Beyond Baroque Announces Amanda Gorman Future Voices Poetry Fund And Scholarship

Beyond Baroque, one of the nation's leading independent Literary Arts Centers, has announced the Amanda Gorman Future Voices Poetry Fund. The fund, named in honor of Beyond Baroque alumna and U.S. Presidential Inaugural Poet Amanda Gorman, will provide $10,000 to young poets of color.

"It's been wonderful witnessing Amanda's growth from her start in our Student Poets' Program to the Inaugural Poet we see today, and we hope to continue uplifting fellow promising youth poets of color through this fund," said the nonprofit's executive director, Quentin Ring.

"We're looking forward to ushering in new word warriors who can speak for not only themselves but also their respective communities and maybe one day, like Ms. Gorman, the world," added Shonda Buchanan, Vice President of Beyond Baroque's Board of Trustees.

The Amanda Gorman Future Voices Poetry Fund includes a poetry contest and a scholarship for college-bound student poets of color. A total of $10,000 will be awarded for the 2021-2022 school year. The fund continues Beyond Baroque's long history of nurturing some of Los Angeles' most prominent poets, including Wanda Coleman, Amy Gerstler, and Amanda Gorman herself. As a teenager, Gorman began her development as a poet in the Beyond Baroque Student Poets' Program, established by former Executive Director Richard Modiano. After completing the program, she was appointed the first Youth Poet Laureate of Los Angeles, and then of the United States in 2017, by Beyond Baroque partner Urban Word. She later named Beyond Baroque as the place "where a young poet found the love of her life."

The fund will begin accepting applications in November 2021, and more details will be announced in the following months.

To learn more about Beyond Baroque, or to make a contribution in support of the Amanda Gorman Future Voices Poetry Fund, please visit https://www.beyondbaroque.org/.

ABOUT BEYOND BAROQUE:

Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center is one of the nation's most successful and influential grassroots incubators of the literary arts. Founded in 1968, and housed in the original Venice City Hall building in Venice, California, it is a nonprofit public space dedicated to cultivating new writing and expanding the public's knowledge of poetry, literature, and art through cultural events and community interaction.

The Center offers a diverse variety of literary and arts programming, including readings, workshops, art exhibits, and education. Across five decades, Beyond Baroque has provided crucial support to a series of seminal writers, artists, and musicians that include Wanda Coleman, Dennis Cooper, Amy Gerstler, Exene Cervenka, John Doe, Mike Kelley, Viggo Mortensen, Will Alexander, and Amanda Gorman. Today the Center continues to provide a vital cultural forum through its free workshops, reading series, and general programming.

ABOUT AMANDA GORMAN:

Amanda Gorman is the youngest inaugural poet in U.S. history, as well as an award-winning writer and cum laude graduate of Harvard University, where she studied sociology. Born and raised in Los Angeles, she is the author of the "The Hill We Climb: An Inaugural Poem for the Country" (Viking Books for Young Readers, March 2021), the poetry collection "Call Us What We Carry" (Viking, December 2021) and "The One for Whom Food Is Not Enough" (Penmanship Books, 2015). In 2017, Gorman was named the first-ever National Youth Poet Laureate of the United States. She previously served as the youth poet laureate of Los Angeles, and she is the founder and executive director of One Pen One Page, an organization providing free creative writing programs for underserved youth.

Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center, 681 Venice Blvd, Venice, CA 90291.

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