Amanda Gorman was born and raised in Los Angeles, California in 1998. She credits her mother, English teacher Dr. Joan Wicks, with supporting and encouraging her, and mentions her in "The Hill We Climb": "Where a skinny Black girl, Descended from Slaves and raised by a single mother, Can dream of becoming president,/ Only to find herself reciting for one".
She wrote and performed poetry from an early age and in 2017, she was appointed the first-ever National Youth Poet Laureate by Urban Word, a program that supports youth poets laureate across America. In 2021, Gorman became the youngest inaugural poet in U.S. history, writing and performing "The Hill We Climb" for the inauguration of...
