Illinois Humanities, in partnership with Brooks Permissions, the Poetry Foundation, and the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts, is proud to announce the winners of the 2023 Gwendolyn Brooks Youth Poetry Awards, an annual competition for Illinois poets in grades K–12. The 25 winners and 16 honorable mentions were chosen from a record 810 submissions representing 151 schools from across the state. Six of this year’s winning student poets are previous winners or honorable mentions of the Awards. Gwendolyn Brooks began the Youth Poetry Awards in 1969 during her tenure as Illinois Poet Laureate and continued to administer the awards until her passing in 2000. The original youth poetry awards were born out of Ms. Brooks’s belief that a poet laureate “should do more than wear a crown—[she] should be of service to the young.” The winning poets will be celebrated on Saturday, September 9 at 1p.m. during a ceremony at the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts at the University of Chicago. Winners will recite their poems for friends, families, and teachers, plus, Illinois Poet Laureate Angela Jackson will read a brand new poem written in honor of the winning students. The ceremony is open to the public. The Gwendolyn Brooks Youth Poetry Awards competition runs annually from November through May and is open to all young Illinoisans in grades K–12. For the complete list of winners, visit www.ilhumanities.org where you can also RSVP to attend the upcoming ceremony.