SPANISH FORT, Ala. — Vibrations of teenage angst; muffled sounds of nervous chatter among parents and students; shuffling of judges’ papers; and whiffs of coffee, cheese dip and fruit salad filled the air at 5 Rivers on Saturday morning as the Poetry Out Loud regional competition began.

The national high-school poetry-recitation competition offers students a chance at a $20,000 college scholarship if they win at the national competition in Washington, D.C. — a purse that might have prompted such nerves.

The competition’s second portion required students to perform poetry they had written themselves.

First-place winner Nicole Blackmon of Spanish Fort High School recited “Untitled.”

She smirked as she told things she no longer owned: college mail and hand books took her rain forest due to the use of not recyclable paper and clothes that have moved on to second-hand shops and her sister’s closet.

She looked around the room and smiled as she said, “Dumb smart people, don’t they know/ they could cut tuition costs if/ they could just stop sending me all this mail/ I don’t have a rainforest now/I don’t even have a title for this poem.”

Second-place winner Ashley Turner of Foley High School recited her poem “I am Frightened and Alone.”

She put on her matter-of-fact attitude, and began.

“I worry about the beginning and the end/ I cry because I have everything to cry about/ I am frightened and alone,” she said in a strong, pensive tone.

The third-place winner, David Thrift of Foley High School, wrote “As seen in HD.”

He spoke of amazing sights he’s seen on television — from tribes in Africa and dodging bullets in the sand.

“Oh, the things that I have seen,” he said enthusiastically.

He paused, and said pensively, “Perhaps I’ve heard and seen too much for only being seventeen/ Perhaps I’ve stumbled upon experiences that were never meant to be/ Perhaps I’ve poisoned myself, drinking in sights never meant for me.”

Lauren Watts of Spanish Fort High School, the first-place winner of the anthology competition — the event’s first portion, when students could choose poems written before the 20th century with fewer than 25 lines — selected “A Psalm of Life” by H.W. Longfellow, “Lucinda Matlock” by Edgar Lee Masters and “War Widow” by Chris Abani.

Lauren’s first interpretation of Longfellow’s poem left the audience feeling the pull of a call to action.

“Act — act in the living present!” Lauren said as she raised her voice and looked out over the audience. She lifted her hands as she spoke strongly.

As the poem drew to an end, her mood changed as the meaning changed. She slipped into a soft and inspired tone: “Let us, then, be up and doing/ With a heart for any fate/ Still achieving, still pursuing/ Learn to labor and to wait.”

For her second poem, she began with a giddy smile and wringing hands: “I went to the dances at Chandlerville … We were married and lived together for seventy years/ Enjoying, working, raising the twelve children.” she beamed.

For her third and final anthology poem, she recited a poem by Chris Abani.

She spoke calmly and with careful attention to enunciation: “The telephone never rings. Still/ you pick it up, smile into the static/ the breath of those you’ve loved; long dead.” As the mundane feel of the poem built to a close, she slowly shook her head and looked up.

The second-place winner of the anthology section, Jakob Suell of Foley High School, chose “The Good Morrow” by John Donne, “Cartoon Physics Part 1” by Nick Flynn, and “Song of the Powers” by David Mason.

He used a Shakespearean-actor-style voice as he spoke the words of this 17th-century poem.

“And now good morrow to our waking soules/ Which watch not one another out of feare/ For love, all love of other sights controules/ And makes one little roome, an every where/ Let sea-discoverers to new worlds have gone/ Let maps to other, worlds on worlds have showne/Let us possesse one world; each hath one, and is one,” he said as he smiled and looked upward.

“My face in thine eye, thine in mine appeares/ And true plaine hearts doe in the faces rest/ Where can we finde two better hemispheares/ Without sharpe North, without declining West/ What ever dyes, was not mixed equally/ If our two loves be one, or, thou and I/ Love so alike, that none doe slacken, none can die,” he said with a long pause at the end.

His second poem, “Cartoon Physics, Part 1” brought a different aura to the room.

“Children under, say — ten, shouldn’t know/ that the universe is ever-expanding/ inexorably pushing into the vacuum,” he said with a smile.

Laura Kennedy of Daphne High School, third-place winner of the anthology competition, recited “Sanctuary” by Jean Valentine, “Who Understands Me But Me” by Jimmy Santiago Baca and “Solitude” by Ella Wheeler Wilcox.

She performed her first poem with thoughtful pauses and a steady voice.

“They turn the water off, so I live without water/ they build walls higher, so I live without treetops…” she said as she looked slowly at faces in the crowd.

Other contestants who won at their school levels and participated in the regional competiton included: Skye Adaire, Maree Betton, Jessica Buckley, Collin Chunn, Mary Ann Littles, Kathleen Mulvaney, Darren Murphy, Christi-Lynn Sanchez and Anglila Wilkins.