Allan Monga, a junior at Deering High School in Portland, Maine, traveled to Washington, D.C. to compete in the Poetry Out Loud contest on Monday. It's a national competition in which students recite great works of poetry, and it's run by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation. But Monga, who says he fled violence in his home country of Zambia, was initially barred from the national final because of his immigration status: He's an asylum seeker and does not yet have U.S. citizenship. Poetry Out Loud's official rules require permanent residence, so Monga filed a lawsuit against the National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation. A judge granted a motion allowing him to compete, and he went on to represent the state of Maine in the competition. He read two poems but did not advance to the finals. Monga says fighting to compete in Poetry Out Loud was important to him — and others. "I am not the only kid who's an immigrant, like the Portland public schools
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