Amanda Gorman is the youngest inaugural poet in U.S. history. She caught our attention when she was featured at the 2021 Presidential Inauguration last month and she has been WOW-ing us ever since!
Amanda was born in 1998 and grew up in Los Angeles, California where she and her twin sister were raised by a single mother. Amanda has an auditory processing disorder that impacts her speech and she received speech therapy to help her overcome her disability.
In 2016, Amanda founded a non-profit organization called “One Pen Per Page”, an organization that is a youth writing and leadership program. In 2018, Amanda was chosen to be one of Glamour Magazine’s ‘College Women of the Year.’
In 2019, Amanda discussed the importance of keeping abortion legal in a video for ‘Now This News’. The link to her video is here:
https://nowthisnews.com/videos/news/national-youth-poet-laureate-amanda-gorman-on-abortion-bans
Amanda was featured in the Super Bowl last week when she recited her poem, “Chorus of the Captains” where she honored 3 heroes of the pandemic…..a nurse, a teacher, and a war veteran. Her Super Bowl poem ended with…..
“Let us walk with these warriors, charge on with these champions, and carry forth the call of our captains….We celebrate them by acting with courage and compassion, by doing what is right and just, for while we honor them today, it is they who every day honor us.”
Amanda Gorman seems to have a special talent to meet the moment with her poetry. She inspires millions of people around the country and around the world with her extraordinary and eloquent poetry. In her poem, “The Hill We Climb” that she recited at the 2021 Presidential Inauguration last month, she captured all of us with these words…
“When day comes we ask ourselves,
where can we find light in this never-ending shade?
The loss we carry,
a sea we must wade.
We’ve braved the belly of the beast,
We’ve learned that quiet isn’t always peace,
and the norms and notions
of what just is
isn’t always just-ice.”