Amanda Gorman Award honors high school poets

The $10,000 prize is for public high school students who submit the best original work.

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Amanda Gorman attends Porter’s 3rd Annual Incredible Women Gala in 2018, in Los Angeles. 

Amanda Gorman attends Porter’s 3rd Annual Incredible Women Gala in 2018, in Los Angeles.

Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP

NEW YORK — Amanda Gorman can still remember when she was just another young poet trying to find her voice.

Gorman and Penguin Random House have established the Amanda Gorman Award for Poetry, a $10,000 prize for public high school students who submit the best original work.

“As someone who found my love of writing at a young age, I want to continue to foster that same love in the next generation of great poets,” Gorman said in a statement Thursday.

The 23-year-old Gorman — the first National Youth Poet Laureate and the youngest inaugural poet in U.S. history — became world famous in January after reading her poem “The Hill We Climb” at President Joe Biden’s inauguration.

Current public high school seniors in the U.S. and all U.S. territories who plan to attend a 2- or 4-year college are eligible for the Gorman award. The application period runs from Oct. 1 to Feb. 1, 2022.

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