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.
Amanda has received a Genius Grant from OZY Media, as well as honors from Scholastic Inc., YoungArts, Glamour magazine's College Women of the Year Awards, and the Webby Awards. She has written for the New York Times newsletter, The Edit, as well as the manifesto for Nike's 2020 Black History Month campaign.
Amanda Gorman was named the first-ever National Youth Poet Laureate in 2017 by Urban Word, a program that supports Youth Poets Laureates in over 60 cities, regions, and states across the country. She received the Poets & Writers Barnes & Noble Writers for Writers Award and is the youngest board member of 826 National, the largest youth writing network in the United States.