In 2021, Marcus Amaker was named an Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellow. Amaker was awarded the Academy of American Poets Poet Laureate Fellowship for his Poets in Schools program, which pairs a poet with a South Carolina school. The poets worked with students to create and publish an anthology of their poems. His fellowship project will support the poets for their time in the schools and their lesson-planning, as well as allow for the free distribution of the published anthology to participating schools.