Vidhatrie Keetha ’23 Named National Student Poet
Vidhatrie Keetha ‘23
Senior Vidhatrie Keetha is one of five U.S.-based students who were selected from a pool of 22,000 applicants to serve as National Student Poets. The prize, awarded by the National Student Poets Program, includes a $5,000 award along with the opportunity to be a “poetry ambassador” for one year.
Keetha was invited to Washington, DC, in September, where she and her fellow National Student Poets were officially sworn in at a private ceremony at Planet Work Museum. Later, the National Student Poets and their families were welcomed to the White House. During a live-streamed reception in the State Dining Room, the students read poems selected by the White House and then posed for pictures with the First Lady and Ada Limón, the current Poet Laureate of the United States.
According to the Washington Post, “the decade-old National Student Poets Program is a partnership including the Institute of Museum and Library Services and the Alliance for Young Artists & Writers, which manages the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards. Awards jurors this year included former U.S. poet laureate Juan Felipe Herrera and poet Edward Hirsch.” It is the nation’s highest honor for high school-aged poets.