Amanda Gorman is a poet, award-winning writer, and recent cum laude graduate of Harvard University, where she studied sociology. She gave the poetry reading at President Joseph Biden's inauguration in 2021. She is the youngest inaugural poet in U.S. history, and has previously written for the New York Times newsletter The Edit and has three books forthcoming with Penguin Random House. Though she is young, she has already received recognition from Scholastic Inc., YoungArts, the Glamour magazine College Women of the Year Awards, and the Webby Awards. In 2017, she was appointed the first-ever National Youth Poet Laureate by Urban Word—a program that supports youth poets-laureate across America. Gorman was the recipient of the Poets & Writers Barnes & Noble Writers for Writers Award and is the youngest board member of 826 National, the largest youth-writing network in the United States.
"The Hill We Climb" was first performed by Amanda Gorman on January 20, 2021, at the inauguration of President Joe Biden. As the youngest inaugural poet in history and the first National Youth Poet Laureate, Gorman's performance was an...
