"Tiger, tiger burning bright

"In the forest of the night,

"What immortal hand or eye

"Could frame thy fearful symmetry?"

Not too many teens have the gravitas to gaze steadily into the faces of a judge's panel and a sea of observers while convincingly wondering aloud — on live TV and in late-18th-century verbiage, no less — about the maker who created the tiger.

But that's just what the winner of the county level of Poetry Out Loud, a national literary contest, managed to do Wednesday.

With dramatic expression and flowing cadence, Amy Greaney of Wilde Lake High School made reciting William Blake's six-stanza poem "The Tyger" from memory seem as natural as having a conversation with a friend.

"And what shoulder and what art could twist the sinews of thy heart?" asked the senior as if it were the most normally worded question in the world, even though it was written more than two centuries ago.

Greaney's confident turn earned her first place in a field of eight high school students at the local level of the pyramid competition. Poetry Out Loud was founded in 2005 on the premise that elements of slam poetry, spoken word and theater could be combined to encourage mastery of public speaking and deeper exploration of literary heritage through memorization and performance.

"I hoped that I might have a chance at winning," Greaney said afterward. She took third place last year and is also captain of Wilde Lake's debate team and a member of the school's student-run Shakespeare Club. "This [recognition] is the highest praise I could receive."

Two other winners — runner-up Torren Graves of Oakland Mills and third-place finisher Christina Alms of Reservoir — also exhibited the impressive interpretive skills needed to elevate listeners' understanding of the words of such poets as Longfellow and Shelley, as well as those of a few lesser-known writers.

"A poem in the air is not the same poem as it was on the page — the drama and charm of its unfolding is completely, particularly alive and intimate as it passes from one body into another," wrote one national judge on the poetryoutloud.org website.

An audience of 60 teachers, parents and students apparently agreed as they listened silently and clapped enthusiastically during the hourlong competition, streamed live on HCPSS-TV. (It can be viewed online at hcpsstv.granicus.com.)

"These students all owned the language," said Carla Du Pree, one of four judges and the executive director of the Howard County Poetry and Literature Society. "It's always amazing to hear students recite and to watch them get past their nervousness."

The other judges were Mary Teague, English facilitator with the county school system; Truth Thomas, local author of three collections of poetry; and Peggy Walton, chair of the county's secondary language arts advisory committee.

The panel scored entrants on their physical presence, voice and articulation, dramatic appropriateness, level of difficulty and evidence of understanding, capped with an overall performance rating, according to the website.

Zeleana Morris, county coordinator of secondary language arts, served as emcee and took the podium to introduce each student. She also offered quotes by famous authors on the art of writing as well as facts about the derivation of Columbia's street names, which were gleaned from the works of various poets and literary figures.

This is the second year that Howard County has participated in Poetry Out Loud, co-sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation via state arts agencies in all 50 states and Washington.

Local organizers are hoping more county high schools will compete next year.

"Now that we've gotten the idea to broadcast live in the TV studio, we'll be able to let other Howard County schools see right away what they're missing," said Linda Joy Burke, state coordinator for the Maryland State Arts Council, which administers contests in 23 counties and Baltimore City. The video of last year's competition, held at Homewood Center, was posted several weeks later on the February 2010 edition of Parent-Teacher Connection.

"The idea is to engage the whole state of Maryland," said Burke, a Columbia resident and established poet and writer. Since Maryland is a small state, there are only three regional contests, but that number should double as more counties get involved, she said.

This year, 13 of Maryland's 23 counties and Baltimore City are participating. In 2009, 325,000 students took part nationwide, according to the competition's website.

Burke, who had her first verse published when she was 15, empathized afterward with a few students who had brief memory lapses during their performances and required prompting by a judge.

"It's tricky when you watch a kid and you know they messed up. You just want to scoop them up and tell them it's OK," she said. "Some of these works were really hard poems to interpret."

Greaney, who also recited "Holy Sonnets: Death Be Not Proud" by John Donne, said she "tried on all sorts of different types of poems" before settling on three with the guidance of her English teacher, Kelli Midgely.

"There's a feeling you get when you're reading over them. … You just know when you've found the right ones," said Greaney, who went on to the regional and state finals in 2009 before being eliminated. The third poem will be required later at a higher level of competition.

"You were brilliant!" Midgely told her afterward as she gave her a big hug. "You did everything that I knew you could do."

All eight students turned what some regard as an unapproachable literary art form into an accessible one, observers said, as the contestants breathed life into poems from an approved contest list of 650 classic and contemporary works.

"It's wonderful to see how they inhabited their poems, both classic and modern," said Ellen Flynn Giles, a member of the county's Board of Education. "And we in the audience get to hear the poems in a different way through their young voices."

The county's winning trio will move to the regional level at the Howard County Center for the Arts in Ellicott City Feb. 12, matching their wits and talents against three winners apiece from Anne Arundel, Calvert, Montgomery and St. Mary's counties. Regional winners will move on to the state competition Feb. 26 at the Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore and that sole winner will compete in the finals April 28 and 29 in Washington.

Groves, a senior, took on a difficult, early 19th-century sonnet about the decline of an Egyptian king in ancient times with his rendition of Percy Bysshe Shelley's "Ozymandias," yet he excelled, said Burke. He also recited "Scary Movies" by Kim Addonizio.

Alms, a sophomore, recited "Fairy-tale Logic" with an appropriate light-hearted lilt, explaining in A.E. Stallings' words that in the fairy-tale world, "You have to fight magic with magic. You have to believe that you have something impossible up your sleeve … an invisible cloak … or a lethal joke. The will to do whatever must be done: Marry a monster or hand over your first-born son."

Her other poem was "The Arrow and the Song" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

Greaney offered advice to anyone contemplating next year's competition, which awards a $20,000 top prize at the national finals.

"You have to choose [poems] you won't get tired of," she said. "Then practice for as many weeks as you can give it."