Amanda Gorman

Amanda Gorman (1998 - ) is an American poet and activist. Her work focuses on issues of oppression, feminism, race, and marginalization, as well as the African diaspora. Gorman was the first person to be named National Youth Poet Laureate. She published the poetry book The One for Whom Food Is Not Enough in 2015.

There’s a poem in this place —

a poem in America

a poet in every American

who rewrites this nation, who tells

a story worthy of being told on this minnow of an earth

to breathe hope into a palimpsest of time —

a poet in every American

who sees that our poem penned

doesn’t mean our poem’s end.

There’s a place where this poem dwells —

it is here, it is now, in the yellow song of dawn’s bell

where we write an American lyric

we are just beginning to tell.

— Amanda Gorman from ‘In This Place’ for Tracy K. Smith