(music) Voiceover: Poetry Out Loud is a contest that invites students into the world of poetry.

This program helps students develop public speaking skills and learn about their literary heritage while boosting their self-confidence.

Julia Johnson of Shanley High School in Fargo is the winner of North Dakota's 2014 Poetry Out Loud state competition.

Julia: I am the people.

The mob, the crowd, the mass.

Do you know that all the great work of the world ... Poetry Out Loud is a competition that starts in your classroom and then it moves up through a couple different levels, then you end up doing a larger school competition and whoever wins the school competition will go on to the state competition.

Then who is ever crowned the winner of that will go to the national competition in Washington, DC.

If you make it to state you are supposed to have three poems prepared and there are basically two requirements.

One poem has to be 25 lines or fewer and then one has to be pre-20th century.

To find my poems I went to the Poetry Out Loud website online and they have a whole anthology of poems and there are hundreds of poems on there.

It takes a while, especially if you're going from A to Z but there's a poem out there for just about anyone.

The judges aren't necessarily looking for, like, massive hand gestures or anything.

They're seeing how well you can convey the poem and the poet's message through your voice.

Like the tone of your voice so they're not looking for it to be big and almost theater-ish.

But they're looking it to be more that you can actually understand the message without all of that.

Vigil strange I kept on the field one night.

When you, my son and my comrade, dropped at my side that day.

One look I would gave, which your dear eyes returned with a look I shall never forget.

One touch of your hand to mine, oh boy, reached up as you lay on the ground.

Then onward I sped in the battle, the even contested battle.

'Til late in the night relieved to the place at last, again, I made my way.

Going into the state competition, I wasn't necessarily nervous because I was very confident with my poems.

I knew that I knew them.

It was more just excitement and those butterflies.

Then once you get up there and you say your title and everything, then everything just goes clear and you just perform.

Voiceover: And the North Dakota state finalist first prize is Julia Johnson, Shanley High School.

Congratulations.

(applause) Julia: When they started announcing third place and second place, I thought that I was somewhere up there but after they said second place I was like, "I think I've got this."

Then they said my name.

I was shocked for a little bit and then I stood up and I was like, "Okay, this is real."

When I first started kind of looking at poetry and when it started, like, freshman and sophomore year, I didn't really know what I was reading.

I was like, "It's just poems, it's a bunch of words."

Now that I actually, like, look deeper into the meaning of Poetry Out Loud and you actually start looking at your poems and you're not just memorizing your poems, you're learning your poems, you are completely understanding them and you know them inside and out.

You almost feel like you're with the poet as they were writing it.

It was a picture I had after the war.

A bombed English church.

I was too young to know the words 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.

I am very happy that I participated in Poetry Out Loud.

It has taught me how to step outside of my boundaries.

I don't do any theater or anything like that.

I'm normally just a sports girl.

This has been something completely new and it's been such an adventure.

Finding that I am good at something like this, it's quite exciting.

The first poem that I said today was, "I am the people, the mob," by Carl Sandburg.

I was trying to find a poem that I thought would fit my voice and one that I could really convey the poet's message.

The poem starts talking about how all these great people in history, they come from the same place, we all come from the same community.

But terrible things happen, natural disasters happen.

Once we learn to learn from our mistakes, then we're going to grow as a whole.

I am the people, the mob by Carl Sandburg.

I am the people.

The mob, the crowd, the mass.

Do you know that all the great work of the world is done through me?

I am the working man.

The inventor, the maker of the world's food and clothes.

I am the audience that witnesses history.

The Napoleons come from me and the Lincolns.

They die and then I send forth more Napoleons and Lincolns.

I am the seed ground.

I am a prairie that will stand for much plowing.

Terrible storms pass over me.

I forget.

The best of me is sucked out and wasted.

I forget.

Everything but death comes to me and makes me work and give up what I have and I forget.

Sometimes I growl.

Shake myself and spatter a few red drops for history to remember.

Then I forget.

When I, the people, learn to remember.

When I, the people, use the lessons of yesterday and no longer forget who robbed me last year, who played me for a fool.

Then there will be no speaker and all the world say the name, "The people."

With any fleck of a smear in his voice or any far off smile of derision.

The mob, the crowd, the mass will arrive then.

(quiet guitar music) Voiceover: Prairie Mosaic is funded by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund.

With money from the vote of the people of Minnesota on November 4th, 2008.

The North Dakota Council on the Arts.

And by the members of Prairie Public.