22-year-old poetry phenom Amanda Gorman lights up social media after inauguration
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Amanda Gorman, 22, the country's first National Youth Poet Laureate, referenced everything from scripture to "Hamilton" — and echoed JFK and MLK — in a performance at the Biden-Harris swearing-in that captivated America.
Driving the news: In less than 24 hours, the L.A. resident went from under 100,000 Twitter followers @TheAmandaGorman to 1.1 million. She went from 206,000 Instagram followers to 2.2 million.
A pair of books Gorman has coming in September hit No. 1 and No. 2 on Amazon.
- Penguin Young Readers said her inauguration poem will be published in a special edition this spring
With urgency and assertion, AP's Hillel Italie writes, Gorman began "The Hill We Climb," by asking: "Where can we find light / In this never-ending shade?"
We, the successors of a country and a time,
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.
Gorman helped inspire — along with Vice President Harris — the Twitter hashtag "#BlackGirlMagic."
