Richard Montgomery Senior Wins Gaithersburg Poetry Prize

GAITHERSBURG, MD — Arushi Singh's memories are trapped in a bottle, but some of them are slipping away.

That's what the Richard Montgomery High School senior wrote in the poem "Leaking Memories," which earned her first place in the Gaithersburg Book Festival High School Poetry Contest this year. The competition was founded in 2010 as a way to celebrate "books, writers, and literary excellence," it says in a news release.

“I was so impressed by the imagination, the formal dexterity, just the talent of the poems I had in front of me,” said local poet and judge Sandra Beasley of the 12 finalists' poems. “I am quite confident that you all are the next generation of poets we'll be talking about, and that's going to be a really good conversation.”

Second prize went to Caroline Dinh — another Richard Montgomery senior — for her poem "Social Cues," a commentary on the way we hide behind masks. Freshman Charlotte Lucas, from Walter Johnson High School, came in third with "Or," which asks us what we will do and remember after the pandemic. Holly Keegan (a junior at Stone Ridge School of the Sacred Hear) won the fan favorite for her poem "Rest," which analyzes shifting priorities over the past year.

The winners received prizes of $250, $100, $50 and $25, respectively, from Johns Hopkins University Montgomery County.

Watch the poets recite their work:

Caroline Dinh:

Charlotte Lucas:

Holly Keegan: