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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.

Amanda Gorman

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 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.
AMANDA GORMAN

Darkness Help Issues Light Myself People Poetry Purpose
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
Truth is to act out of the best of ourselves.
AMANDA GORMAN

Act Best Ourselves Truth
Poetry has never been the language of barriers, it’s always been the language of bridges.
AMANDA GORMAN

Deep Language Perspective Poetry
Your daily challenge to not be like a boss, but the boss, in all things you.
AMANDA GORMAN

Challenge Character Inspirational Yourself
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
We’ve learned that quiet isn’t always peace and the norms and notions of what just is, isn’t always justice.
AMANDA GORMAN

Justice Learning Peace Quiet
The oration of poetry, I consider to be its own art form and tradition.
AMANDA GORMAN

Art Myself Poetry
If a woman doesn’t give herself permission, who will?
AMANDA GORMAN

Herself Willing Woman
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
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
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
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
As a public poet, people often don’t see the reality of my life.
AMANDA GORMAN

Life People Poet Reality See
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

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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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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