By Daniella Masterson
FROM: Los Angeles Sentinel

When Amanda Gorman read her poem “The Hill We Climb” at President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris’ Inauguration ceremony in 2021, not only did it catapult her into greater literary stardom, the first National Youth Poet Laureate demonstrated the power of prose in a moment.

But Gorman was not the first poet to appear solus on that hill. Robert Frost performed at President John F. Kennedy’s inauguration. President Barak Obama invited a poet to both of his inaugurations, one being Richard Blanco, an openly gay Latino man.

But when America decided to pay tribute to one of its most revered poets by placing Maya Angelou’s images on the reverse side of the quarter in 2022, the caged bird flew, taking poets into a new era.

“There is a poetry renaissance,” said Hiram Sims, the executive director at Community Literature Initiative (CLI) a nonprofit organization that offers courses on writing. “I believe poetry is like scripture if scripture is about writing the truth,” he added. “Poetry has always been written and published. The difference now is that poets are making money. When Maya died, she had about six million dollars.

“When people tease me about poets being broke, I pull out my quarter with Maya Angelou on it, and I tell them not only are we making money, we’re on money,” Sims added. Read Rest of Article Here