Amanda Gorman is Fully Made for the Future of Black Excellence
Amanda Gorman is a poet, award-winning writer, and Harvard University alumna who majored in Sociology. She has contributed to the New York Times and has three books coming out with Penguin Random House. Her works deal with issues such as Black identity, feminism, marginalization, and climate change.
She was born and reared in Los Angeles, and she started writing at a young age. Her words have earned her invitations to perform for Lin-Manuel Miranda, Al Gore, Secretary Hillary Clinton, Malala Yousafzai, and others at the Obama White House. Amanda has spoken at events and locations across the country, including the Library of Congress and Lincoln Center, and has performed commissioned poetry for CBS This Morning.
Her famous poem, 'The Hill We Climb,' was performed at the presidential inauguration. Amanda Gorman made history on January 20, 2021, when she became the sixth and youngest poet, at the age of twenty-two, to deliver a poetry reading at a presidential inauguration. Gorman's enormous contribution to poetry and her stellar performance make it difficult to detect that she had an auditory-processing disorder, which made it difficult for her to pronounce the letter 'R.' It didn't deter her, and she turned to poetry as a cheap way to express herself.