Amanda Gorman Biography

Amanda Gorman hit the national spotlight on January 20, 2021, when she gave a reading of her poem “The Hill We Climb” at the inauguration of President Joe Biden. At age 22, she was the youngest poet ever selected for that honor at a presidential inauguration.

Amanda Gorman grew up in Los Angeles with her twin sister and mother, a teacher. When Gorman was 16, she was named the Youth Poet Laureate for Los Angeles. The next year, she published her first collection, The One for Whom Food is Not Enough.

Gorman was the first person to be named National Youth Poet Laureate in 2017, when she was 19 years old and a sophomore at Harvard University. The program is designed to “identify and celebrate exceptional youth poets who use their voice to inspire change.” Gorman then graduated from Harvard in 2020.

Her poems focus on themes of social justice and urge activism on a number of issues. Gorman was said to have a fan in Biden’s wife, First Lady Dr. Jill Biden, and was invited to speak at President Biden’s swearing in.