What happened at the Kennedy Center
On 27 May 2022, NPR reported that Alyssa Gaines had been named the National Youth Poet Laureate of the United States. She was 18. The announcement was made at the Kennedy Center in Washington, the venue the programme uses for its annual naming, and it made Gaines the sixth person to hold the national title since the programme began.
The role is administered by Urban Word, the organisation whose National Youth Poet Laureate site carries the roster of holders and lists Gaines as the 2022 laureate. Her page there and NPR's report are the two records this profile rests on. Neither is long. Both agree on the essentials: the year, the age, the city, the title.
The poem she brought with her
The work attached to Gaines in the coverage is Lagrimas Negras, the poem performed at the Kennedy Center. A youth laureate is chosen on the strength of a body of writing and of performance, not a single piece, but Lagrimas Negras is the piece the record preserves from that night, and it is the title most searches for her still return.
What the poem says line by line is not reproduced in the sources used here, and this page does not paraphrase what it has not read. Readers who want the text should go to the laureate programme's own page for Gaines rather than to summaries.
What the title actually is
The National Youth Poet Laureate is an annual appointment: one writer, still in their teens, carries the title for a year and performs in public as its holder. Gaines was the sixth. That number is the clearest measure of how narrow the door is, a single name a year from a country of more than 300 million people, and it is why the appointment draws national coverage each May.
It is also a literary award rather than an academic one. Nothing in the record ties Gaines's selection to grades, test scores or competition ladders. It was given for poems and for the delivery of them.
Where Alyssa Gaines is now
NPR's report ends with the next step rather than a career: Gaines was heading to the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the autumn of 2022. That is the last dated fact about her in the sources collected for this page.
No book, prize, job or later appearance is documented here. That is not the same as nothing having happened. It means that between the summer of 2022 and this page's publication date, no reporting in this file records what she did next, and inventing an update would be worse than admitting the gap.
What is documented and what is not
Documented: the title, the year, the venue, the reported age of 18, the poem performed, the home city and the university she was bound for. Those come from NPR and from the National Youth Poet Laureate site.
Not documented here: her date of birth, her family, her school before university, her degree subject, any later publication, and any reported IQ, a figure that has no place in a poetry record and appears nowhere in these sources. Readers looking for those details should treat any site that supplies them without a source as unreliable.
| Person | Country | Milestone | Age / Stat |
|---|
What is documented — and what is not
✓ Documented
- Named sixth US National Youth Poet Laureate, May 2022, reported by NPR
- Aged 18 at the time of the announcement
- From Indianapolis; performed Lagrimas Negras at the Kennedy Center
- Heading to the University of Wisconsin-Madison in autumn 2022 (NPR)
? Unverified, disputed or wrong
- Exact date of birth is not published in these sources
- No documented activity after autumn 2022 in this record
- No information on family, earlier schooling or degree subject
Questions people ask about Alyssa Gaines
How old is Alyssa Gaines?
NPR reported she was 18 when she was named National Youth Poet Laureate in May 2022. No date of birth appears in the sources used here.
What is Alyssa Gaines known for?
Being named the sixth National Youth Poet Laureate of the United States, announced at the Kennedy Center in May 2022.
Which poem is she known for?
Lagrimas Negras, the poem attached to her in the coverage of the Kennedy Center announcement.
Where is Alyssa Gaines from?
Indianapolis, Indiana.
Where is Alyssa Gaines now?
NPR reported in May 2022 that she was heading to the University of Wisconsin-Madison that autumn. Nothing later is documented in these sources.
Is Alyssa Gaines on Wikipedia?
No English Wikipedia article is recorded for her. The primary references are NPR's report and her page on the National Youth Poet Laureate site.
Who runs the National Youth Poet Laureate programme?
Urban Word, which publishes the roster of laureates and the profile page for Gaines.
Has she published a book?
No book is recorded in the sources used here.
Quick quiz: how well do you know Alyssa’s story?
Which title did Alyssa Gaines receive in May 2022?
Where was the announcement made?
Which poem is attached to her in the coverage?
Sources
- Alyssa Gaines is named National Youth Poet Laureate — NPR, 2022-05-27
- Alyssa Gaines — National Youth Poet Laureate (Urban Word)
Checked by the Geniuses.club editorial team. Ages are given as of September 2026.
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