On Tuesday, February 9, poetry editor Hannah Fries took a field trip to nearby Monument Mountain Regional High School to judge the school’s final rounds of Poetry Out Loud, a national recitation contest created by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation. The winner, Roo Sprague, will go on to compete at the state level. If the enthusiastic performances at Monument Mountain are any indication, poetry is alive and well!

Pictured: Hannah with school champion Roo Sprague (right) and finalist Joseph Heath (center). Roo recited “The Second Coming” by W.B. Yeats and “Preludes” by T.S. Eliot.