Betweenreading her work “The Hill We Climb"at the inauguration of PresidentJoe Biden, shooting to thetop of Amazon’s bestseller list, beingsigned to IMG Models, and preparing to perform an original poem at the upcoming2021 Super Bowl pregame show, it has been a busy few weeks forAmanda Gorman.
Now, the 22-year-old youth poet graces the cover ofTimemagazine, where she chats withMichelle Obamaabout how her success wasn’t something that just happened — in fact, her “astronomical life change,” she says, “took a lifetime, and it took a village.”
“Something I haven’t told anyone else is, for the past six years whenever I’ve written a poem that I knew was going to be public or performed, I told myself, write the inauguration poem,” says Gorman. “And what that meant for me is not necessarily write a poem that’s about a president. It was: Write a poem that is worthyof a new chapter in the country.”
BET Awards 2020/Getty Images; Amy Sussman/Getty Images
In part, Gorman’s poem read, “Let the globe, if nothing else, say this is true: That even as we grieved, we grew: That even as we hurt, we hoped, that even as we tired, we tried, that we’ll forever be tied together, victorious … Not because we will never again know defeat, but because we will never again sow division.”
As Gorman tells Mrs. Obama, 57, forTime, “In everything you write, write something that is brave enough to be hopeful. In everything that you write, write something that is larger than yourself. I don’t think I would have been ableto write that inauguration poemif I hadn’t lived every day of my life as if that was the place I was going to get.”
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Gorman tells the former first lady that right now, she feels like we’re experiencing “an important moment in Black art because we’re living in an important moment in Black life.”
“Whether that’s looking at what it means politically to have an African-American president before[Donald] Trump, or looking at what it means tohave the Black Lives movementbecome the largest social movement in the United States,” she shares. “What’s been exciting for me is I get to absorb and to live in that creation I see from other African-American artists that I look up to.”
For Gorman, it’s extra poignant that she gets to be a part of the creative movement, having the opportunity “to create art and participate in that historical record.”
Amanda Gorman recites a poem at Joe Biden’s inauguration on Jan. 20.Rob Carr/Getty
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Despite her success, Gorman — who hasbeen open about dealing with a speech impediment— admits to struggling with self-doubt and “imposter syndrome,” telling Mrs. Obama that “speaking in public as a Black girl is already daunting enough, just coming onstage with my dark skin and my hair and my race.”
“That in itself is inviting a type of people that have not often been welcomed or celebrated in the public sphere,” she says. “Beyond that, assomeone with a speech impediment, that imposter syndrome has always been exacerbated because there’s the concern, ‘Is the content of what I’m saying good enough?’ And then the additional fear: ‘Is the way I’m saying it good enough?’ "
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“I would say anyone who finds themselves suddenly visible and suddenly famous, think about the big picture,” she advises. “Especially for girls of color, we’re treated as lightning or gold in the pan — we’re not treated as things that are going to last. You really have to crown yourself with the belief thatwhat I’m about and what I’m here foris way beyond this moment. I’m learning that I am not lightning that strikes once. I am the hurricane that comes every single year, and you can expect to see me again soon.”
source: people.com
