Amanda Gorman

January 22, 2020, 7:00 PM: Amanda Gorman ~ Poetry, Power, and Protest: Using Language to Live by MLK’s Values

Forum, ELC

At 21, Amanda Gorman is heralded as "the next great figure in American poetry." Amanda made history in 2017 by being named the first ever National Youth Poet Laureate in the United States. Born and raised in Los Angeles, she is a rising senior at Harvard in the top of her class studying Sociology. Since publishing a poetry collection at 16, her writing has won her invitations to the Obama White House and to perform for Lin-Manuel Miranda, Al Gore, Secretary Hillary Clinton, Malala Yousafzai, and others. Amanda has performed 4th of July and Thanksgiving poems for CBS and she has spoken at events and venues across the country, including the Library of Congress and Lincoln Center. She has received a Genius Grant from OZY Media, as well as recognition from Scholastic Inc., YoungArts, the Glamour magazine College Women of the Year Awards, and the Webby Awards. She currently writes for the New York Times newsletter The Edit and recently signed a two-book deal with Viking (a division of Penguin Random House) after a bidding war involving eight publishers. Most recently, she traveled to Slovenia with Prada as a reporter on the company's latest sustainability project.

This event was co-sponsored by the Stadler Center for Poetry and Literary Arts, the Office of Campus Sustainability, and the Black Student Union.