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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

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
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
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
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’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
One of my delays was in speech and speech pronunciation, and also the auditory processing issue just means I really struggle as an auditory learner.
AMANDA GORMAN

Issues Learning Myself Oneself Struggle
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
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
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
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
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.
AMANDA GORMAN

Career Moments Myself Oneself Reward Story Voice Writing
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 was writing since I can remember – I just didn’t know it was poetry yet, or that writing could be a career.
AMANDA GORMAN

Career Myself Poetry Remember Writing
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
Let each dawn find us courageous, brought closer, heeding the lights before the fight is over.
AMANDA GORMAN

Courage Fight Inspirational Light Morning
Poetry and language are often at the heartbeat of movements for change.
AMANDA GORMAN

Change Language Poetry

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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