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

Amanda Gorman

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.
AMANDA GORMAN

Challenge Kind Talk Yourself
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.
AMANDA GORMAN

Black Establishment Girl Myself Success
As a young black woman, I notice at times in the mainstream media framing of the ‘me too’ movement you see a white female face or a white male face, and that type of questioning and interrogation needs to happen.
AMANDA GORMAN

Black Face Man Need White Woman Young
Whenever I listen to songs, I rewrite them in my head.
AMANDA GORMAN

Listening Myself Song
Poetry has never been the language of barriers, it’s always been the language of bridges.
AMANDA GORMAN

Deep Language Perspective Poetry
When they tell you to go back to where you come from, tell them proudly that this is where you come from.
AMANDA GORMAN

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

Life Live Yourself
I try to approach reading in front of millions of people as I would reading in somebody’s living room.
AMANDA GORMAN

Myself People Performance Reading
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.
AMANDA GORMAN

Experience Sound Teaching Yourself
If a woman doesn’t give herself permission, who will?
AMANDA GORMAN

Herself Willing Woman
But as for the future, I foresee a world which is more creative, more open, more loving, more ecologically friendly, more honest about its history and progress, and I think a lot of those contributions will be made by young people.
AMANDA GORMAN

Creation Friendship Future History Honesty Love People Thinking Young
Give us the ballot, and we will no longer have to worry the federal government about our basic rights.
AMANDA GORMAN

Control Government Ourselves Politics Right Worry
Let each dawn find us courageous, brought closer, heeding the lights before the fight is over.
AMANDA GORMAN

Courage Fight Inspirational Light Morning
Truth is to act out of the best of ourselves.
AMANDA GORMAN

Act Best Ourselves Truth
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.
AMANDA GORMAN

Black Love Myself Poet
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.
AMANDA GORMAN

Expression Myself Poem Word Writing

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

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

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