GOOD HOPE — Maggie Stewart is nothing if not vivacious.

The Good Hope senior is all expressiveness; all energy. Discussing her recent success at this year’s Alabama Poetry Out Loud competition in Montgomery, she’s a dynamo of character and mood.

“Every single year I’ve gotten up on that stage, my legs have been shaking, my ears were ringing and my heart was pounding,” she confesses. “This year was different. It was almost urgent — you know?”

Her words flow quick as thought, as her face animates their meaning.

Spend five minutes with Maggie, and her first-place finish at the statewide poetry recitation competition won’t simply make sense; it’ll seem inevitable. Of course she would win such a contest.

Alabama’s Poetry Out Loud competition is one of the few in the U.S. that includes an original poetry category as part of its state poetry finals. Maggie placed first in that category for two poems she wrote and recited: “Upon Discovering my Biography (Tell me a Little Bit About Yourself)” and “Be Strong.”

She also finished second in the contest’s overall recited poetry category.

Watching her perform, it’s impossible to imagine — but, believe it or not, it took Maggie three years before she began to feel at home in front of an audience.

“This year was the first year that I got on that stage and was not nervous,” says Stewart. “There was something this year, I think, about my state of mind; about wanting to get my message across. It’s like I had this urge to do it, and it made all the difference.”

Maggie’s two winning poems are intensely personal. They’re works of art, to be sure, but they hit with a visceral and real-life impact that’s directly tied to her presence and delivery. It’s impossible to sit through Maggie’s recitation of “Be Strong” without flinching, or wincing, a little.

They’re poems that take a dead-on approach to recent emotional trauma in Maggie’s life, and in the lives of those she’s always held most dear. “It’s my ‘teen angst’ coming out,” she dismisses; a bit of self-deprecating humor to leaven a weighty topic.

But when she recites one of her poems, she does so with conviction.

Has all the repetition dulled the meaning?

“No,” she says. “The circumstances that led to me writing ‘Be Strong’ — I’m still pretty angry, and it’s ongoing. I still feel how I felt whenever I wrote it, and I believe that I am pretty much emotional each time I stand up and say it.”

Stewart’s college plans will likely take her to Florence, where she hopes to begin a course of study in pre-optometry at the University of North Alabama.

Optometry is a world apart from poetry and the arts, of course. But Maggie says poetry is an endeavor that will engage her creative side throughout her life; one that will keep her in touch with interesting people and ideas.

“I fell in love with poetry when I was really young, and I’ve always loved it,” she says.

“When I was little, my mom — who’s got an art school background — has this beautiful piece of calligraphy that had Emily Dickinson’s ‘If I Can Stop One Heart From Breaking’ on it. I loved that from the time before I ever even started school. I’ll always be doing this —  listening to spoken-word artists, writing and being a part of that world. It’s like a lifeline.”