You do YOU, Ms. Poet.
Amanda Gorman has been writing poetry for so long, she can’t even remember what her first piece was. Now the 20-year-old is the first-ever U.S. National Youth Poet Laureate — a job that involves writing (obviously!) as well as speaking with educators, students and organisations across the country about the importance of poetry, arts education and literacy.
She also works to perform poetry in places where you might not expect it, like on MTV or at the launch of a Revlon Campaign. “I’ve hoped through my tenure that I’ve been able to bring youthful poetry into new, unexpected places, and showed young poets that they deserve to be heard and respected,” Amanda says.
Now, she’s encouraging her generation to do the same. Here’s her advice on writing poetry that matters.
If everything is political, then art definitely is. And poetry? It puts the capital “P” in personal and political.
As long as poetry has existed, people — especially young people (and particularly women) — have been using it to speak truth to power, to advocate for issues they’re passionate about and to amplify their diverse voices. There are poems about gender and girlhood, like Sarah Kay’s “If I Should Have a Daughter”, self-confidence like Maya Angelou’s “Phenomenal Women”, or even poetry itself (called ars poetica), like Monica Ferrell’s “Poetry”. Take Ziauddin Yousafzai, Malala’s father and an advocate for women, who said, “Don’t ask me what I did. Ask me what I did not do. I did not clip her wings.” It doesn’t get more powerful and poetic than that.
Even if you know that you want to make a difference, you might be asking yourself, “How do I actually get it done?” Well, I might not have all the answers. But as the United States Youth Poet Laureate and founder of One Pen One Page — an organization dedicated to elevating the voices of youth through writing and creativity — I have some experience writing poems on contemporary issues.
Amanda Gorman is a rising junior at Harvard University and founder of One Page, One Pen. She is the first U.S. National Poet Laureate and plans to run for president in 2036.
Source: malala.org
