Amanda Gorman hopes to inspire 'the next generation of great poets' with $10,000 prize

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.

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.

Gorman made history in January as the youngest inaugural poet in U.S. history, when she read an original poem titled "The Hill We Climb," calling for unity and healing as the U.S. ushered in its 46th president, Joe Biden.

"We’ve seen a force that would shatter our nation rather than share it / Would destroy our country if it meant delaying democracy / And this effort very nearly succeeded / But while democracy can be periodically delayed / It can never be permanently defeated," she read.

Gorman's reading went viral and she has had a busy schedule since.

The Harvard graduate and National Youth Poet Laureate has landed a Vogue magazine cover, an interview with Oprah Winfrey and a Time magazine cover conversation with former first lady Michelle Obama.

Her style at the inauguration – a bright yellow Prada coat, red velvet headband that's already sold out and jewelry loaned to her by Oprah (it's casual!) – garnered plenty of attention, and Gorman went on to add "model" to her list of accolades in January when she joined IMG Models, which represents the likes of Gisele Bündchen, Gigi Hadid, Kate Moss and Chrissy Teigen.

In April, Gorman's book "The Hill We Climb: An Inaugural Poem for the Country," became the first book of poetry to debut at No. 1 on USA TODAY’s Best-Selling Books list. And not just debut, but the first book of poetry to even claim the top spot on the list since its inception in October 1993.

Her next work, a picture book titled "Change Sings," is due Sept. 21.

More: Amanda Gorman lands Vogue cover, Oprah interview: See what's next for viral inaugural poet

Contributing: Hannah Yasharoff and Mary Cadden, USA TODAY; and Hillel Italie, Associated Press

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Amanda Gorman award offers $10,000 prize to high school poets