to take photos of flowers in the garden during the summer Richard Corey by Edwin Arlington Robinson whenever Richard Corey went downtown we people on the pavement looked at him he was a gentleman from soul to crown clean favored and imperially slim and he was always quietly arrayed and he was always human when he talked but still he fluttered pulses when he said good morning and he glittered when he walked and he was rich yes richer than a king and admirably schooled in every grace in fine we thought that he was everything to make us wish that we were in his place so on we worked and waited for the light and went without the meat and curse the bread and Richard Corey one calm summer night went home and put a bullet through his head our next recitation will be by Anna van dyne Anna is a senior at harwood union high school she loves learning asking questions and visiting new places she also loves oatmeal because it has endless possibilities Monet refuses the operation by Lisa Mueller doctor you say there are no halos around the street lights in Paris and what I see is an aberration caused by old age and affliction I tell you it has taken me all my life to arrive at the image of gas lamps as angels to soften and blur and finally banish the edges you regret I don't see to learn that the line I called the horizon does not exist and sky and water so long apart are the same state of being 54 years before I could see ruan cathedral is built on parallel shafts of sun and now you want to restore my youthful errors fixed notions of top and bottom the illusion of three dimensional space wisteria separate from the bridge it covers what can I say to convince you the houses of parliament dissolve night after night to become the fluid dream of the Thames I will not return to a universe of objects that don't know each other as if islands were not the lost children of one great continent the world is flux and light becomes what it touches becomes water lilies on water above and below water becomes lilac and mauve and yellow and white and cerulean lamps small fists passing sunlight so quickly to one another that it would take long streaming hair inside my brush to touch it to paint the speed of light our weighted shapes these verticals burn to mix with air and change our bones skin clothes to gases doctor if only you could see how heaven pulls earth into its arm and how infinitely the heart expands to claim this world blue vapor without Montpelier High School Kayla is a sophomore spending time with her family and going to Maine in the summer our next recitation is by Megan Abashon Megan is a junior at Hazen Union School she loves watching the X-Files writing poetry, acting and then reading Yves Vaz August 12th in the Nebraska sandhills watching the precedes meteor shower by twyla Hanson in the middle of rolling grasslands away from lights a moonless night untethers its wild polka dots the formations we can name competing for attention in the twinkling and crowded sky bowl out from the corners lying back toward midnight on the heft of our car hood, all conversation blunted. We were at once unnerved and somehow restored. Out here, a furrow of spring-fed river threads through ranches in the tens of thousands of acres. Like cattle, we are powerless by instinct. Can see why early people trembled and deliberated the heavens. Off in the distance, those cattle make themselves known. A birdsong moves, singular, across the horizon. Not yet two o'clock in bits of comet dust, the perceives, startle and skim the atmosphere like skipping stones. In the leaden dark, we are utterly alone. As I rub the ridges on the back of your hand, our love for all things warm and pulsing crescendos towards dawn, this timeless awe, your breath floating with mine upward into the stars. Our next recitation is by Maggie Fitzgerald, a senior at Rice Memorial High School. Maggie is a certified elephant trainer in Thailand. And when she's not training elephants, she loves to sing, act, and have dance parties with her friends. Our next recitation will be by Avery Friggin. Avery is a senior at Spalding High School. He loves reading and sleeping. Avery tells us he may appear very quiet, but once you get to know him, you realize he's quite eccentric. In the desert by Stephen Crane. In the desert, I saw a creature, beastial, who, squawking upon the ground, held his heart in his hands and ate of it. I said, is it good, friend? It is bitter. Bitter, he answered. But I like it because it is bitter and because it is my heart. Next recitation will be by Jamie DeKett from St. Johnsbury Academy. Jamie is a junior who loves participating in theater. And a little known fact about Jamie is she can only snap with her pinky finger. A little father by Lee Young Lee. I buried my father in the sky. Since then, the birds clean and comb him every morning and pull the blanket up to his chin every night. Buried my father underground. Since then, my ladders only climbed down, and all the earth has become a house whose rooms are the hours whose doors stand open at evening, receiving guest after guest. Sometimes I see past them to the tables spread for a wedding feast. I buried my father in my heart. Now he grows in me, my strange son, my little root who won't drink milk, little pale foot sunk in unheard of night, little clock spring newly wet in the fire, little grape parent to the future wine, a son the fruit of his own son, little father ransom with my life. Our next recitation will be by Kaylee Groff, a senior at Mount Mansfield Union High School. Kaylee is a dancer, singer, actor, and she's visited Hawaii a total of seven times. Song to Celia by Ben Johnson. Drink to me only with thine eyes, and I will pledge with mine. Or leave a kiss but in the cup, and I'll not look for wine. The thirst that from the soul doth rise, doth ask a drink divine, but might I of jove's nectar say, I would not change for thine. I sent thee late a rosy wreath, not giving it a hope that there it could not wither'd be, but thou thereon didst only breathe and sensed it back to me, since when it grows and smells, I swear, not of itself but thee. This recitation is by Hailey Bouchard, a senior at South Burlington High School. Hailey tells us she drives her teachers crazy, but she also loves reciting Shakespeare and knows American sign language. All abstractions, pose, robe, and chuesque in paintings paint about on the pages of the walls, little letters like a license plate. Truth. Chastity, eyes downcast, fluttering with veils. Each one with marble come to life, a thought in a coat. Courtesy, bound with one hand, always extended. Villainy, sharpening an instrument behind a wall, reason with her crown and constancy, alert behind a helm. They're all retired now, consigned to a Florida for tropes. Justice is there, standing by an open refrigerator. Valor lies in bed, listening to the rain. Even death has nothing to do but mend his cloak and hood, and all their props are locked away in a warehouse, hourglasses, globes, blindfolds, and shackles. Even if you called them back, there are no places left for them to go, no garden of mirth or bower of bliss. The valley of forgiveness is lined with condominiums and chainsaws are howling in the forest of despair. Here, on the table near the window, is a face of peonies and next to it, black binoculars and a money clip. Exactly the kind of thing we now prefer, objects that sit quietly on a line in lower case, themselves and nothing more. A wheelbarrow, an empty mailbox, a razor blade resting in a glass ash tray. As for the others, the great ideas on horseback and the long-haired virtues and embroidered gowns. It looks as though they have traveled down that road, you see, on the final page of storybooks. The one that winds up a green hillside and disappears into an unseen valley where everyone must be fast asleep. Our next recitation will be by Trisha Potter from Linden Institute. Trisha is a senior. She lives on a farm and loves everything about art, especially photography. Being through a window by David Ferry. A man and a woman are sitting at a table. It is supper time. The air is green. The walls are white in the green air as rocks underwater retain their own true color, the washed in green. I do not know either the man or the woman, nor do I know whatever they know of each other. Though washed in my eye, they keep their own true color. The man is all his own hunch strength, the body's self and strength that bears like wariness itself upon itself as a stone's weight bears heavily on itself to be itself. Heavy the strength that bears the body down and the way he feeds is like a dreamless sleep. The dreaming of a stone is how he feeds. The woman's arms are plump, modelled a little. The flesh like standing milk. And on one arm a blue bruise flowering in the white gotten in some household labor or other. Her staring eye like some birds cry hauled from the deepest wood says nothing of what it is but what it is. Such silence is the birds cry of the stone. Our next recitation will be by Alaya Burr, a freshman at Burlington High School. Alaya is a part of a student-run acapella group and she also loves playing softball. The world is too much with us by William Wordsworth. The world is too much with us. Late and soon, getting and spending, we lay waste our powers. Little we see in nature that is ours. We have given our hearts away, a sordid moon. This sea that bears her bosom to the moon, the winds that will be howling at all hours and are up gathered now like sleeping flowers for this. For everything, we are out of tune. It moves us not. Great God, I'd rather be a pagan, suckled in a creed outworn so my eye, standing on this pleasantly, have glimpses that would make me less forlorn. Have sights of Proteus rising from the sea or hear old Triton blow his reed torn. Our next recitation will be by Tate Clark, a junior at the Sharon Academy. Tate loves digital and film photography and he also plays the didgeridoo. Next recitation will be by Eliza Gut-Oxbow High School. Eliza loves to play music, sail, and she also loves dancing. Now, let's go to the Western Gate, Luke Habibal. There were the vines clinging crimson on the wall and in the twilight wait for what will come. The leaves will whisper there of her and some, like flying words, will strike you as they fall, but go. And if you listen, she will call. Go to the Western Gate, Luke Habibal, Luke Habibal. No, there is not a dawn in Eastern skies to rift that fiery night that's in your eyes. But there, where Western glooms are gathering, the dark will end the dark, if anything. God slays himself with every leaf that flies and hell is more than half of paradise. No, there is not a dawn in Eastern skies, in Eastern skies. Out of a grave, I come to tell you this. Out of a grave, I come to quench the kiss that flames upon your forehead with a glow that blinds you to the way that you must go. Yes, there is yet one way to where she is. Bitter, but one that faith may never miss. Out of a grave, I come to tell you this, to tell you this. There is the Western Gate, Luke Habibal. There are the crimson leaves upon the wall. Go, for the winds are tearing them away, nor think to riddle the dead words they say, nor any more to feel them as they fall. But go, and if you trust her, she will call. There is the Western Gate, Luke Habibal, Luke Habibal. Our next recitation will be by Johnna Keith. Johnna is a senior at Otter Valley Union High School. She loves tennis, skiing, theater, and writing. The Lamb, by Linda Gregg. It was a picture I had after the war. Bombed English church. I was too young to know the way with the truth blown off was many holes God's fist made in the walls. All our desire for much and saying anyway, a bird who will sing until take away the trees. The child picks up a stick and says this is a, and the family as we might house, into the field of walks a single lamb. Till I'm afraid, hungry. Our next recitation will be by Joshua Huffman, a junior at Randolph Union High School. Joshua likes the color blue. He also loves theater, traveling, and running. Our next recitation will be by Brandon Racine. Brandon is a junior at Milton High School. He loves theater and acting, and he's also performed at the Flynn Center for the Performing Arts. The man he killed by Thomas Hardy. Had he and I but met by some old ancient inn, we should have sat us down to wet, write many a nipperkin, but ranged as infantry and staring face to face. I shot at him as he at me and killed him in his place. I shot him dead because, because he was my foe. Just so my foe, of course he was. That's clear enough. Although he thought he'd list perhaps off hand, like just as I was out of work, had sold his traps. No other reason why. Yes, Quing and Kiris warriors, you shoot a fellow down. You treat if met where any bar is or help to half a crown. Our next recitation will be by Brandon Berge, a senior at Proctor Junior Senior High School. Brandon loves YouTube and science, and he's recently been experimenting with testing to make multi-colored flame candles. The Destruction of Sinakarib by Lord Byron. The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold, and his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold, and the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea when the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee. Like the leaves of the forest when summer is green, that host with their banners at sunset were seen. Like the leaves of the forest when autumn hath blown, that host on the morrow lay withered and strewn. For the angel of death spread his wings on the blast and breathed in the face of the foe as he passed, and the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly in chill, and their hearts but once heaved and forever grew still. And there lay the steed with his nostril all wide, but through it there rolled not the breath of his pride, and the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf, and cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf. And there lay the rider distorted in pale with the dew on his brow and the rust on his mail, and the tents were all silent, the banners alone, the lances unlifted, the trumpet unblown. And the widows of Azure are loud in their wail, and the idols are broke in the temple of Baal, and the might of the Gentile, unsmoked by the sword, hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord. Our final recitation for this morning's regional semi-finals will be Megan Kehoe. Megan is a junior at Twin Valley Middle High School. Megan has eight siblings, and when she's not busy with them, she loves playing soccer and reading. Let's have a round of applause for all of our competitors this morning. They'd like to introduce to you the director of the Vermont Arts Council, Alex Aldrich. There are a few people that we neglected to thank, starting with Erica Lowe. Congratulations, Erica, for putting this together. I also have to remind people that nobody gets here by him or herself. And I'd like to give another shout out to the teachers and the coaches and the friends and the families of everybody who was here, particularly the families, because they're the ones who have gone through all of the pain of listening to the startup of their memorization process. I remember that well, myself. Poetry Out Loud was started in 2006 by the then chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, Dana Joya, who is himself quite a well-known poet. And he said many times during the course of the whole startup and rollout of Poetry Out Loud that he was doing it in partnership with the Poetry Foundation to sort of give people, reintroduce people to the art of poetry recitation. What he didn't realize, he was also introducing the concept of nearly fatal memory flaws of people over the age of 50 who realized that they can't remember a damn thing when they get to be our age. And it's just wonderful to listen to all of you who have competed so well today because it reminds me of my misspent youth, among many other things. But it is just a reminder to all of you who are competing here today, you will remember these poems all your life. If you started memorizing them last week, you won't remember them next week, but now you will remember them for the rest of your life, and just hold on to that. It is my duty in addition to thanking various people and thanking the students again to buy a little bit of time so that the final tallying can take place. What I'd like to do at this point though is to call all of the students out onto the stage where we will present you all with certificates of participation. And while the students are following that instruction, I'd like to remind everybody again that the finals will be broadcast on Vermont Public Television. On March 17th, that's what the show is at 7 p.m., it will be broadcast sometime later in the spring. We don't know that date yet. I'd also like to remind people that as soon after coming all the way out to about here, I'd like to remind everybody that there's a whole other one of these rounds coming in about an hour or so. So as soon as we're done with all the photographs and the shake hand, handshaking, shake handing, I like that. We're going to ask to clear the auditorium quickly because we have a whole new group of students to orient. So thank you all for coming and I'm gonna turn it back to you, Erica. Congratulations to Abigail Dietrich, Anna Van Dyne, Kayla Woodman, Megan Abashon, Maggie Fitzgerald, Avery Friggin, Jamie Decchette, Ailee Groff, Ailee Bouchard, Tricia Potter, Lya Burr, Tate Clark, Liza Goodell, Jonna Keith, Joshua Huffman, Brandon Racine, Brandon Berge, Megan Kehoe. Yeah. Again, congratulations to all of you for being in the semifinals today and taking a risk and getting up on stage and sharing some wonderful poetry with us. We are now at the point where we stall while we wait for the final results and those top five. And while we're waiting, it'll just be a bit on stage. I just wanna make sure that I also thank Andy Butterfield, who is one of our Poetry Out Loud teaching artists. Andy is with us all day helping to coach students and just be a support person for them, running them through the rehearsals and being back in the green room, making sure they get on stage in the right order. So thank you, Andy. You're also thanks by Andy, other Poetry. I'd also love to thank our other Poetry Out Loud coaches. We have Morgan Irons, Lizzie Fox and Jeff Hewitt. They've been going all over the state the past few months helping to coach students. So thank you to them as well. We announced the five competitors. We'd like you to stay on stage for a photo and we'll also wanna take a group photo with the whole group. And because we start right away, we bring in the region two semifinalists to have a training with Andy and Michelle Bailey. We just ask that after this is over that people leave right away in the auditorium just so we can clear out and start that right away and we run this all over again. So we hope that you after lunch stay and watch the next regional semifinals but if for some reason you can't make it you can always follow us on Twitter at POLVT. You can also live stream from wherever you are. Do we wanna take a group photo before we do the five finalists? While we're, yeah. We're gonna do our group photo before we name the five finalists. Now let's have a really serious one. I'm not kidding. And Alex did mention that our finals are next week. If you are able to make it out to the finals we'd love to see you there. They are filmed with a live studio audience at Vermont PBS in Colchester. So that starts at 7 p.m. And we'd love to have you there in the studio with us. If you are interested in attending please just contact me directly at the arts council. You can also reach out to the Vermont Poetry at Loud Facebook page and send a message through there. We'd love to have some people there in our studio audience. And then later on that gets edited and re-eared for those of you that aren't able to attend. So while I'm up here waiting for the last five can you go ahead and just so that we can see who's here today, if you are a teacher who's been involved with Poetry Out Loud do you mind standing just so we can acknowledge you? Jeff, you written it right here. Yes, that's just great. And if you were a student who memorized a poem and took part in Poetry Out Loud could you stand please? It's so great that so many students were able to make it out here today. I saw someone running with a piece of paper so I think that we might have those results pretty soon. It may seem like the Vermont Arts Council runs this program but really it's run out of Washington. And they have a bunch of rules that seem, what? That's what it says. Yeah, so we have a tie which is what Alex is going to say. And there is a process for that when that happens so. And they've done the two that don't. So yeah, there's a process for what that happens so I'm going to go back and talk with the judges because this is not the process. But so we do have a tie for our first winner so we just have to make sure that. So I'm going to get up here and sing a song. I'm actually tempted to call on Jeff Hewitt if you're up for it. All right, ladies and gentlemen, so that you don't have to listen to me sing, watch me dance or, I don't know, cut my hair or something equally entertaining, I am pleased to call upon the maestro of maestros of poetry slam-dumb in the state of Vermont. Your coach who was just recognized, Mr. Jeff Hewitt. You have a choice. Shall I perform a poem that I have written or would you like to hear a poem by Donald Hall, former poet laureate of the United States? On the count of three. All right, I'll start with my own. It's delicate when we touch each other. A careful mistake will do, but nothing more. It's delicate, this love we carry and know that only what waits is separation and let the new people into your lives. Or is that just a bunch of hopeful crap? It's delicate to this learning how even with diplomas, no one said there'd be a job. But there is work, oh, there is work. How many times I vacuum each week is a measure of unemployment, though vacuuming is nothing I do for enjoyment. I want me one of them riding vacuums, metallic green with special bumpers so I don't mar the furniture as I'm whizzing the room, caroming off the pillars of our old upright piano and making the long run down the hall, wearing the helmet that came with the unit. And wielding the magic wand attachment at cobwebs as I glide by, cobwebs, don't make me think of them. Let me picture a spider's more symmetrical effort, not the chaotic gathering of dust in strands that hang from ceilings. Let me think of spiderwebs, the organization of desire. A spider's fractal like construction to ward off starvation, a sticky silver trampoline with plenty of space to fly through, just avoid the center, claims the stupid moth that fowls the whole web and isn't anything the spider wants, just a dusty pair of wings fluttered to a mealy core, the cobweb of the animal world. Not to speak of the damaged web to rebuild for, though resilient, a spider web is delicate and delicate is like touch, like love, like learning, like the finest, most expensive, tiniest chocolate you're only supposed to have one of. Is this Mike? Donald Hall deserves a center stage. Questionable appropriateness, so listen carefully. It's called to a water fowl. Women with hats like pink ducks applauded you, my poems. These are the women whose husbands I meet on airplanes who close their briefcases, look me in the eye and ask, what are you in? I tell them I am in poetry. Oh yeah, they say, developing an interest in clouds. My wife, she likes that sort of thing, guess I'd better watch my grammar, huh? I leave them in airports watching their grammar and take a limousine to the women's goodness club where I drink Harvey's Bristol cream with their wives and eat chicken salad with capers and little tomato wedges and I read them my poems, I read them loving you and the erotic crocodile. Ah, when I have concluded the disbursement of sonority slapping my thigh, crying high on thy thigh, I cry high and so forth, they spank their wide hands, they smile like jello, ha ha, Mr. Hall, but you certainly have an imagination, huh? Thank you indeed, I reply, it brings in the bacon. But now my poems, now I have returned to the motel, returned to the eternal retour of the holiday and naked lying on the bed watching Godzilla loves Mount Fuji and drinking whiskey from a splask disguised to look like a transistor radio. And what about you, you laughing, you in the blue jeans laughing at your mother who wears hats and at your father who walks in airports watching his grandma. Will you ever be old and dumb like your creepy parents? Not you, not you, not you, not you, not you. Donald Hall, thank you. At the moment, we have an unusual situation in that for the first time in 11 years, two of the contestants have tied. The normal practice is to go back to their overall score. That score was tied. Then we went to the accuracy score. That score was tied. I'm almost gonna reintroduce them as twins, but they're not, they're from different schools. What we're gonna do in this case is ask the other contestants to please go back to your seats because each contestant has already selected which of their two poems they are going to recite again. This is not our rules, this is the NEA's rules. We will hear them in sequence. The judges will re-score and then we are going to, not do the whole thing over again, but just do the five winners at that point. Yes. The Lamb by Linda Greig. It was a picture I had after the war, a bombed English church. I was too young to know the word English or war, but I knew the picture. The ruined city still seemed noble. The cathedral with its roof blown off was not less godly. The church was the same plus rain and sky. Birds flew in and out of the holes God's fist made in the walls. All our desire for love or children is treated like rags by the enemy. I knew so much and sang anyway, like a bird who will sing until it is brought down. When they take away the trees, the child picks up a stick and says, this is a tree, this the house and the family as we might. Through a door of what had been a house into the field of rubble walks a single lamb, tilting its head, curious, unafraid, hungry. That was John A'Keefe from Otter Valley Union High School. And finally we will have Eliza Goodell and Eliza is from Oxbow High School. Luke Havergall by Edwin Arlington Robinson. Go to the western gate, Luke Havergall. There were the vines clinging crimson on the wall and in the twilight wait for what will come. The leaves will whisper there of her and some like flying words will strike you as they fall. But go and if you listen, she will call. Go to the western gate, Luke Havergall, Luke Havergall. No, there is not a dawn in eastern skies to rift that fiery night that's in your eyes. But there, where western glooms are gathering, the dark will end the dark if anything. God slays himself with every leaf that flies and hell is more than half of paradise. No, there is not a dawn in eastern skies, in eastern skies. Out of a grave I come to tell you this. Out of a grave I come to quench the kiss that flames upon your forehead with a glow that blinds you to the way that you must go. Yes, there is yet one way to where she is. Bitter, but one that faith may never miss. Out of a grave I come to tell you this, to tell you this. There is the western gate, Luke Havergall. There are the crimson leaves upon the wall. Go, for the winds are tearing them away. Nor think to riddle the dead words they say. Nor any more to feel them as they fall. But go, and if you trust her, she will call. There is the western gate, Luke Havergall, Luke Havergall. So while we wait for those scores to be tallied, I thought I'd just let people know who were new to Poetry Out Loud, what happens next. We will have five finalists from this region and then this afternoon we'll have another five from that region. Those 10 finalists go to Vermont PBS next week and recite three poems. So not just their first two, but a third. And from there we'll have a state winner that is declared. This program is an incredible program. What happens is the state winner then gets $200 and an all expense paid trip to Washington, D.C. for the student and an adult chaperone to then compete at the national level. And while they're there from May 2nd to 4th, they'll experience some incredible opportunities. They'll get to go to Capitol Hill, meet with their state senators and representatives. They will have the opportunity to tour some of D.C. sites and really get some coaching from some excellent poetry coaches there in D.C. In D.C., the national prize, there's a total of $50,000 in awards and school stipends that are given out at that event. And the national champion earns $20,000. So it's an incredible opportunity to go there to D.C. I also thought I would just mention since we have so many students and educators here that at the arts council, we don't just do poetry out loud for arts education, there's a lot of other opportunities available. And so if you haven't been in other places on the website, you should definitely check them out. One of those is our artists in schools grants. We funded 50 residencies in schools this year across the state. So this is anywhere from kindergarten through 12th grade. And this is where a teaching artist from many different disciplines, everything from circus arts to media arts will come in for one to 10 days and work with students during the school day. We also have Head Start Arts Integration Grants and a partnership with arts organizations where teaching artists are going into Head Start schools and integrating the arts into pre-K curriculum because we believe that just like K-12 education, early education students also should have high quality arts opportunities. We also have Cultural Roots Grants. I still have a couple left. And those are transportation grants. So that when teachers want to take their students outside of the school building to go to performances or museums, these grants help supplement funding for a bus or perhaps admission to those events. So we have a couple of those left. So definitely check those out if that's something that you would like to do before the school year is over. And I used to do stand-up and improv. I should be better at this. I didn't have the right mindset for that right now. Also at the Arts Council, if you are an artist, we have some great opportunities coming up for you. Our creation grants are opening up pretty soon this spring. Those are given to artists over the age of 18 who are Vermont residents for the creation of new artwork. We help with that. And now, just in time, I have the results. If these five students will please come up on stage so we can make sure that we get your photo. And just a reminder that afterwards we're running behind because of this tie that we do want to try to empty the auditorium so the next group can get in as soon as possible. All right. So our five finalists going on to Vermont PBS next week are Tate Clark, Anna Van Dyne, Maggie Fitzgerald, Haley Bouchard, and Eliza Goodell. Congratulations to our five finalists from Region One. So just a reminder to the competitors, we do have lunch for you in the green room. If you'd like to go up there. For those of you that are joining us for Region Two, you have about 30 minutes, or so we may end up starting a little bit later. So we'll stay in about 45 minutes. We'll have a firm start time of 1.15. And we'll see you back, hopefully, many of you. The Rain by Robert Creely. All night, the sound had Windigo by Louise Erdrich for Angela. Hello and welcome to the Vermont Poetry Out Loud semifinals. If you're just joining us by live stream or for the first time in our audience, I apologize for the delayed start. We had an unprecedented tie and the first tiebreaker and second tiebreaker were also tied. So we had an unusual situation there that pushed us back a little bit. I'd like to begin today's competition by welcoming a special guest. My name is Erica Lowe and I'm the Arts Education Programs Manager of the Vermont Arts Council. And I recently reached out to our Vermont State Poet Laureate to see if he would be able to come and do a recitation and say a few words. So we're very lucky to have him with us this afternoon. Char DeNore is co-founder of the New England College MFA program in poetry. He's the author of the poetry collections, A Sleep in the Fire, Sharp Golden Thorn, Night Mowing and the Double Truth. He is a recipient of a Pushkart Prize and his poems have been included in the anthologies Pushkart Prize 22, Best American Poetry of 1999, Best of the Pros Poem, American Religious Poems and American Poetry Now. A teacher at Providence College in Providence, Rhode Island, DeNore lives in Putney, Vermont. In late 2015, he was named Poet Laureate of Vermont. Please welcome Char DeNore, Vermont State Poet Laureate. Thank you, Erica and thank you, everybody, all the organizers who've put this together. It's a wonderfully exciting event and I am encouraged each year by the number of folks who turn out for this. I wanna congratulate all the students too who are reciting today. Takes great courage to get up here and say a few and to recite a few poems. I'm reminded of how difficult this was when I was this age trying to do this and just drawing huge blanks. I assigned recitation assignments to my students at Providence College and I tell them to go into the closet and just sit there in the dark for half an hour or so and recite and they do that and yet there's something about coming out into the light and trying to recite that sometimes is intimidating. So it takes great courage and I've really been impressed with the performances here today. What I thought I would do, today's in a brief little presentation, is talk a little bit about writing and the connection between writing and reciting. So I'm going just to read a few paragraphs to you about this and then maybe recite a poem or two myself. Poetry, at least good poetry, is hard if not impossible to write which is why poets feel so compelled to write the next poem. To get it right is Jack Benny, the famous comedian remarked about his jokes. You hear or read a good poem and think I could have written that and then you try and then you try only to find out soon enough how squirrely inspiration is. You get something down only to discover it sounds too private or ordinary or just surprisingly different from what you intended. That's not what I meant at all, T.S. Eliot laments in the thin disguise of J. Alfred Proofrock. How true. What happened to all these, to all the sense in music I was going to make, you ask. Yes, occasionally good poem just arrives on your psychic doorstep as a gift and you think now that was easy, too easy but not very often. The muse is just this generous and cruel enticing her scribes with a few memorable lines then casting them into what an anonymous mystic in the late 14th century called the cloud of unknowing. And doubt, too, I would add. Every poet who has emerged from her adolescence with a need to continue writing has experienced this initiation. She works at her desk in a well-lighted study or maybe even a dark study but writes in the dark where she witnesses her inspiration turn from what she thinks might be immortal poetry into jumble, a jumble of words on the page. Perhaps Percy Shelley described the trouble with writing best in his essay, The Defense of Poetry. He said it didn't take much for poetic inspiration to come just like a blow of wind. As soon as you start composing a poem the inspiration is gone. Writing poetry is a Sisyphian task. You know, Sisyphus who pushed that boulder up the mountain only for it to roll back down the hill each time. No poet ever writes the poem to end all poems. The poet therefore must love pushing her boulder up the proverbial hill. It's about the pushing and then listening as the boulder descends back down the hill. If the poet ever comes to think there is an opposite side of the hill then she writes under the delusion that she can say the unsayable or that the truth is ultimately sayable or that it is possible to escape the human condition and still write about it. The memorable poem is more mortal as the poet, as multifaceted as the truth and as surprisingly beautiful. It all but touches the divine. As far as the poem's music is concerned it's the sound of the poet's figurative boulder rolling back down the hill. So what's so wonderfully encouraging to hear these students recite today is that they're in touch with essential language. Language that reminds them of their most human selves and this is really remarkable and important in this time when information is so overwhelming and numbs us, makes us forget our humanity. So just to hear one poem or to commit one poem to memory has such an enormous effect and stays with us as a kind of anodyne and caveat against the numbing effects of information in this age. So just to hear a poem like this, this is a contemporary poem by a wonderful poet named Alan Grossman. And once again we are alone on the shore of sky and only time is hunting us, insectivorous time and there's only infinite space, no sun, no moon, no dome, no door. Only the obscure pathways of thought that lead us again and yet again to the shore where traces of fire. Listen, the shepherds are whispering in the dark the weary shepherds of the pastoral straight far from the meadow of their common song by night into this meadow. But I tell you, I've done this entertainment for a reason. In time there will come a time whether then you were alone or in company, whether then you were sitting on the ground or leaning against a wall that a man or woman always to your left will come suddenly clear to you and say, now it is your turn to play. And then my dear, you must know everything. That's a wonderful contemporary poem. But you know, I'm reminded of just of the longevity of poetry, how it stays with us if we go back, you know, more than 2000 years and hear a little poem like this. I love and I hate. You may ask how this is possible. I don't know, but it hurts. And it's happening right now. That's Catullus writing to his beloved, a lesbian. And then if we go back even farther, you know, it's mainly lyrical poetry that does this that it remains timeless to the time of Gilgamesh, which is about 2,800 years ago. We hear a poem like this. All that is left to one who grieves is convalescence. No change of heart or spiritual conversion. But the heart has changed and the spirit has converted to a thing that sees how much it costs to lose a friend at love. It grows past conversion to a world few enter without tasting lost, lost, in which one must wait a long time for something to move one to proceed. It is that inner atmosphere with an unfamiliar gravity or none at all where words are cast out but remain motionless in the air without an answer. Covering about the lips or arguing back with what one failed to say until one learns acceptance in the silence of the new debris or turns again to grief as the only source of privacy, alone with someone loved. It could go on this way for years and years and has for centuries for being human holds the special grief in the universe that yearns and waits to be retouched by something, by someone that takes away the memory of death. So I just thought I would recite a few poems that demonstrate how we remain the same, the settings change, the arc of our humanity remains constant. So I'm going to go back to the poem I was talking about remains constant. So I, while I want to congratulate the students and certainly do I also want to acknowledge that each student who gets up here today and recites is experiencing his or her poem that they've chosen from the Outlawed Poetry anthology in a way that I can't understand. That's a totally private experience what these students are experiencing and understanding that essential language and yet the magic of that enterprise and that exercise is that it becomes wonderfully public at the same time and that we can all relate to it. So I really look forward to hearing the rest of the recitations this afternoon. Thank you. Thank you, Chard. The Vermont Arts Council wants to acknowledge the more than 5,400 students in Vermont who participated in this year's Poetry Outlawed program. We want to thank the 143 teachers who gave time and support helping their students memorize and perform poems. Organizing a school competition and participating in Poetry Outlawed requires grit and good spirits. And we want to thank each of the 35 school champions for standing on this stage and declaiming a poem for us today. For putting yourselves out there and taking a risk. Each of today's regional semifinals is separated into two rounds. Students will recite a single poem in the first round and then another as they move through the order a second time. The names of the students as well as the order of their recitations can be found in your program. The five students with the highest cumulative score in both rounds will move on to the finals which will be held next Thursday at 7 p.m. at Vermont PBS. Each recitation will be evaluated using the following criteria, physical presence, voice and articulation, dramatic appropriateness, evidence of understanding, overall performance and accuracy. Evaluating today's recitations will not be an easy task which is why we have assembled an esteemed panel of judges who I would like to introduce and thank now. Author and poet, Rick Agrin. Author and Vermont Arts Council board member, Reeve Lindberg. Poet and director of Harbor Mountain Press, Peter Money. Performer, director and education manager at Vermont Stage, Allie Perry. And finally, artists and community programs manager Sarah Mutriks who will serve as our accuracy judge. Thank you to all of our judges without whom this competition would not be possible. I also want to acknowledge our prompter, Michelle Bailey who is here to assist students should they need hand with a word or phrase. As well as the rest of the Vermont Arts Council staff which has worked tirelessly to make this event possible. Special thanks to the Barry Opera House for hosting us in this beautiful setting. For our technical team from CVTV and Oracle Media and to Sam Simon, our photographer. As we begin today's competition, I ask that you mute your cell phones and refrain from exiting the theater during a performer's recitation. And for those of you that are following us on the live stream, feel free to tweet and use our hashtag POLVT or POL16. If you're in the Barry Opera House with us today, we ask that if you are tweeting that you just wait to post in between recitations so that the performers aren't distracted by screens. Once again, I'd like to thank all the students, teachers and audience members who are here today and via live stream and celebration of poetry and community. Our first recitation will be, my apologies I had the remarks from this morning in front of me, our first recitation will be by Simone Edgar Holmes from Champlain Valley Union High School. Friendship After Love by Ella Wheeler-Wilcox. After the fierce mid-summer all ablaze has burned itself to ashes and expires in the intensity of its own fires. There come the mellow, mild, Saint Martin days, crowned with the calm of peace but sad with haze. So after love has led us till he tires of his own throws and torments and desires, comes large-eyed friendship with a restful gaze. He beckons us to follow and across cool, verdant veils we wander free from care. Is it a touch of frost lies in the air? Why are we haunted with a sense of loss? We do not wish the pain back or the heat and yet and yet these days are incomplete. Our next recitation will be by Abby Kaya from Woodstock Union High School. Personal by Tony Hoagland. Oh, take it personal, they said. But I did, I took it all quite personal. The breeze and the river, the color of the fields, the price of grapefruit and stamps, the wet hair of women in the rain. And I cursed what hurt me and I praised what gave me joy, the most simple-minded of possible responses. The government reminded me of my father with its deafness and its laws and the weather reminded me of my mom with her tropical squalls. Enjoy it while you can, they said of happiness. Think first, they said of talk. Get over it, they said at the School of Broken Hearts. But I couldn't and I didn't and I don't believe in the clean break. I believe in the compound fracture served with a sauce of dirty regret. I believe in saying it all and taking it all back and saying it all again for good measure. While the air fills up with I'm sorrys like wheeling birds and the trees look seasick in the wind. Oh life, can you blame me for making a scene? You were that yellow caboose, the moon disappearing over a ridge of cloud. I was the dog chained in some fool's back yard, barking and barking, trying to convince everything else to take it personal too. Our next recitation will be by Jocelyn Trindell from Vermont Academy. By Joyce Kilmer. I think that I shall never see a poem, lovely as a tree, a tree whose hungry mouth is pressed against the earth's sweet flowing breast. A tree that looks at God all day and lifts her leafy arms to pray. A tree that may in summer wear a nest of robins in her hair. Upon whose bosom snow has lain, who intermittently lives with rain. Poems are made by fools like me, but only God can make a tree. Our next recitation will be by Courtney Bernier from North Country Union High School. By John Clare. Yet what I am, none cares or knows. My friends forsake me like a memory lost. I am the self-consumer of my woes. They rise and vanish in oblivious host, like shadows and loves frenzied, stifled throes, and yet I am and live. Like vapors tossed into the nothingness of scorn and noise, into the living sea of waking dreams, where there is neither sense of life or joys, but the vast shipwreck of my life's esteems. Even the dearest that I love the best are strange, nay, rather stranger than the rest. I long for scenes where man hath never trod, a place where women never smiled or wept, there to abide with my creator, God. And sleep is I in childhood sweetly slept, untroubling and untroubled where I lie, the grass below above the vaulted sky. Our next recitation will be by Abigail Barker from Lake Region Union High School. Our next recitation will be by Mary Bab from Mount St. Joseph Academy. Our next recitation will be by Kaya Dean from Brattleboro Union High School. In the Desert by Stephen Crane. In the Desert, I saw a creature naked, beastial, who, squatting upon the ground, held his heart in his hand and ate of it. I said, is it good, friend? It is bitter, bitter, he answered. But I like it because it is bitter and because it is my heart. Our next recitation will be by Gracie Smith from Arlington Memorial High School. Our next recitation will be by Kaylee Osier from Green Mountain Union High School. By Christina Rosetti. Come to me in the silence of the night. Come in the speaking silence of a dream. Come with soft, rounded cheeks and eyes as bright as sunlight on a stream. Come back in tears, O memory, hope, love of finished years. O dream how sweet, too sweet, too bitter sweet, whose awakening should have been in paradise, where souls brimful of love abide and meet, where thirsting, longing eyes watch the slow door, that opening, letting in, lets out no more. Yet come to me in dreams that I may live my very life again, though cold in death. Come back to me in dreams that I may give, pulse for pulse, breath for breath, speak low, lean low. As long ago, my love, how long ago? Our next recitation will be by Charlie Cachaturre from Fairhaven Union High School. Our next recitation will be by Olivia Domingue from Bellows Free School. Domingue from Bellows Free Academy. Our next recitation will be by Lee Gallagher from Mount Anthony Union High School. Our next recitation will be by Tobias Lopecky from Burr and Burton Academy. Insomnia by Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Thin are the night skirts left behind by daybreak hours that onward creep and thin alas the shred of sleep that wavers in the spirit's wind. But in soft shapes that shift and roll, and in... Our next recitation will be by A. Caterina Langlois from Bellows Free Academy, Fairfax. The Albatross by Kate Bass. When I know you are coming home, I put on this necklace. Glass beads on a silken thread. A blue that used to match my eyes. I like to think I'm remembering you. I like to think you don't forget. The necklace lies heavy on my skin. It clatters when I reach down to lift my screaming child. I swing her, roll her in my arms until she forgets. The beads glitter in the flicker of the TV set as I sit her on my lap and wish away the afternoon. I wait until I hear a gate latch lift. The turn of key and lock. I sit amongst toys and unwashed clothes. I sit and she fingers the beads until you speak in a voice that no longer seems familiar. Only strange. I turn as our child tugs at the string. I hear a snap and a sound like falling rain. Our next recitation will be by Isabel Kotlowitz from Thetford Academy. By Rita May-Rees. You have forgotten it all. You have forgotten your name, where you lived, who you loved. Why? I am simply a nurse, terse and unlovely. I point to things and remind you what they are. Chair, book, daughter, soup. And when we are alone, I tell you what lies in each direction. This way is death and this way after a longer walk is death and that way is death. But you won't see it until it is right in front of you once after your niece had been to visit you and I said something about how you must love her or she must love you or something useless like that. You gripped my forearm in your terrible swift hand and said she is everything. You gave me a shake. Everything to me and then you fell back into the well deep in the well of everything and I stand at the edge and call chair, book, daughter, soup. Our next recitation will be by Donovan Thacker from Pultney High School. By Robert Creely. All night the sound had come back again and again falls this quiet, persistent rain. What am I to myself that must be remembered? Insisted upon so often. Is it that never the ease even the hardness of rain falling will have for me? Something other than this? Something not so insistent? Am I to be locked in this final uneasiness? Love. If you love me, lie next to me. Be for me, like rain, the getting out of the tiredness, the factuousness, the semi-lust of intentional indifference. Be wet with a decent happiness. Our next recitation is by Hannah Funk from Mount Abraham Union High School. Windigo by Louise Erdrich for Angela. The Windigo is a flesh-eating, wintry demon with a man buried deep inside of it. In some Chippewa stories, a young girl vanquishes this monster by forcing boiling lard down its throat, thereby releasing the human at the core of ice. I was coming for you, little one, when the kettle jumped into the fire. Towels flapped on the hooks and the dog crept off, groaning to the deepest part of the woods. In the hackles of dry brush, a thin laughter started up. Mother scolded the food warm and smooth in the pot and called you to eat. But I spoke in the cold trees. New one I have come for you, child. Hide and lie still. The sumac pushed sour red cones through the air, copper burned in the raw wood. You saw me drag toward you. Oh, touch me, I murmured, and licked the soles of your feet. You dug your hands into my pale, melting fur. I stole you off a huge thing in my bristling armor. Steam rolled from my wintry arms. Each leaf shivered from the bushes we passed. Until they stood naked, spread like the clean spines of fish. Then your warm hands hummed over and shoveled themselves full of the ice and the snow. I would darken and spill all night running until at last morning broke the cold earth. And I carried you home, a river shaking in the sun. Move on to round two. Our next recitation will be by Simone Edgar Holmes. She's a senior at Champlain Valley Union High School. Simone loves to try new things and recently started a free little library and her locker at school where people can borrow and donate books. Our next recitation will be by Abby Kaya from Woodstock Union High School. Abby is a senior who loves Nordic cross-country ski racing, even when it's negative 12 degrees outside. Butler Yates, when you are old and gray and full of sleep and nodding by the fire, take down this book and slowly read and dream of the soft look your eyes had once and of their shadows deep. How many loved your moments of glad grace and loved your beauty with love false or true. But one man loved the pilgrim's soul in you and loved the sorrows of your changing face and bending down beside the glowing bars, murmur a little sadly, how love fled and paced upon the mountains overhead and hid his face amid a crowd of stars. Our next recitation will be by Jocelyn Trindle from Vermont Academy. Jocelyn is a senior who says, I'm that nerd that's into English and STEM. She loves writing, singing, math, science, and also rowing. To Helen by Edgar Allan Poe. Helen, that beauty is to me like those nice and barks of yore that gently or a perfume see the weary, way-worn wanderer bore to his own native shore. On desperate seas long want to roam thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face, thy nighed airs have brought me home to the glory that was Greece and the grandeur that was Rome. Low in your unbrilliant window niche, how statue-like I see these stand, the agate lamp within thy hand, psyche from the regions which are Holy Land. Our next recitation will be by Courtney Bernier from North Country Union High School. Courtney is a sophomore who's part of an improv group that helps raise awareness against alcohol abuse and other drug abuse. She also loves to act and sing. The Mask by Paul Lawrence Dunbar. We wear the mask that grins and lies. It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes. This debt we pay to human guile with torn and bleeding hearts. We smile and mouth with myriad subtleties. Why should the world be over wise and counting all our tears in size? Nay, let them only see us while we wear the mask. We smile, but oh great Christ, our Christ to thee from tortured souls arise. We sing, but oh the clay is vile beneath our feet and long the mile. But let the world dream otherwise. We wear the mask. Abigail Barker is a freshman at Lake Region Union High School. She loves reading science fiction novels. This rose tree is not made to bear the violet blue nor lily fair. Nor the sweet minionette. And if this tree were discontent or wished to change its natural bent, it all in vain would fret. And should it fret, you would suppose that it ne'er see its own red rose. Nor after gentle shower had ever smelt its roses scent. Or it ne'er could be discontent with its own pretty flower, like such a blind and senseless tree. As I've imagined this to be, all envious persons are. With care and culture all may find some pretty flower in their own mind. Some talent that is rare. Our next recitation will be by Mary Bab, a freshman at Mount St. Joseph Academy. Mary is learning how to weld from her dad and she also loves playing soccer, singing, reading and acting. It was always for now, later for later, then years of now past and it grew later and later. Trapped inside the shrinking chocolate box, the confused sardine was unhappy. It leapt and banged its head again and afterward they said, shall we repeat the experiment? And it said, later for that. Dean is a sophomore at Brattleboro Union. She loves theaters if she has to. The Daring One by Edwin Markham. I would, my soul, were like a bird who dares the vastness undeterred. Look, where the bluebird on the bow breaks into rapture. Even now, he sings, tip-top the tossing elm as though he would a world or realm. Indifferent to the void, he rides upon the wind's eternal tides. He gladly tosses on the gale for, well, he knows. He cannot fail, knows if the bow breaks. Still, his wings will bear him upwards as he sings. Smith is a sophomore at Arlington Memorial High School. She hiked 46 high peaks in the Adirondacks in five weeks and lived to tell about it. Apology for her poetry by Margaret Cavendish. Anguidge want to dress my fancies in. The hairs uncurled, the garments loose and thin. Had they but silver lace to make them gay, they'd be more courted than in poor array. Art would make a better show, but they are plain. Yet cleanly do they go. The world in bravery doth take delight and glistering shows do more attract the sight. And everyone doth honor a rich hood as if the outside made the inside good. And everyone doth bow and give the place not for the man's sake, but the silver lace. Let me entreat in my poor book's behalf that all will not adore the golden calf. Consider, pray, gold half, no life therein. And life in nature is the richest thing. Be just. Let fancy have the upper place. And then my verses may perchance find grace. She is a senior at Green Mountain High School. She loves to sing and act, and she's lived in five states. A stick situation by Ernest Tilber. Maybe you've heard about this. Maybe not. Came home and chucked his girlfriend's cat in the woodchipper. Dinner, this really happened. Dinner wasn't ready on time. A lot of other little things went wrong. He spat on her father who came out when he learned about it. He also broke her pinky, stole her checks, and got her sister pregnant. But she stood by him, stood strong through it all because she loved him. She loved him, you see. She actually said that. And then she went and married him. She felt some unique call. Don't try to understand what another person means by love. Don't even bother. Senior at Fairhaven Union High School. He likes discussing history and politics and is most comfortable at the ballpark. Piano by D.H. Lawrence. Softly in the dusk, a woman is singing to me, taking me back down the vista of years. Till I see a child sitting under the piano in the boom of the tingling strings and pressing the small, poised feet of a mother who smiles as she sings. In spite of myself, the insidious mastery of song betrays me back till the heart of me weeps to belong to the old Sunday evenings at home with winter outside and hymns in the cozy parlor, the tingling piano, our guide. So now it is vain for the singer to burst into clamor of great black piano appassionato. The glamour of childish days is upon me. My manhood is cast down in the flood of remembrance. I weep like a child for the past. Our next recitation will be by Olivia, who is a senior at Bellows Free Academy. She enjoys reading, traveling, and her favourite spot to revisit is England, the campus on the hill by W.D. Snodgrass. Up the reputable walks of old established trees they stalk, children of the Nouveau Riche, chimes of the tall clock tower drench their heads in blessing. I don't want to play at your house. I don't like you anymore. My house stands opposite on the other hill among meadows with the orchard fences down and falling deer come almost to the door. You cannot see it even in this clearest morning. White birds hang in the air between the garbage landfill and those homes there too adjacent, hovering slowly, turning, settling down like the flakes sifting imperceptibly onto the little town in a water ball of glass. And yet, this morning, beyond this quiet scene, the floating birds, the backyards of the poor, beyond the shopping plaza, the dead canal, the hillside lying tilted in the air, tomorrow has broken out today. Raya in Algeria, in Cyprus, in Alabama, aged and wrong, the empires are declining, and China gathers soundlessly like evidence. What shall I say to the young on such a morning? Mind is the one salvation? Also, grammar? No. My little ones lean not toward revolt. They are the whites, the vaguely fiercely driven who resist their souls with such passivity as would make Quakers swear. All day, dear Lord, all day they wear their Godhead lightly. They look out from their hill and say to themselves, we have nowhere to go but down. The great destination is to stay. Surely the nations will be reasonable. They look at the world, don't they? The world's way? The clock just now has nothing more to say. Next recitation will be by Lee Gallagher, a scholar at Mount Anthony Union High School. Lee enjoys painting, drawing, acting, reading, and singing. Life in Love by Robert Browning. Escape me. Never. Beloved, while I am I and you are you, so long as the world contains us both, me, the loving, and you, the loath, while the one eludes must the other pursue. My life is at a fault at last, I fear. It seems too much like a fate indeed, though I try my best, I shall scarce succeed. But what if I fail of my purpose here? It is but to keep the nerves at strain, to dry one's eyes and laugh at a fall and baffled get up and begin again. So the chase takes up one's life. That's all while look but once from your farthest bound at me, so deep in the dust and dark, no sooner the old hope goes to ground than a new one. Straight to the self-same mark, I shape me, ever removed. Tobias Lepecki is a sophomore at Byrne Burton Academy. He enjoys filmmaking, theater, and participates in model United Nations. You can promises by David Kirby. I've met them in dark alleys, limping in one armed. I've seen them playing cards under a single light bulb and tried to join in, but they refused me rudely, knowing I would only let them win. I've seen them in the foyers of theaters, coming back late from the interval long after the others have taken their seats and in deserted shopping malls, peering at things they can never buy. And I've found them wandering in a wood where I too have wandered. This morning, I caught one small and stupid, too slow to get away. It was only a promise I had made to myself once and then forgot, but it kicked and screamed at me and ran to join the others who looked at me with reproach in their long, sad faces. When I drew near them, they scurried away, even though they will sleep in my yard tonight. I hate them for their ingratitude. I, who have kept countless promises as dead now as Shakespeare's children, you bastards, I scream. You have to love me. I gave you life. A. Catarina Langlois is a senior at Bellows Free Academy Fairfax. She loves cheerleading and can do a backflip. Domestic situation by Ernest Hilbert. Maybe you've heard about this. Maybe not. A man came home and chucked his girlfriend's cat in the woodchipper. This really happened. Dinner wasn't ready on time. A lot of other little things went wrong. He spat on her father who came out when he learned about it. He also broke her pinky, stole her checks, and got her sister pregnant. She stood by him, stood strong through it all because she loved him. She loved him. You see, she actually said that. And then she went and married him. She felt some unique call. Don't try to understand what another person means by love. Don't even bother. Will Kotlowicz is a senior at Thetford Academy. She likes to downhill ski, stargaze, and read fantasy novels. She once spent three days and three nights alone in the snowy woods for a mountain solo school trip. Solitude by Ella Wheeler Wilcox. Laugh. And the world laughs with you. Weep. And you will weep alone. For the sad old earth must borrow its man has trouble enough of its own. Sing. And the hills will answer down to a joyful sound from voicing care. Grateful measure of glad and your friends. There are none to decline your neck but alone you must drink life's gall. Feast and your halls are crowded. Fast and the world goes by. Succeed and give. And it helps you live but no man can help you die. There is room in the halls of pleasure for a large and lordly train. But one by one we must all file on through the narrow aisles of pain. Hacker is a senior at Pultney High School. He loves acting, drawing, ceramics, writing, and reading. All recitation will be by Hannah Funk who is a senior at Mount Abraham Union High School. Hannah loves to ski, play soccer, run, and spend time with her family and friends. Can we get another round of applause for all of our competitors today? I'd like to introduce you to Alec Aldrich who is the director for the Vermont Arts Council. Good afternoon everyone. In light of what happened this morning I would love it if every one of the contestants this afternoon tied so that we could do it all over again. One more. I particularly want to thank the parents and coaches of the students because they are the ones behind the scenes constantly shaping and urging and listening to the ups and downs of what it means to understand and then interpret and then perform one of these amazing poets. So let's hear it for the parents and the coaches to teach you. I think it's also important to recognize that while we are doing this on this stage today all 50 states and six regions of the country are hosting similar competitions at various times between the middle of February and the end of March. This is a national project similar to the geography bee or the spelling bee and it's controlled, it's run by the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with the National Poetry Foundation. Our partner here in Vermont is Vermont PBS and I want to alert all of you today that on March 17th at 7 p.m. we will be having the finals of this filmed for later broadcast at the Vermont PBS studios up in Colchester. So if one of your favorite students whether it's your own student, your own child, your own friend or somebody else who you've met today and you want to support them when they go to Colchester by all means do so but please let us know because I think seating will be limited there. But I do want to thank the Poetry Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts and Vermont PBS for their support of this program. So thank you. My job right now since we're not trying to clear the hall quickly for the next round since this is the last round is to simply let you know what's going to happen next. We're going to as soon as the tabulation is done we will be calling all the students up on stage actually we're going to do that right now aren't we? See this is one of those moments that doing Poetry out loud when you're in high school prepares you for because you know you're not ever going to get it quite right but you're just going to have to keep on pushing on. So at this moment despite what I just said a second ago I'd like to call all the students on stage in performance order. We're going to give them certificates of participation take photographs so I'll be looking a little awkward standing in the light here with them but we'll get that done and by then hopefully the tally will be done. Once again round two. Congratulations to Simone Edgar Holmes. I believe she had to run off to get to a final dress for her soul but we did want to acknowledge her today. Congratulations to Abbey Kaya. Jocelyn Trindle. Courtney Bernier. Abigail Barker. Kaya Dean. Gracie Smith. Kaylee Ozier. Charlie Kachaturay. Olivia Domingue. Lee Gallagher. Tobias Lopecki. Ekaterina Langlois. Isabelle Kotlowicz. Donovan Thacker. And Hannah Funk. One more round of applause for all our semifinalists. We're going to announce the five students who are finalists and will be performing at Vermont PBS next week. All students learned three poems so those who are finalists will be prepared to recite a third poem at the finals. And after we announce this if we could get a shot of the five finalists and then also a group shot with everybody if you can just stick around a little bit. Yeah, so when I call your name just stand forward please. Lee Gallagher. Hannah Funk. Isabelle Kotlowicz. Ekaterina Langlois. And Kaylee Ozier. Our five finalists. And if you could just scoot in and grab a photo of the five finalists. Okay, yeah, we'll do the group shot and then we will. And while they're taking the photo I just wanted to make an announcement that a cell phone was found in the ladies room and it is at the scoring table in the back of the auditorium so if you've noticed as you're leaving today that your cell phone is missing check back there. Do this too if you want. Yeah, please if you want to come up and take a photo. And then we'll keep our five finalists. Thank you everyone for coming and joining a day of poetry with us and for all the hard work that teachers and students put into poetry out loud.