One of the most rewarding moments of my career is when I’m speaking to a child who tells me they have the same speech impediment that I had to overcome and that they’re going to keep writing or sharing their voice after hearing my story.
AMANDA GORMANWhat’s really funny about being National Youth Poet Laureate is that not everyone even knows it exists.
More Amanda Gorman Quotes
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As a public poet, people often don’t see the reality of my life.
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I was born early, along with my twin, and a lot of times, for infants, that can lead to learning delays.
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One of my delays was in speech and speech pronunciation, and also the auditory processing issue just means I really struggle as an auditory learner.
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We’ve learned that quiet isn’t always peace and the norms and notions of what just is, isn’t always justice.
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What contributed to my writing early on is how my mom encouraged it. She kept the TV off because she wanted my siblings and I to be engaged and active. So we made forts, put on plays, musicals, and I wrote like crazy.
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When you have to teach yourself how to say sounds, when you have to be highly concerned about pronunciation, it gives you a certain awareness of sonics, of the auditory experience.
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What’s really funny about being National Youth Poet Laureate is that not everyone even knows it exists.
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It wasn’t until I was named Youth Poet Laureate of L.A. in high school though that I officially began calling myself a poet. I just always loved writing, period.
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I have to interweave my poetry with purpose. For me, that purpose is to help people, and to shed a light on issues that have far too long been in the darkness.
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No matter how you say it, the hill we climb is a hill we climb together.
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When you are learning through poetry how to speak English, it lends to a great understanding of sound, of pitch, of pronunciation, so I think of my speech impediment not as a weakness or a disability, but as one of my greatest strengths.
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I think it made me all that much stronger of a writer when you have to teach yourself how to say words from scratch.
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The oration of poetry, I consider to be its own art form and tradition.
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I was writing since I can remember – I just didn’t know it was poetry yet, or that writing could be a career.
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When they tell you to go back to where you come from, tell them proudly that this is where you come from.
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Poetry is interesting because not everyone is going to become a great poet, but anyone can be, and anyone can enjoy poetry, and it’s this openness, this accessibility of poetry that makes it the language of people.
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The fight isn’t over – it’s just begun. It’s time to suit up for a battle that might determine the war.
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I don’t want it to be something that becomes a cage, where to be a successful Black girl, you have to be Amanda Gorman and go to Harvard. I want someone to eventually disrupt the model I have established.
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If a woman doesn’t give herself permission, who will?
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Your daily challenge to not be like a boss, but the boss, in all things you.
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I love Black poets. I love that as a Black girl, I get to participate in that legacy. So that’s Yusef Komunyakaa, Sonia Sanchez, Tracy K. Smith, Phillis Wheatley.
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See the line where the sky meets the sea.
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I grew up at this incredibly odd intersection in Los Angeles, where it felt like the black ‘hood met black elegance met white gentrification met Latin culture met wetlands.
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What a day. What a life. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you
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Writing wasn’t just a form of expression. It was a form of pathology by embarking on spoken word over and over and over again and reciting my poems.
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I try to approach reading in front of millions of people as I would reading in somebody’s living room.
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