- Something that I learned as a young poet

is that there's no such thing as an aspiring writer.

If you write, you are doing the work, you're showing up.

And so in all technical terms, you've made it.

So every single time that I have the fortune

of being able to pick up a pen and write,

I know that I've arrived exactly at the spot I need to be.

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Hi, I'm Amanda Gorman,

and I'm on set for my cover shoot with Harper's BAZAAR.

It means a lot to me to be one of the icons for this issue.

I remember three or four years ago being at a dinner party

with now editor in chief of Harper's BAZAAR, Samira Nasr.

And I just think back to that moment

because I would've never assumed that

in the blink of an eye after that,

I would have the opportunity of seeing her again,

interacting with her again as an icon

of the Harper's BAZAAR issue.

At the time when we were meeting,

no one in that room really knew who I was.

And so feeling in the trajectory of looking up

and coming to terms with the fact that my art means so much

to so many people,

that's the absolute deepest honor

that any writer could have.

And it's just a real full circle,

for me, to be here in this moment.

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The word icon to me means someone who represents something

that is larger than themselves.

One icon from the past that I would've loved

to have had the privilege of meeting would be Maya Angelou,

who was an incredible poet.

She also was an inaugural poet, as well,

and I just would've loved to have a conversation with her

about what that meant to her life.

I feel the most iconic when I feel the most like myself.

I will say some instances that really take me back

are when I see murals or drawings or artwork

of my face or my poetry.

It shows me how many people can resonate

with a single verse, with a single word,

and reminds me that it's not just

about the person that's writing the poems,

but what the poems are saying

that makes that art form so iconic.

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Poetry has always been integral to my life,

although I didn't always know that's what it was called.

I remember being five or six years old and writing poems

but not knowing that there is actually a name

and a profession for that.

I just thought I was finding a way

to express myself on the page.

And as I continued to grow up,

I learned this thing that is a calling

can actually be a career for me in my life.

I'm not sure if there was a time

that I realized I had talent

so much as there was a time I realized I had a desire

to have talent.

And that was when I was in third grade,

and I was reading "Dandelion Wine" by Ray Bradbury.

And I remember seeing his talent in that piece of art

and knowing instantaneously I wanted to work

in craft, in labor,

so one day I, too, could harness the craft

and the gift of writing.

I don't think I've reached my peak yet,

but I think I have reached certain mountain tops

by which I can look out at my life

and see where I wanna move forward.

And I think post-inauguration

was definitely one of those moments

and locations where I felt like for the first time,

I had a real clear bird's eye view

of the power that my poetry could have on people

and how that power could be used for social change.

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My process of writing is messy,

and it can look all over the place.

But what it typically consists of is me sitting down

and doing as much research as I can.

I like looking at archives, newspapers, interviews,

trying to get as much, kind of,

gritty, informational material.

Then from that, I create a word cloud of,

what is all this information, history, data telling me?

And from that vomit of terminology,

I then try to create something that has reason,

logic, and movement.

And then that will become a poem.

There are so many people who inspire me.

I believe that I'm not writing alone

but out of a deep, long heritage of African American writers

who have used both the written and spoken word tradition

to advocate for social transformation.

So I look up to icons like James Baldwin,

Langston Hughes, Maya Angelou, Toni Morrison,

just kind of all of the great epic writers of their time.

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I believe poetry is so important

because it's the language of the people.

So often when we're speaking to issues

that feel larger than life,

larger than any one nation or planet even,

we do it in the form of heightened language.

Two of kind of the core examples I have of that would be

the poem at the base of the Statue of Liberty.

That is to say, when we reflect

on who we want to be as a country,

often we feel prose can work, but it's not enough.

We need access to another form of language

that can bring us together.

Another example I bring up a lot in the classroom

when I'm teaching would be Martin Luther King's

"I Have a Dream" speech,

which is not only a singular work of prose,

but it's also historic text of poetry.

The way that he uses rhythm,

sometimes rhyme, figurative language.

It all shows that when you want people to move, to act,

to believe, to trust,

poetry really is the language that can get us there.

One of of the literary works that has had the most impact

on me and my life would be "The Bluest Eye"

by Toni Morrison.

And I had never before, in class,

really been assigned a piece of work that had been written

by a Black feminist.

Never had I read a work in class

that had characters who looked like me

and sounded like me

but also had these rich dimensions of humanity.

And from then on, that was the first moment in my life

that I ever wrote a short story that was about a Black girl,

that I ever considered writing poems

that were about African Americans.

It challenged me

to reimagine what would be possible through language.

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When I'm feeling discouraged,

I look for hope both within and outside of myself.

I'm a strong believer that hope isn't an object.

It's not something you can buy.

It's not property.

It's a practice. It's a craft.

It's something that you have to do again and again

and build up the kind of muscle memory for it.

And then I kind of look outrospectively

and think who are the helpers, the levers,

the healers at work that I can look to,

who I feel even if I don't know them,

I might have never even met them,

give me some spark of a belief in humanity.

And I can say more often than not,

a lot of times I see that type of energy

in other young people and other Gen Z members,

and especially in other artists and creatives.

One of the best pieces of advice I have ever gotten

would be from Oprah Winfrey,

who told me be aware of other people's agendas

and never let them swallow your own.

It was a great reminder to always stay true

to what I know of myself and who I know myself to be.

Whenever people ask me what my advice

to the younger generation is,

I have to stop and take stock

because I think I should actually be listening to the voices

and the advice that the next generation has.

I think never before have we had a generation

who was so sure of not just the urgency,

but the emergency of the moment.

When my mom was growing up,

she was told by teachers, mentors to change the world.

When I was growing up, I was told to save the world

because that's the type of time and moment we're in.

And so if I were to give any piece

of advice to the younger generation,

it's trust your gut, trust your instincts,

trust what you know, and be continuously aware

that you are quite literally the force of the future.

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