Amanda Gorman Books In Order

Publication Order of Poetry Books

Publication Order of Children's Books

Publication Order of Anthologies

Amanda Gorman is an American poet best known for her role as the sixth, and youngest, poet to deliver a reading during a presidential inauguration. Gorman took the stage on January 20th, 2021 for the inauguration of President Joe Biden and read her original poem, The Hill We Climb. The reading of the poem earned her instant acclaim internationally and lead to her two books to chart on the best-seller lists.

Gorman was born in Los Angeles, California where she was raised by a single mother. Amanda was born a twin with her sister Gabrielle and she has one other sibling. Her sister Gabrielle is an activist and filmmaker. Their mother, Joan Wicks, worked as a sixth grade teacher in Watts. As a child, Amanda and her siblings had little TV time in their family with Amanda preferring to read and write in her free time.

As a child, Amanda has a auditory processing disorder and is hypersensitive to sound, she also had a speech impediment as a child. The latter was helped by her attending speech therapy during her childhood. Instead of see it as a negative, Gorman always saw it as a strength because it allowed her to develop stronger reading and writing skills. As a child she would also use music as a form of speech therapy and she found that it helped her quite a bit.

For her education, Gorman attended a private school in Santa Monica before earning the Milken Family Foundation college scholarship. She would attend Harvard College where she would study sociology. She graduated cum laude in 2020 from the university.

Gorman has been doing poetry most of her life, but was inspired to become a youth delegate for the United Nations after watching a speech by Malala Yousafzai. She would then go on to be chosen as the 2014 youth poet laureate of Los Angeles. She would go on to publish her first poetry book the next year.

She began to make a difference in the world in 2016 when she founded the nonprofit organization One Pen One Page, a youth writing and leadership program. The following year would see a number of breakthroughs in her career including writing a tribute about black athletes for Nike and being featured on XQ Institute’s Book of the Month. She would also read her poetry on MTV and then became the first youth poet to open the literary season for the Library of Congress. The poem she wrote for this was called “In This Place: An American Lyric” and it was read to honor the inauguration of Tracy K. Smith as Poet Laureate of the United States.

Gorman excelled in the pandemic as she increased her profile by appearing on the web series Some Good News hosted by John Krasinski. On this show she was able to meet Oprah Winfrey. She would also issue a virtual commencement speech as many graduations didn’t happen in person throughout the world.

Finally, her breakthrough happened when she was selected to read the inauguration poem on the recommendation of President Biden’s wife Jill. Gorman had hopes that her poem would “represent a moment of unity for our country.” She has since been commissioned to compose an original poem to be recited at Super Bowl LV’s pregame ceremony and also signed with IMG models for endorsements.

Gorman has stated her plans to run for President in 2036.