Using your voice is a political choice - Amanda Gorman

For anyone who believes poetry is stuffy or elitist, National Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman has some characteristically well-chosen words. According to Amanda, poetry is for everyone, because at its core it's all about connection and collaboration. In this fierce Talk, Amanda explains why poetry is inherently political (in the best way!), she pays homage to her honorary ancestors, and she stresses the value of speaking out despite your fears. "Poetry has never been the language of barriers, it's always been the language of bridges."

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I have two questions for you.

One: whose shoulders
do you stand on?

And two: what do
you stand for?

These are two questions that I always
begin my poetry workshops with students

because at times, poetry can seem
like this dead art form

for old white men who just
seem like they were born to be old,

like, you know, Benjamin
Button or something.

And I ask my students these two questions,
and then I share how I answer them,

which is in these three
sentences that go:

I am the daughter of
Black writers,

who are descended
from Freedom Fighters

who broke their chains
and changed the world.

They call me.

And these are words I repeat in a mantra
before every single poetry performance.

In fact, I was doing it in the corner
over there. I was making faces.

And so I repeat them to myself,
as a way to gather myself,

because I'm not sure if you know,
but public speaking is pretty terrifying.

I know I'm on stage, and I have
my heels, and I look all glam,

but I'm horrified.

And the way in which I kind
of strengthen myself,

is by having this mantra.

Most of my life I was particularly
terrified of speaking up,

because I had a speech
impediment,

which made it difficult to pronounce
certain letters, sounds,

and I felt like I was fine writing on
the page, but once I got on stage,

I was worried my words
might jumble and stumble.

What was the point in trying not to
mumble these thoughts in my head,

if everything's already
been said before?

But finally I had a moment of
realization, where I thought,

if I choose not to
speak out of fear,

then there's no one that my
silence is standing for.

And so I came to realize that I
cannot stand standing to the side,

standing silent.

I must find the strength
to speak up,

and one of the ways I do that is
through this mantra where I call back

to what I call
honorary ancestors.

These are people who might
not be related to you by blood,

or by birth,

but who are more than worth
saying their names,

because you stand on their
shoulders all the same.

And it's only from the height
of these shoulders

that we might have the sight
to see the mighty power of poetry,

the power of language made
accessible, expressible.

Poetry is interesting because not
everyone is going to become

a great poet,

but anyone can be, and
anyone can enjoy poetry,

and it's this openness,

this accessibility of poetry that
makes it the language of people.

Poetry has never been
the language of barriers,

it's always been
the language of bridges.

And it's this connection-
making that makes poetry,

yes, powerful, but
also makes it political.

One of the things that
irritates me to no end,

is when I get that phone call,
and it's usually from a white man,

and he's like, "Man, Amanda,
we love your poetry,

we'd love to get you to write
a poem about this subject,

but don't make it political."

Which to me sounds like,

I have to draw a square,
but not make it a rectangle,

or build a car and
not make it a vehicle,

it doesn't make
much sense,

because all art
is political.

The decision to create, the
artistic choice to have a voice,

the choice to be heard is
the most political act of all.

And by "political" I mean poetry
is political in at least three ways:

One: what stories we tell,
when we're telling them,

how we're telling them,
if we're telling them,

why we're telling them,
says so much about

the political
beliefs we have,

about what types
of stories matter.

Secondly, who gets to
have their stories told,

I'm talking, who is legally
allowed to read,

who has the resources
to be able to write,

who are we reading
in our classrooms,

says a lot about the political
and educational systems,

that all these stories and
storytellers exist in.

Lastly, poetry is political
because it's preoccupied

with people.

If you look at history,
notice that tyrants often go

after the poets and
the creatives first.

They burn books, they try to get rid
of poetry and the language arts,

because they're
terrified of them.

Poets have this phenomenal
potential to connect the beliefs

of the private individual with the cause
of change of the public, the population,

the polity, the political movement.

And when you leave here,

I really want you to try to hear the ways
in which poetry is actually at the center

of our most political questions
about what it means to be a democracy.

Maybe later you're going
to be at a protest,

and someone's going to
have a poster that says,

"They buried us, but they
didn't know we were seeds."

That's poetry.

You might be in your U.S. History class,
and your teacher may play a video

of Martin Luther King Jr. saying:

"We will be able to hew out of this
mountain of despair a stone of hope."

That's poetry.

Or maybe even here,
in New York City,

you're going to go visit
the Statue of Liberty

where there's a sonnet
that declares, as Americans,

"Give us your tired, your poor, your
huddled masses yearning to be free."

So you see, when someone asks me to
write a poem that's not political,

what they're really asking me is to not
ask charged and challenging questions

in my poetic work,
and that does not work,

because poetry is always at the pulse

of the most dangerous and most daring
questions that a nation or a world might face.

What path do we
stand on as a people,

and what future as a
people do we stand for?

And the thing about poetry is that it's
not really about having the right answers,

it's about asking these right questions,

about what it means to be a writer doing
right by your words and your actions,

and my reaction is to pay honor
to those shoulders of people

who used their pens to
roll over boulders

so I might have a mountain
of hope on which to stand,

so that I might understand
the power of telling stories

that matter no matter what.

So that I might realize that
if I choose, not out of fear,

but out of courage,
to speak,

then there's something unique
that my words can become.

And all of a sudden that fear that
my words might jumble and stumble

go away as I'm humbled
by the thoughts

of thousands of stories
a long time coming

that I know are strumming
inside me as I celebrate

those people in their time who stood up
so this little Black girl could rhyme

as I celebrate and call their names
all the same,

these people who seem like they
were just born to be bold:

Maya Angelou,
Ntozake Shange,

Phillis Wheatley,
Lucille Clifton,

Gwendolyn Brooks,
Joan Wicks,

Audre Lorde,
and so many more.

It might feel like every story
has been told before,

but the truth is, no one's ever told my
story in the way I would tell it,

as the daughter of black writers,
who are descended from freedom fighters

who broke their chains
and changed the world.

They call me.

I call them.

And one day I'll
write a story right,

by writing it into a tomorrow on this
Earth more than worth standing for.

Thank you.