Through poetry we shall catch the conscience of a nation.
AMANDA GORMANThrough poetry we shall catch the conscience of a nation.
More Amanda Gorman Quotes
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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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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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Whenever I listen to songs, I rewrite them in my head.
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Poetry and language are often at the heartbeat of movements for change.
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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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To hone my voice, I read everything, from books to cereal boxes, three times: once for fun, the second time to learn something new about the writing craft, and the third time was to improve that piece.
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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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Let each dawn find us courageous, brought closer, heeding the lights before the fight is over.
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Poetry is the lens we use to interrogate the history we stand on and the future we stand for.
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I close my eyes and I am with this army of young women standing in a line and I imagine us walking forward together.
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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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What’s really funny about being National Youth Poet Laureate is that not everyone even knows it exists.
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See the line where the sky meets the sea.
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When you’re someone who’s lived a life where certain resources were scarce, you always feel like abundance is forbidden fruit.
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What a day. What a life. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you
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That’s kind of the challenging thing about writing an inaugural poem. You’re speaking to everyone, but you don’t also want to speak for everyone.
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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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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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Poetry has never been the language of barriers, it’s always been the language of bridges.
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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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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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I try to approach reading in front of millions of people as I would reading in somebody’s living room.
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Your daily challenge to not be like a boss, but the boss, in all things 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 think we run into issues when our online brands are not rooted in who we are, and I think we need to have explicit discussions with ourselves about who we want to be, what we want to represent, and how we want to express that.
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You don’t have to be a poet, you don’t have to be a politician or be in the White House to make an impact with your words. We all have this capacity to find solutions for the future.
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