North Dakota Poetry Out Loud
Leah Hochhalter: "The Arrow and The Song"
4/14/2025 | 2m 21sVideo has Closed Captions
Poetry Out Loud Champion Leah Hochhalter recites "The Arrow and The Song."
Poetry Out Loud is a high school program that encourages students to learn about poetry while they master public speaking skills and build self-confidence. Leah Hochhalter, from Valley City High School, was the 2025 North Dakota Poetry Out Loud State Champion. Listen as she recites "The Arrow and The Song" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
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North Dakota Poetry Out Loud is a local public television program presented by Prairie Public
North Dakota Poetry Out Loud
Leah Hochhalter: "The Arrow and The Song"
4/14/2025 | 2m 21sVideo has Closed Captions
Poetry Out Loud is a high school program that encourages students to learn about poetry while they master public speaking skills and build self-confidence. Leah Hochhalter, from Valley City High School, was the 2025 North Dakota Poetry Out Loud State Champion. Listen as she recites "The Arrow and The Song" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
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Learn Moreabout PBS online sponsorship- I shot an arrow into the air.
It fell to earth, I knew not where.
For so swiftly it flew, the sight could not follow it in its flight.
I shot an arrow.
I did "The Arrow and the Song" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
It had a deeper meaning than just what was on the surface, and I liked how I was able to kind of show two sides of me, because the first stanza of the poem is almost like a lament and regretful, like you're throwing out this shot into the world, you don't know where it lands, you don't really care.
And then the second stanza is talking more compassionately.
You're throwing this compassionate song into the world and you don't know where it lands, but who knows?
And then the third stanza talks about how afterwards, these chances that you took and you threw, seeing where they ended up and landed, and how the arrow, which kind of signifies harsh and maybe negativity and words that just don't land right, how the arrow was unbroken, but it landed in an oak, so the oak was damaged, but the song was still intact fully, but it was found in the heart of a friend.
So I just liked how that one was kind of like, "Aw."
"The Arrow and the Song" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
I shot an arrow into the air.
It fell to earth, I knew not where.
For so swiftly it flew, the sight could not follow it in its flight.
I breathed a song into the air.
It fell to earth, I knew not wear.
For who has sight so keen and strong that it can follow the flight of song?
Long, long afterward in an oak, I found the arrow, still unbroke.
And the song from beginning to end, I found again in the heart of a friend.
(gentle music) - [Narrator] Funded by the North Dakota Council on the Arts and by the members of Prairie Public.
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North Dakota Poetry Out Loud is a local public television program presented by Prairie Public