black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

My mom wanted to make sure I was prepared to grow up with Black skin in America.

Amanda Gorman

What’s really funny about being National Youth Poet Laureate is that not everyone even knows it exists.
AMANDA GORMAN

Existence Funny Poet Youth
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 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
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
I close my eyes and I am with this army of young women standing in a line and I imagine us walking forward together.
AMANDA GORMAN

Eyes Imagination Myself Togetherness Walk Women Young
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
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
See the line where the sky meets the sea.
AMANDA GORMAN

Nature Sea See Sky
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
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
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

Books Improvement Learning Myself Pieces Reading Time Voice Writing
No matter how you say it, the hill we climb is a hill we climb together.
AMANDA GORMAN

Struggle Togetherness Yourself
As a public poet, people often don’t see the reality of my life.
AMANDA GORMAN

Life People Poet Reality See
I think it made me all that much stronger of a writer when you have to teach yourself how to say words from scratch.
AMANDA GORMAN

Myself Strong Teaching Thinking Word Writing Yourself
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
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

My mom wanted to make sure I was prepared to grow up with Black skin in America.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

My mom wanted to make sure I was prepared to grow up with Black skin in America.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Amanda Gorman Quotes