❝My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style.❞ - Maya Angelou
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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. - Amanda Gorman "The Hill We Climb"
Early Life and Education
Gorman was born in California and raised by her single mother. She described her young self as having limited television access, but ample exposure to reading. She had an auditory processing disorder and is hypersensitive to sound. She also had a speech impairment, but she saw these things as gifts which allowed her to improve her reading and writing.
Gorman attended a private school, New Roads, in Santa Monica. As a senior, she received a Milken Family Foundation college scholarship. She studied sociology at Harvard and graduated cum laude in 2020 as a member of Phi Beta Kappa.
Career
Gorman's work has recurring themes of feminism, oppression, race, marginalization, and African diaspora. She said she was inspired by Pakistani Nobel Prize laureate, Malala Yousafzai to become a youth delegate for the United Nations. In 2014, Gorman was chosen as the first youth poet laureate of Los Angeles. She published her poetry book, The One for Whom Food is Not Enough in 2015.
Gorman founded a nonprofit organization One Pen One Page for youth writing and leadership in 2016. 2017 was an extremely productive month for her as she was the first author to be featured on XQ Institute's Book of the Month, was the first youth poet to open a literary session for the Library of Congress, had her work celebrated on MTV as well as the Morgan Library and Museum, won a $10,000 grant from OZY. This was also the year she was chosen as the first National Youth Poet Laureate out of five finalists.
In 2021, Gorman became the youngest poet to present at a presidential inauguration when she read her poem "The Hill We Climb" at the inauguration of Joe Biden. She made the cover of TIME Magazine's February 2021 issue.
