• 3 days ago
She's a history maker. A poet. An activist. A best-selling author.

This is Amanda Gorman.
Transcript
00:00Tyrants fear the poet.
00:04Now that we know it, we can't blow it.
00:06We owe it to show it, not slow it.
00:09Although it hurts to show it when the world starts below it.
00:13Where there's will, there's woman.
00:32And where there's woman, there is always a way.
00:43I literally think I'm in a dream right now, and I'm like, oh my god, I'm in a dream.
01:12I'm in a dream right now, because I dreamed about this about eight times last night, and
01:16my dog kept waking me up.
01:19I just wanted to say that I don't feel like I've won being Poet Laureate.
01:28I feel like we have won, because I feel so united by every single person who's standing
01:34on the stage, that more than feeling part of something that was given to me or awarded
01:41to me, I feel part of a community, and I'm so honored to just be a part of that.
02:11I think that passion comes from my heritage, comes from this place where like, I must write,
02:23I must speak up, because there's been too many people who've been kept from that opportunity.
02:30Hey, so I am walking to the Ann Taylor store to buy a dress.
02:39I got an invite to the White House for an event they're having for poetry, and I'm super
02:44excited.
02:45It's such an amazing honor.
03:00Hope we must bestow it like a wick in the poet so it can grow lit, bringing with it
03:06stories to rewrite.
03:08The voice I'm hearing aloud can't pronounce R's, it can't pronounce shh, it kind of sounds
03:28a bit garbled.
03:43This 2020 class won't just navigate a new normal, together we'll build a better one.
03:50We come to this commencement to search no more.
03:53We are the good news that we've been looking for, demonstrating that every desk holds
03:59a dawn disguised within its day.
04:01We don't burst into a new world, we begin it.
04:20I'd still make it to now.
04:22Speaking loud and proud in front of a crowd on a stage where I know I am a mighty king,
04:31mightier than before.
04:32I might be working on my roar, but look left, look right, here I am tonight in the spotlight.
04:51Being American is more than a pride we inherit, it's the past we step into and how we repair
04:59it.
05:00We've seen a force that would shatter our nation rather than share it, would destroy
05:05our country if it meant delaying democracy, and this effort very nearly succeeded.
05:13But while democracy can be periodically delayed, it can never be permanently defeated.
05:21Instagram literally is broken, this is not a game, this is not a joke.
05:36I just looked up, I had a million followers because there's so much love and just support
05:42coming via the app.
06:09To not look at the American democracy as something that's broken, but to look at it
06:14as something that's unfinished.
06:16We all here know that there was work to be done and there was more work to do.
06:28We the successors of a country and a time where a skinny black girl descended from slaves
06:35and raised by a single mother can dream of becoming president.