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The Times of India
The Times of India
World
TOI World Desk

Meet Jayda Dawn, the Indiana 11th-grader who became America's national poetry champion

Indiana Langston Hughes

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 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. 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.

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