Bruce, 21, of Rydal, won a prize that rewards literary promise with a fat check. Now the aspiring poet can pay off some of his student loans and maybe even think about graduate school.

"I'm just really thankful and really humbled," Bruce said after the award was announced at the college, in Chestertown on the Eastern Shore.

The Sophie Kerr Prize is named for a novelist who left a generous bequest to the college, which calls it the largest undergraduate literary award in the nation. For more than four decades, the school has bestowed annual cash awards to promising writers, as Kerr dictated in her will.

Bruce, a 2005 graduate of Abington High School, was chosen from among 31 students whom the judges described as a "talented and deep pool of contenders."

"Will is an extraordinarily promising writer," said Joshua Wolf Shenk, who taught the young man creative nonfiction. "He's an exciting, energetic voice."

The judges lauded not only the power of Bruce's prose but also the range of his work. His submission included poems, essays, and nonfiction.

"He tackled three genres with equal facility," English professor Kathryn Moncrief said in a statement.

In an earthy poem titled "Sums," Bruce repeats phrases and even lines.

Everything's an analogue of

sweat:

walking, speaking, clothes,

sleep. . . .

I wish that I was a beautiful

Spanish speaker.

I wish that I could summon a

summer flood.

I fasten sparklers to a frisbee.

I tell Reid it's a dull rust in my

blood.

Bruce, the son of a chemist and a Presbyterian minister, traces his love of writing to childhood. He remembered penning poems as early as third grade.

He's considering pursuing a master of fine arts in poetry, but has yet to apply to graduate school. Yesterday afternoon, amid the excitement of graduation and his literary prize, Bruce wasn't thinking that far ahead.

Asked how he planned to celebrate, he said, "Lunch would be good."