Poetry Out Loud Champs [VIDEO]

Megan Knapp won the fifth annual Poetry Out Loud competition at Winnacunnet High School on Thursday night.

The sophomore claimed the school championship with a commanding performance and recitation of "Zacuanpapalotls" by Brenda Cardenas. (See videos to learn how she came to recite this particular poem.) She also recited "The Peace of Wild Things" by Wendell Berry.

Hallie Bletzer won second, reciting "The Enigma" by Anne Stevenson and "It Couldn't Be Done" by Edgar Albert Guest.

The top two performers were awarded $15,000 in scholarship to New England College in Henniker. Laura Barclay took third, reciting "Fairy-tale Logic" by A.E. Stallings and "Solitude" by Ella Wheeler Wilcox.

Knapp goes on to a semi-final match March 21 at the Rochester Opera House. The statewide final competition is March 26 at the Statehouse, and the national Poetry Out Loud championship is scheduled for May 13-15 in Washington, D.C.

Kit Rodgers, a Winnacunnet English teacher and contest coordinator, praised each of the 10 student participants. "This is the highest quality we've had yet," she said.

Other competitors, by order of appearance, and their poems recited:

• Hannah Legacy: "Jabberwocky" by Lewis Carroll and "America" by Claude McKay

• Erin Morrissey: "Love Song" by Dorothy Parker and "Revenge" by Letitia Elizabeth Landon

• Austin Fishbaugh: "Another Feeling" by Ruth Stone and "The Metal and the Flower" by P.K. Page

• Maddy Gaffey: "Happiness" by Jane Kenyon and "Enough" by Suzanne Buffam

• Jenna Doucette: "'Hope' is the thing with feathers" by Emily Dickenson and "Love Song" by Dorothy Parker

• Heather MacGregor: "Alone" by Edgar Allan Poe and "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" by William Wordsworth

• Alex Wallace: "Difference" by Stephen Vincent Benet and "I felt a Funeral, in my Brain" by Emily Dickenson