Amanda Gorman, the 22-year-old whose poem recital at the presidential inauguration captivated the whole world is already reaping the benefit of appearing on a big stage as her books has moved up the bestsellers list on Amazon.
“I AM ON THE FLOOR MY BOOKS ARE #1 & #2 ON AMAZON AFTER 1 DAY!” the 22-year-old National Youth Poet Laureate wrote on Twitter after reading her poem “The Hill We Climb” at President Joe Biden’s swearing-in ceremony.
“Thank you so much to everyone for supporting me and my words. As Yeats put it: “For words alone are certain good: Sing, then,” she concluded.
Gorman recited her poem ‘The Hill We Climb’ becoming the first-ever US National Youth Poet Laureate and the youngest poet to ever read at a presidential inauguration.
“While democracy can be periodically delayed, it can never be permanently denied.”
Her prose summoned images both dire and triumphant – as she told Americans watching at home: “Even as we grieved, we grew.”
Gorman referenced everything from Biblical scripture to Hamilton, and at times echoed the oratory of John F Kennedy and the Rev Martin Luther King Jr.
The Los Angeles native who as a child, battled a speech impediment describes herself to her 800,000 Instagram followers as a “poet, writer and dreamer” who plans to run for president in 2036.
In her address, she told the nation, and the world, that Americans could rise above the hatred.
She said: “We will not march back to what was. We move to what shall be, a country that is bruised, but whole. Benevolent, but bold. Fierce and free.”
Raised by her mother, Joan Wicks, a teacher, Amanda has two siblings, including a twin sister who is an activist.
Her former headteacher Luthern Williams describes Amanda as someone destined for greatness.
“Amanda is incredibly driven, but what’s beautiful about Amanda is she’s driven to transform the world. “It’s hard to put into words how proud I am of what she’s been able to do.”
From school in Santa Monica, she went to Harvard and studied sociology. She was inspired by her studies to become a youth delegate for the United Nations in 2013, after watching a speech by Pakistani Nobel Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai – and a year later, was chosen as the youth poet laureate of Los Angeles.