Amanda Gorman Spotlight

By Lila Butterworth

22-year old Amanda Gorman made history on January 20, 2021, by being the youngest poet to recite at a presidential inauguration in American history. Her inaugural poem, “The Hill We Climb” was heard by millions of people all across the country at the inauguration of  President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. Her poem and voice touched the hearts of people across the country giving many people hope for a better future.

Amanda Gorman was born on March 7, 1998 in Watts, Los Angeles, where she was raised alongside her two siblings (one of whom is her twin sister Gabrielle, an activist and filmmaker) by her single mother, Joan Wicks. Her mother is a english teacher and encouraged Amanda to write. She has a speech impediment that she’s worked to overcome in the past years and while it still affects her, Amanda has become an amazing public speaker. She achieved success at an early age, becoming the Youth Poet Laureate of Los Angeles and had her first poetry published in 2015, that being, “The One For Whom Food Is Not Enough.” She was then named the first National Youth Poet Laureate in the U.S. while at Harvard studying sociology. 

Amanda Gorman has a mantra that she always recites before a performance. It goes as follows,

“I’m the daughter of Black writers who are descended from Freedom Fighters who broke their chains and changed the world. They call me.” What powerful and inspiring words. It can’t be easy to walk on stage when you have a speech impediment and imposter syndrome as she does. Let alone a stage in front of the president, vice president, and very well the whole country. Yet she did it and managed to bring hope to a country who’s in the middle of a pandemic and has just had an insurrection. That’s amazing, she’s just amazing. The words she spoke on January 20 must have taken a lot of courage to write and say. Amanda’s inaugural poem has awarded her opportunities to perform for Lin Manuel Miranda, Malala Yousafzai, Hillary Clinton, and a conversation with Michelle Obama.

As these past months have shown, Amanda Gorman is a person who, not only finds the light, but as her poem says, is “Brave enough to be it.”