Lesley Brey

Reporter 

She is the youngest person to ever be honored as poet laureate during an American inauguration.

She is the first poet to speak during a Super Bowl.

She graduated cum laude from Harvard University.

Her two upcoming books are at the top of the Amazon bestseller list, with sales in the millions, despite still being in the preorder phase.

Moreover, she is only 22.

She is Amanda Gorman, a rising star in American poetry whose legacy is just beginning.

According to her website, Gorman’s interest in poetry and writing started young. While growing up in Los Angeles, she struggled with both an auditory processing disorder as well as a speech impediment, but she didn’t allow that to deter her from her deep love of reading and writing. With the help of her mother, who is an English teacher, she was able to thrive and soon began publishing her work.

In 2014, at the age of 16, she was nominated as the poet laureate of Los Angeles, and in the following year she published her first collection of poetry “The One for Whom Food is Not Enough”. The job of a poet laureate is to compose poetry for events on an official basis.

Gorman follows a strong tradition of Black poetry in America. Her work focuses on feminism, marginalization and on the experience of diaspora within Black communities. Diaspora is the state of living outside one’s homeland. For many Black Americans, the diaspora was forced upon them when their ancestors were kidnapped and forcibly brought to the United States as slaves.

“Poetry is the lens we use to interrogate the history we stand on and the future we stand for. It’s no coincidence that at the base of the Statue of Liberty, there is a poem. Our instinct is to turn to poetry when we’re looking to communicate a spirit that is larger than ourselves. Whenever I’m writing, I’m looking at the history of words. The specific history of words in the inaugural poem was: We have seen the ways in which language has been violated and used to dehumanize. How can I reclaim English so we can see it as a source of hope, purification and consciousness?” said Gorman about her work, in an interview published by the New York Times.

Gorman’s inaugural poem, “The Hill we Climb,” made international waves for its hopeful tone and powerful message. Especially coming off of a turbulent transition of power, people of many backgrounds resonated with Gorman’s call to look for the light.

“When day comes we step out of the shade / aflame and unafraid / the new dawn blooms as we free it / For there is always light / if only we’re brave enough to see it / If only we’re brave enough to be it.”

According to the Associated Press, an inaugural poet is a feature distinctive to democratic inaugurations. Gorman now stands shoulder to shoulder with poets like the acclaimed Maya Angelou, who presented “On the Pulse of Morning,” for Bill Clinton’s inauguration in 1993 and Robert Frost who presented “The Gift Outright,” for John F. Kennedy in 1961.

“[The inauguration is a] huge step for me to be part of a moment that has such historicity in it. And for me, [I’m] just trying to do justice for the moment, trying to do justice to the incredible inaugural poets who’ve come before me,” Gorman said in an interview with CNN.

Gorman was contacted in December to begin writing her inaugural poem, however, the capital riots of January 6th largely inspired the tone of the piece.

“What that informed me as a poet is the importance of writing the poem with honesty and writing a poem that didn’t turn a blind eye to that division and discourse that we saw, but really shed light on it. That’s something that I really stood by in this poem and have been proud of — in that it doesn’t gloss over all that America is and all that we’ve been challenged with,” said Gorman.

Gorman’s work extends beyond poetry into political activism. Her ultimate goal is to eventually run for president herself, something she mentions within her inaugural poem.

In a New York Times interview, she explained “Especially for girls of color, we’re treated as lightning or gold in the pan — we’re not treated as things that are going to last. You really have to crown yourself with the belief that what I’m about and what I’m here for is way beyond this moment. I’m learning that I am not lightning that strikes once. I am the hurricane that comes every single year, and you can expect to see me again soon.”