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Conditions apply. Offer includes 1% loyalty rate reduction for qualifying customers. Visit hyundaicanda.com or your local deal for details. Amanda Gorman captured the world's attention when she became the youngest inaugural poet, delivering a powerful message of President Biden's inauguration in 2021 at the age of 22.
We will not march back to what was, but move to what shall be, a country that is bruised but whole, benevolent but bold, fierce and free. In the four years since, Gorman has become an advocate, speaking out against racial inequality and the banning of books. She is out with a new book, girls on the Rise, where she speaks to young women about empowerment, inclusivity and facing their fears. I sat down with Amanda Gorman for a Meet the Moment conversation where we discussed her journey and how poetry can speak to all Americans.
Amanda Gorman, welcome to Meet the Press. Thank you. I'm so excited to be here. It is an honor to have you here.
Before we delve into your new book of poetry, I do want to ask you about the fires that are burning in California. You live there. You have a home there. How is your home?
How are your family and friends? Our hearts go out to all of you. Oh, thank you so much. That means a lot.
I am from Los Angeles and I live there now. And I think we're seeing this both locally but also globally with the climate crisis. Californians are pretty hardy, strong people and we know how to deal with disaster and tragedy. But every single year, it seems there's an uptick in what we have to face from the forces of nature.
And so I'm just really grateful that the first responders were so quick to act and that the community is rallying the way that it is, because there's a lot more. It seems to come as we face this together, but we're holding strong. So thank you so much. Did you know how your home is doing?
I do not. I think it looks good from what I'm seeing, but I just woke up and came to this interview, so I'm gonna get some updates after this. But I think things are good. And honestly, however it goes, I'm safe, my family's safe, and that's all that really matters.
Whatever happens to home. Yeah, I'll let it go. We thank goodness. Thank you for that.
That is the most important thing. Well, our thoughts are with you and everyone in California right now as we sit here today. We are thinking about the 2025 inauguration, and we have to think about your powerful poem that you delivered in 2021. You were the youngest poet ever to deliver a poem at an inauguration, the first youth poet laureate.
And your poem, the Hill We Climb, still resonates today. Why do you think that is? Oh, wow. Thank you for that.
It's really incredible for me to think that it's been four years. I almost can't conceive of that. But to be honest, when I wrote the poem, I had no idea it was going to reverberate and resonate in the way it did. I remember writing it and writing it first and foremost for me because it felt like something I needed to read in that moment.
I finished it on the night of January 6th, and so it was important for me to just process my own emotions and thoughts as an American watching that violence against our democracy. And I remember having this thought as I was writing it, thinking, if there's one person that sees this performance and is curious about this or looks at it after or puts it on the fridge or anything, I will be so happy. And the fact that that happened a million times over from what I expected, was far more than I had ever asked. It absolutely did.
And you talk about the violence on January 6th. In fact, you had real reservations about attending the inauguration. You were concerned about safety, about the security of you and your mom. How did you find the courage to go there that day, Amanda?
I mean, first and foremost, conversations with the inevitable committee. I definitely got on the phone and I said, what is happening? Where are the protections in place? Because, you know, I was watching that live of so many Americans were.
And that's the world was at the time, and getting text messages from my friends of, are you going to have a bulletproof vest at this? Do you have security? What is this looking like? And ultimately, I sat down and kind of wrote a letter to myself, ultimately, saying, I see how terrified and scared that I am, but there might be something wonderful on the other side of this terror.
And if I can find the courage to step beyond that, it could be an amazing moment for myself, for poetry and the world. And all I have to do is have the courage to show up. And so I did. And I'm so grateful that I ended up saying yes and did you find something wonderful on the other side?
Oh, my gosh. Wonderful doesn't even conquer what it actually was. It was something historic and personal and meaningful and powerful, and I wouldn't trade it for the world. Is there one line from your poem that stands out for you right now as we're thinking about the 2025 inauguration?
Probably what just is isn't always justice. That was a line that kind of fell into my head as I was walking, taking turns around my neighbor and trying to write this poem four years ago. But I think particularly now, we're living in very unprecedented times, but we're also a bit desensitized to it. Chaos, vitriol, division has become incredibly normalized in American culture.
And I think I want to speak against that. Just because this is what's existing now doesn't mean this is all that awaits us as a nation in a world we're talking about. Courage, Amanda. And it brings me to your new book of poetry, Girls on the Rise, which is all about empowering young girls of all different backgrounds.
What do you hope young girls, young boys, young people take away from the message in this new book? Ooh, I'm so excited about this children's book because for me, it originated around this idea of having a children's book that underscores the importance of community and allyship. So often in children's books, we follow an individual character, which I love. I live for that.
But I was kind of like, what if we turned that on its head a little bit? And the book is about the village, it's about the wave, it's about the movement, it's about what it means to be a young person in the generation that is going to and is currently changing the world. And that's what I hope is the heartbeat of the book. Why was it important for you to celebrate young women and young girls in this moment?
I love that question, because this book has been in the works for several years. I kind of keep came into being a few years ago when Dr. Christine Blasey Ford was testifying in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee. And I, like so many other people, was just watching that testimony unwrapped.
And I think, especially as a woman, I really connected with that sensation of being the person in the room speaking the truth and not being heard. And I wrote that poem that night. And then as the years went on, I started thinking to myself, this would also be a message that I think particularly young girls and their allies need to hear now more than ever. Well, as I Listen to you talk about the courage you had to go to the Capitol after January 6, 2021, the courage that you're trying to convey in this book.
What is your message when it comes to facing your fears? I think the message I would have, which is not a new idea, it's just an idea that I love, which is that courage is not possessing no fear. It is practicing beyond it. It's the idea that you don't have to be actually fearless to be daring and to be brave.
If anything, the fear tells us that what we're facing is incredibly important in something that needs to be taken with care and action. Because we all have fears. We all have. I mean, it's a survival instinct that protects us, but in some ways, we have to let fear step aside so love can have space to decide.
You seem so fearless, Amanda. I think a lot of people would be surprised to know that you, too have had to stand up to what makes you nervous, to self doubt, to concern 100%. And I think it's the fact that I've had to face those fears and face those doubts that makes me feel grounded and secure in who I am. For example, people tend to be very surprised when I tell them that I had a speech impediment for most of my life.
They're like, how does this inaugural poet have this background? But I think, if anything, the disability that I had made me a much better poet than I would have been without it. You had to practice real discipline to try to overcome the speech impediment. We'll talk about that for sure.
So my speech impediment I had, and I still kind of struggle with every now and then. But it really was rearing its head from basically the time I can remember in my early 20s. And it made obviously spoken word poetry incredibly difficult. And I did speech therapy.
I did work at home, I did work with my family, but it took a really long time. But what I learned with that disability is it made me incredibly, I think, more in tuned with sound speech performance and how to embody language, as opposed to it being this lifeless thing that just passes through us. Some people would say, I have a speech impediment, therefore, how can I be meant to be a youth poet laureate? You didn't let that stand in your way?
No, absolutely not. I think if you look through the continuum of history, it's actually people who have very particular challenges that have prepared them to be who they were. For example, Maya Angelou, who was also a monago poet, she was mute growing up, and she had to work through poetry in order to regain her voice after sexual assaults. A lot of people don't know Martin Luther King struggled with public speaking in college.
And yet, you know, he's lauded as one of the most fine orators we've ever had. And so I think, particularly in my history as a black woman, once I saw those examples, I said, oh, it is possible. So it could be possible for me. Well, your new book is based on the poem We Rise, which you wrote back in 2021.
And the poem speaks to who, quote, dare to stare fear square in its face. When you write about that feeling, is it coming from your own experience with fear? Yes. And I think also a communal experience.
I think fear can happen on an individual level. I think moving through the world as a person in a marginalized group, for sure, I've experienced that, But I've also felt the ripples of panic and terror that happens, for example, when you're a member of the black community and you see an instance of police violence, or you're a woman and you see the numbers of sexual assault skyrocket. And so I think we carry and wear our fear as members of these groups. But then when we learn to operate as a group outside of that fear and guided by our best human instincts, I think that's the heartbeat of poetry and also just the pulse of social change.
In Girls on the Rise, you have a powerful section about inclusivity. Would you read that section, please? Yes. Thank you.
So this is from kind of the middle of the book. We are different people, each of us a different shape and size, a different wonder and a different wise. Some of us go by she, and some of us go by they. But no matter our names or from where we came, in our hearts, we are the same.
We are a power, a movement. Pretty powerful. Amanda, why was it so important for you to have a message of inclusivity in this book of poetry? When I was writing this book, I really wanted to contextualize it within, I think, a more inclusive and intersectional feminism, which is to say a really expansive idea of what it means to be a girl or a girl.
Ally and I have so many friends who are non binary who don't fit within these traditional labels. And I wanted this to be a book for them as well, including with our illustrator, Love is Wise, who is incredible and uses non traditional pronouns. And so when I was writing this book, I wanted it to feel like a safe, welcoming space for anyone who wanted to claim the history and the legacy and the power that comes with garlic. You have used your art and your poetry for activism.
You've spoken out about racial inequality, climate change. You've spoken out about book banning, particularly after your poem that you delivered at the 2021 inauguration was banned in a Florida school. What was your reaction when you learned that your poem had been banned? To be honest, it was a bit like a gut punch.
It was. It felt surreal. I had understood that book bans have been happening, but I think this hit me so incredibly hard because not just that was something I had written, which is besides the point that it was a moment in history that if a child at the school wanted to hear words that were spoken on presidential inauguration for their country, it had kind of been softly restricted in that way. But I think as I started to kind of open my eyes to the broader environment of what's happening now.
There are so many book bans happening right now that are very terrifying if you pay attention to what that means for a children's right to read and learn and what it means for teachers and libraries. There's been reports of over 10,000 book bans just in the school year alone. That's over 200% increase from last school year. And so I would say, if anyone cares beyond just my own work being banned, it's so important to be awake to what's happening on a local level.
What is the impact of those 10,000 book bans on children, on children who want to read your poem, on other works? Yes, I would say it overwhelmingly impacts children from middle class and lower income families who can't afford to just go out and buy every single book that they need when it's been restricted in the places that are supposed to be. Making sure these resources are accessible and free. Free.
It also impacts the representation of the children who need these stories the most. These books that are being banned predominantly feature authors and characters of color, authors and characters of the LGBTQ community. And so we're seeing entire identities erased from bookshelves. And when a child can't see themselves represented in story, they can't dream of their own life to actualize their own hopes.
If you could talk to that parent who filed that first complaint against your poem that you delivered at the inauguration, what would you say to that parent? I think first I would have a few questions for them. Because if you look at the filing of this complaint against my book, it lists the wrong author. It lists Oberwin Free as the author of my book.
I am the author of my poem. It highlights issues of like Supremacy and fear in my book poem. And I would love to hear specifically, where are you seeing that from this Nargo poem, foe. But more specifically, I would ask them, what gives them the rights, as someone who is not the parent of a student at this school, who is not a student or teacher at the school, to essentially ban every student at this school from having easy, reliable access to my work.
And I know that these book bans hit you hard, not just because your work has been banned, but because you have loved books since you were a little girl. Amanda, talk about this love of books and words that you've always had. Yes, books. This is a very nerdy thing to say.
Have been my best friends. Makes me sound like a crazy lady. But, like, for real, books are, like, such a safe haven. And I think growing up, I always felt a little bit on the outside looking in.
I was skinny and scrawny and black, and I talked weird and I had strange ideas, but books were in place that could hold me tenderly. And one of the things that made that possible were the educators I had around me. My mother, who is a teacher, as well as just having the freedom and the liberty to just walk along a bookshelf and feel compelled to pull one down. For example, reading the Bluest Eye when I was a kid changed my life.
And being able to just see that book by Toni Morrison on the shelf with a black girl on the COVID and pull it down. So I would preserve that for kids so that they can see a book and see what it holds for them. You talk about the impact your mother had on you growing up. What was that?
That she helped you to become who you are today? Oh, my mom is awesome. She's my superhero. I know everyone says that, but I do genuinely mean that.
She had a really excellent practice when I was growing up that I loved, which was because I was struggling with my speech impediment and being vocal in class. She told me, whenever you find yourself speaking up for yourself, come home, tell me, and we'll celebrate it. And so we had all these instances of me coming home on a Tuesday saying, mommy, I spoke up for myself today. She'd go, yay.
You know, it's like as if you've conquered the world. And I think she ritualized the act of truth speaking for me at an incredibly young age. That's so powerful to hear that. And here you are now, America's first youth poet laureate.
Talk about the responsibility that goes along with being a barrier breaker in that way. I mean, I'd love to hear Your thoughts on this year, you know, barrier breaking as well. So I love hearing that question from you. I like what you've done.
Oh, you're so sweet. I. I think there's a pressure that I feel in the sense of being the first but never wanting to be the last. There's very little meaning in breaking past a door if you can't hold it open for the people behind you.
And so I think, particularly for example, with the inauguration, I felt a lot of weight because I knew if I failed or didn't do an excellent job, it would be utilized as an excuse of why to not have young people represented at ceremonies in this way for the country. And so you feel this aspiration to do well for yourself, but to be extraordinary for people who follow. Being great is not good enough. No, no.
That's just the beginning. A lot of pressure. It is, yeah. When did you know you wanted to be a poet?
Did you know? Or are you just. Is it just a part of you? Is it something you've always known?
I think it's is a bit hard for me. Almost like in my blood I felt this kind of will of writing. Even when I was like 4 or 5, my mom would have to give me quarters for every morning I stayed in bed instead of getting up at like 6am writing, because that poor woman would have to get up with me and turn on the lights. And so even then I was writing as if I was a commissioned poet.
I didn't know that writing was a job at that point. I didn't know that was something that I could do, let alone as a girl, let alone as a black person. But as I grew and saw examples of that, I knew I would give my whole life to just have this as my craft. And yet, Amanda, according to a National Endowment for the arts survey of 9 year olds, the amount of 9 year olds who said they're reading for fun almost every day fell to 39%.
Ten years ago, it was over 50%. Why do you think children are losing touch with reading? And what's your message to parents? Here's a statistic that is definitely very disheartening for me.
I think it comes from the particular moment that we're living in where we're not as a culture and a society promoting access and ease of reading amongst children. It's so much easier to kind of sit them in front of the TV, the iPad, and play what have you. But we're seeing very serious literacy rates, not just among young children, but even among college level students. This is an endemic issue.
It's systemic as well. And so my message would be both to the child and to the guardians of the parents as well. It really takes a village to raise a literate child. It starts with the parent reading daily to the toddler who might not know all the words but is speaking back.
It starts with empowering and supporting our teachers and our librarians so that libraries can stay open, their shelves can stay full. And so I would say it's a full battlefront issue that starts in the home. And why do you think poetry is so critical to who we are as a nation? Oh, this is my favorite question, and I wish my answer changed, but it's actually the same as it's always been, which is poetry has consistently been the language of a people.
I think it's the reason why when there's protest, you will hear metaphor. You will hear, they buried us, but they didn't know we were seeds. The reason that there's a poem and not a 36 page essay at the bottom of the Statue of Liberty when we are trying as a people to speak to our best shared common humanity. Typically, poetry is the rhetoric that encapsulates that the best.
I think there's something magical about it that is humble, that is hopeful, but that's also wounded enough to remind us of the past that we've stepped from in the future we want to move to. And it comes naturally to you, but you also work really hard at it. Yes. Yeah, for sure.
I love that you say it comes naturally to me because it kind of does it. I just make it seem like it does to the rest of us. It's hard, but you have to kind of try to make it look easy. But yes, I will spend hours, days, weeks editing the same line, the same word, taking something out, putting something back in.
It's a real muscle that you have to work on. The poets that I admire are the ones who kind of wake up in the morning and they have a perfectly formed poem on their tongues. It's the one who are kind of beating their heads against the desk asking, can I do better? Is there better?
And I think that's where I get my ethos of writing from. I'm using, usually interviewing politicians who don't want to say that they want to run for this office or that office or run for president one day. You have proudly and confidently said that you want to run for President 2036. And you are able to do that.
When did you first get that bug? When did you first think, I want to be president of the United States one day. Oh, that's a good question. I think I was probably 11, sixth grade.
Very early. I have delusions of grandeur, as you would say. But at that age, I was just starting to become an activist, and I was getting interested in local issues, particularly. I had a friend whose mother was doing work around sex trafficking, and I was finding out about that, and I was just overwhelmed with the amount of policy that was not in place.
And I started thinking to myself, someone has to do something about these issues. And I kind of looked around and I said, why not me? Why not now? Why not here?
And so I think from a young age, it just felt like a responsibility, an opportunity to step up. And you've never wavered. You are dedicated and serious about this. This is not just something you're saying you're serious at one day.
Yes, you may want to run for president. Yeah, for sure. And Amanda, poets are a part of the history of this country, from Robert Frost to Maya Angelou. What do you hope your mark will be?
Ooh, I hope my mark is being a wordsmith and a change maker who speaks in a language that allows our country to return to love, legacy, and connection. And it seems like you're already on the path to that. Oh, thank you. I'm trying.
I feel as if it's just the beginning. I think this is just the start. I feel like my inaugural moment was my big kind of hello, I am here. I'm ready to get to work and get started.
And I think there's so much I want to do as time moves on. Well, we are so excited to hear more from you, but this has been such an honor to talk to you about your latest book of poetry, Amanda Gorman. Thank you so much. It's been great.
The privilege is online. Really. Thank you. The privileges are.
This was fantastic. Thank you. That was great. Amanda's a lot drop off in a new Hyundai Launcher today with $0 down during the Hyundai Advantage sales event.
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