- We've always been out looking for answers, telling stories about ourselves, searching for connection.

(bright music) I've always been involved in all of the arts.

I used to call myself the biggest nerd in the school.

All the arts activities, I was in, so dance, student congress, student council, band, choir, show choir, jazz band, speech, theater.

I've just always been drawn to the art of performing.

Poetry Out Loud is a poetry competition where people memorize and then recite and interpret poetry from many different poets.

So we scour the source of Poetry Out Loud for poems that speak to us and then memorize them and then recite them in front of an audience and in front of judges.

I had to do it my senior year for a class, and then I advanced to my school's competition, won that, advanced to the state competition, and now here I am.

The judges looked for my understanding of the poem, so understanding the interpretation of the poem and how I understood the message and the meaning behind the author's words.

They also looked for intonation, memorization, and truth to the poet.

And then I also paid close attention to the placement of words and commas and punctuation and where the lines split, because in poetry, a line split is there intentionally, thinking about when it would take a space or a pause.

The three poems I chose had a lot of chances where I could speak the line many different ways, and each time I spoke it differently, it could completely change the meaning.

I think my biggest strength is being able to recognize the line between theatrics and not.

And so that ability to recognize that might be too theatrical, bring it back, is a very strong one.

I've been in speech since I was in seventh grade, so I still get very nervous.

But performing in front of people isn't what makes me nervous.

It's the art form in making sure I'm doing it to the best of my ability and to be truthful to the integrity of the art.

The summer everyone left for the moon, even though I was yet to be born, and the dead who can't vacation here, but met us all there by the veil between worlds.

I choose them from the Poetry Out Loud site.

And the way I did it is probably unconventional, but it worked because I love the three poems I did end up choosing.

I went to the random poem option where you can just click a button to get a random one.

And I liked doing it because I could just click, read through it, see if I liked it or not, and then click for a new one if I didn't.

- [Announcer] Representing North Dakota Poetry Out Loud for 2025, the state champion is Leah Hochhalter from Valley City High School.

(camera flashes) - I'm very grateful and shocked, but I'm very, very grateful for this opportunity and the chance to perform, and then not just perform, but get to listen to all these other people from other schools that understand poetry and look at poems the way I do.

It was really cool to be in a room full of artists and poets.

I shot an arrow into the air.

It fell to earth I knew not where.

For so swiftly it flew the site, could not follow it in its flight.

(gentle music) In everyday thinking, we do math, we do English, we do science, but we sometimes don't think deeper.

We just use the surface level of everything.

But with Poetry Out Loud, and then just poems in general, you can really unlock that part of your brain and think, what is this meaning?

And the beauty of poetry is that not every line, not every interpretation is going to be the same.

Everybody's interpretation of the meaning behind a poem could be slightly different, and that's really cool.

From falling apart?

My third poem was "Listening in Deep Space" by Diane Thiel.

And I just really got drawn to that because lately I've just been really drawn to the stars because I've lost friends.

And when I look up there, I think of them.

It makes me feel nice to know that I have them with me.

That was the first reason I got drawn to that.

And then just really looking at the lyrics and the stanzas.

I loved the way that Diane Thiel wrote the poem and just the connection she made from humans to the beyond, the stars, and talking about connecting with each other.

All the poems I choose, I really choose them because they have a deeper meaning than just the surface meaning.

And so I love being able to dig a little deeper.

"Listening in Deep Space" by Diane Thiel.

We've always been out looking for answers, telling stories about ourselves, searching for connection.

Choosing to send out Stravinsky and whalesong, which, in translation, might very well be our undoing instead of a welcome.

We launched satellites, probes, telescopes unfolding like origami, navigating geomagnetic storms, major disruptions.

Rovers with Spirit and Perseverance mapping the unknown.

We listen through large arrays, adjusted eagerly to hear the news that we are not alone.

Considering the history at home, in houses, across continents, oceans, even in quests armed with good intentions, what one seeker has done to another.

What will we do when we find each other?

(bright music) - [Announcer] Funded by the North Dakota Council on the Arts, and by the members of Prairie Public.