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Amanda Gorman is a poet and activist whose work has centered on the development of Black youth and resistance to race- and gender-based oppression. Born in 1998 in Los Angeles, Gorman developed an early love of reading and writing. These activities provided a refuge from her hypersensitivity to sound and helped her work through a childhood speech impediment. Her gifts with language were evident from the beginning, and in 2014 she became the first youth poet laureate of Los Angeles. The following year, at just seventeen, she published her debut poetry collection, The One For Whom Food Is Not Enough. In 2017, while studying sociology at Harvard, Gorman was named the inaugural National Youth Poet Laureate. In the years that followed, she performed her poems in venues as diverse as the Library of Congress and MTV. However, she rocketed to fame in 2021, when she performed her poem “The Hill We Climb” on live television for Joe Biden’s presidential inauguration. Gorman has since announced her own intention to run for president in 2036, when she reaches the minimum legal age to hold that office. Gorman has cited several Black women writers as formative influences, including Phillis Wheatley, Maya Angelou, Audre Lorde, and Toni Morrison.

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