Amanda Gorman: Everything to Know About the 22-Year-Old Inauguration Poet

Amanda Gorman made history during the Presidential Inauguration of Joe Biden. The 22-year old became the youngest poet to perform at the inauguration with her poem The Hill We Climb. It was written weeks after the election and mentioned the Capitol riots that happened on Jan. 6. But who exactly is Gorman?

The young poet was born on March 7, 1998, in Los Angeles, California. Her mother, Joan Woods, raised Gorman and her two siblings while working as a sixth-grade teacher. Growing up in Los Angeles and seeing what her mother had to deal with, Gorman, who also has a twin sister named Gabrielle, was motivated to be a good student and poet.

At age 16, Gorman founded One Pen One Page, which is a non-profit organization that encourages youth advocacy, leadership development, and poetry workshops. She attended New Roads School, a Private School in Santa Monica and then enrolled in Harvard, where she studied sociology. She continued to succeed in poetry, being named National Youth Poet Laureate in April 2017. This honor led to her meeting, Michelle Obama and Hillary Clinton.

“I always really liked reading,” Gorman said to L.A. Taco in 2018 when talking about her love for reading and writing. “There’s a vacancy inside yourself with room for other stories to be told.” Gorman has read her work at the Library of Congress and MTV. Her poem In This Place (An American Lyric) was acquired by the Morgan Library and Museum in New York City. And in 2018, Gorman was named one of Glamour’s College Women of the Year.

“You don’t have to be a poet, you don’t have to be a politician or be in the White House to make an impact with your words,” Gorman said, who grew up with a speech impediment. “We all have this capacity to find solutions for the future.” While reading at the Inauguration is big, Gorman has even bigger goals in her future. When speaking to The New York Times in 2017, she revealed she wants to run for president in 15 years.

“This is a long, long, faraway goal, but 2036 I am running for office to be the president of the United States,” she said. “So you can put that in your iCloud calendar.”