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

Amanda Gorman

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.
AMANDA GORMAN

Enjoyment Greatness Language Poet Poetry
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.
AMANDA GORMAN

Ability Future Impact Poet Politics Word Yourself
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
The fight isn’t over – it’s just begun. It’s time to suit up for a battle that might determine the war.
AMANDA GORMAN

Battle Beginning Determination Fight Time War
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.
AMANDA GORMAN

Beginning Love Myself Name Poet Writing Youth
Let each dawn find us courageous, brought closer, heeding the lights before the fight is over.
AMANDA GORMAN

Courage Fight Inspirational Light Morning
The oration of poetry, I consider to be its own art form and tradition.
AMANDA GORMAN

Art Myself Poetry
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
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.
AMANDA GORMAN

Greatness Learning Poetry Sound Strength Thinking Understand Weakness Yourself
Poetry is – it’s an art form, but, to me, it’s also a weapon, it’s also an instrument. It’s the ability to make ideas that have been known, felt and said. And that’s a real, I think, type of duty for the poet.
AMANDA GORMAN

Ability Art Ideas Poet Poetry Reality Thinking Weapon
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.
AMANDA GORMAN

Expression Issues Myself Need Ourselves Run Thinking
What’s really funny about being National Youth Poet Laureate is that not everyone even knows it exists.
AMANDA GORMAN

Existence Funny Poet Youth
Through poetry we shall catch the conscience of a nation.
AMANDA GORMAN

Nation Poetry
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
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.
AMANDA GORMAN

Feeling Growth Myself Place
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
Poetry and language are often at the heartbeat of movements for change.
AMANDA GORMAN

Change Language Poetry
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.
AMANDA GORMAN

Activity Crazy Encouragement Family Mom Myself Writing
I was born early, along with my twin, and a lot of times, for infants, that can lead to learning delays.
AMANDA GORMAN

Born Leadership Myself Time
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
Truth is to act out of the best of ourselves.
AMANDA GORMAN

Act Best Ourselves Truth
I am the daughter of Black writers who are descended from Freedom Fighters who broke their chains and changed the world. They call me.
AMANDA GORMAN

Black Break Change Fight Freedom Myself World Writing
Poetry is the lens we use to interrogate the history we stand on and the future we stand for.
AMANDA GORMAN

Future History Poetry
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
My Instagram doesn’t cover my insecurities, my lack of self-confidence, that week I spent crying, there’s a question of whether I should be sharing that online.
AMANDA GORMAN

Confidence Insecurity Internet Myself Social Media
Poetry has never been the language of barriers, it’s always been the language of bridges.
AMANDA GORMAN

Deep Language Perspective Poetry
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

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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