PC: James Kegley/ National Endowment for the Arts (NEA)
Jayda Dawn, then an 11th grader at University High School of Indiana in Carmel, was named the 2026 Poetry Out Loud National Champion in April and won a $20,000 grand prize.
She described the journey as “exhilarating, shocking, and belonging” and reflected on the friendships she made with fellow young poets and how poetry has remained an important part of her life. She said the experience can still be meaningful even for students who do not advance beyond the school or state level. She recited poems by Langston Hughes, Alice Duer Miller, and Albery Allson Whitman. Months after the national finals, Dawn spoke with the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) about her experience and what the competition meant to her. This was Dawn’s first year competing in Poetry Out Loud, and she had only recently heard about the programme. She learned about the opportunity through University High School of Indiana, where head of school Alicia LaMagdeleine was reintroducing Poetry Out Loud. Dawn’s advice for students considering Poetry Out Loud is not to enter only with the goal of winning. You use AI every day. Now get your AI Quotient. Take the AIQ test.
