Let each dawn find us courageous, brought closer, heeding the lights before the fight is over.
AMANDA GORMANWhat 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.
More Amanda Gorman Quotes
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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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What a day. What a life. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you
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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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Poetry and language are often at the heartbeat of movements for change.
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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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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.
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See the line where the sky meets the sea.
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Poetry has never been the language of barriers, it’s always been the language of bridges.
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One of the most rewarding moments of my career is when I’m speaking to a child who tells me they have the same speech impediment that I had to overcome and that they’re going to keep writing or sharing their voice after hearing my story.
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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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What’s really funny about being National Youth Poet Laureate is that not everyone even knows it exists.
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Truth is to act out of the best of ourselves.
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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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Whenever I listen to songs, I rewrite them in my head.
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Your daily challenge to not be like a boss, but the boss, in all things you.
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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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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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We’ve learned that quiet isn’t always peace and the norms and notions of what just is, isn’t always justice.
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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.
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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.
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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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Through poetry we shall catch the conscience of a nation.
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I am the daughter of Black writers who are descended from Freedom Fighters who broke their chains and changed the world. They call me.
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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.
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When they tell you to go back to where you come from, tell them proudly that this is where you come from.
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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.
AMANDA GORMAN