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Amanda Gorman

Amanda Gorman is a 23-year-old African American poet. She was born in Los Angeles California and was raised by a single mom who was a 6th-grade English teacher.  Gorman has two sisters and one of them is her twin. She is Gabrielle who is an activist and filmmaker.

Some of the projects that she has worked on include PBS KIDS Talk about: Race and Racism. She published her poetry book, The One for Whom Food Is Not Enough in 2015.  This year, in 2021 she delivered her poem at the inauguration of U.S. President Joe Biden.

Growing up she faced some challenges. She has an auditory processing disorder and is hypersensitive to sound, and had a speech impediment in her childhood. When she was reading books she didn’t see a lot of people like her. After she read Toni Morrison, Audre Lourde, and Phillis Wheatley she knows that there are people like her that write books and poetry. 

Like Amanda, Maya Angelou is also one of my inspirations. Amanda Gorman is also now one as well because they motivate me to keep writing poetry because you can write anything that you put your mind to. Poetry is just somewhere you can just heal your soul, write all your feelings into a piece of paper. 

After being racially profiled by a security guard, she tweeted, “He left, no apology. This is the reality of black girls: One day you’re called an icon, the next day, a threat… In a sense, he was right. I AM A THREAT: a threat to injustice, to inequality, to ignorance. Anyone who speaks the truth and walks with hope is an obvious and fatal danger to the powers that be. A threat and proud”.

 

About The Author

Fatima Kabba

Fatima is a journalist, poet, and podcaster who continues to grow while working as a Corner Greeter at RBAC.

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