“It was so incredible meeting Lady Gaga. I mean I’m gaga for Gaga, literally. We kind of just each flew to each other like magnets after the ceremony ended and we were both just crying and hugging.”

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.

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.

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.

The oration of poetry, I consider to be its own art form and tradition.

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.

Poetry has never been the language of barriers, it’s always been the language of bridges.

Truth is to act out of the best of ourselves.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Poetry is the lens we use to interrogate the history we stand on and the future we stand for.

If a woman doesn’t give herself permission, who will?

No matter how you say it, the hill we climb is a hill we climb together.

I think it made me all that much stronger of a writer when you have to teach yourself how to say words from scratch.

When you’re someone who’s lived a life where certain resources were scarce, you always feel like abundance is forbidden fruit.

Trees have heard the echoes mountains have cried in despair all alone.

How we yell is because of them how we cry is because of them but how we love is because of us.

Be careful, her hell is lovely, dark, and deep until she weeps.

What if my ink runs dry or I have no words to sum up the tears I cry how do I write about nothing?

With all your words of glass, I felt the wedding dress rip If I don’t want to give you the satisfaction of seeing me cry why should I want to give you the rest of my life?

Humans need breaks. Humans need to cry. Humans need to feel mad, sad, happy, and all the emotions in between. And humans need to have boundaries. 

Even the sky wept when you left.

Santa sobs recalling December’s decor, navigating joys volcano, overcoming dawns of insomnia, waking the snowflakes to find, yearlong sleep, which delightfulness sneaks!