John Marshall entered the Poetry Out Loud competition for enjoyment alone.               At The Sharon Academy's school-wide competition, he recited his poems with no concern for the outcome. He forgot it was a contest, and that turned out to be a winning formula.

He approached the state competition in Montpelier earlier this month the same way, and with the same results -- Marshall bested 32 other Vermont high school students to become the first Upper Valley resident to represent his state at the national Poetry Out Loud contest in Washington.

“I had totally forgotten that someone was going to go on and win this thing,” Marshall, a 15-year-old Corinth resident, said of the competition among his TSA schoolmates. He was reminded that it was a contest when he was named the winner at one of TSA's weekly all-school meetings.

In Montpelier on March 6, “I tried not to think about what my chance of winning was,” he said in an interview at the school last week. “I just tried to put that aside and really milk the enjoyment out of watching all these people who presented.”

Poetry Out Loud is a five-year-old poetry recitation contest for high school students sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation. Participants must recite their poems from memory.

The contest is growing steadily in the Twin States, but has been slow to catch on at Upper Valley high schools. Thetford Academy, Oxbow Union High School in Bradford and Randolph Union High School sent representatives to the Vermont contest. Lebanon High School is the lone New Hampshire school in the area sending a contestant to the state competition. Rigel Harris will represent Lebanon High at Keene State College on Saturday.

The program is voluntary, said Rodger Martin, a journalism professor at Keene State who organizes Poetry Out Loud in the Granite State. To get started in a school “it takes two committed teachers and one committed administrator,” Martin said. They have to fit the event into the school calendar, no mean feat in an era of increased standardized testing.

The Vermont contest doubled in size from last year to this year, said Diane Scolaro, communications and development director for the Vermont Arts Council. The council reaches out to every high school in the state, and Poetry Out Loud has grown every year, Scolaro said.

In New Hampshire, the contest started with eight schools in 2006 and will have 31 this year, said Martin, a poet himself who can be heard reciting a poem on his telephone answering machine. The contest fits with state curriculum objectives in literature and public speaking, he said. It also brings poems to life.

“What happens is poetry that returns to what we call its natural state,” Martin said. Poetry's origins are in memorization and recitation before an audience. It's like music, Martin said. “How many of us pick up the musical score” and read along, listening to the music in our heads, he said.

Marshall, a sophomore, revels in the sound of the poems he recited at the state competition. He started with a childhood favorite, Edward Lear's The Owl and the Pussycat, rolling the R of “runcible spoon.” He also recited I Am, an introspective poem by the half-forgotten English romantic poet John Clare, and won the competition with his recitation of Possible Answers to Prayer, a 2002 poem by Scott Cairns, an American poet born in 1954.

After he won his school contest, his fellow competitors and English teacher Charlie McMeekin helped him prepare for the state competition. McMeekin suggested the Scott Cairns poem. For the state and national competitions, participants choose three poems from a Poetry Out Loud database. One of the poems must be shorter than 25 lines and one must have been written before 1900. The John Clare poem fulfills both requirements for Marshall.

Winning the state contest earned Marshall $200, an all-expenses trip to Washington for him and a chaperone, and a $500 stipend for TSA for the purchase of poetry books.

With 53 contestants, the national contest is on a slightly different scale. So far, Marshall has recited without the benefit of amplification, but in Washington, he'll speak into a microphone. He hopes to practice with a microphone before the national contest begins on April 26. The amplified voice allows for far greater nuance, Marshall said.

He plans to recite the same poems that won the state contest, he said. The state Arts Council plans to set Marshall up with people who can further hone his performance skills. Last year's Vermont winner, Audrey Kiely of Morrisville's People’s Academy, placed 12th nationally, the best so far for a Vermonter. The national winner takes home a $20,000 college scholarship.

Marshall is tall, and stands confidently when he recites his poems. Although he's new to recitation, Marshall is no stranger to performing. He recited the Gettysburg Address at his graduation from eighth grade at Wellspring Waldorf School in Chelsea, and has acted in productions at TSA and elsewhere. TSA also requires its students to make presentations ranging in length from around seven minutes to up to 25 minutes, an uncommon obligation that encourages strong public speaking. Marshall is the first TSA participant in the state contest and this was the first year the school has held a school-wide contest.

When he was announced as the winner, Marshall was so surprised and pleased that he hugged the other four finalists before going up to receive his award, Scolaro said. “I was so surprised at the end,” Marshall said, “that out of all these people it was me. It's the first time that's really happened to me.”

Alex Hanson can be reached at ahanson@vnews.com or at 603-727-3219.