The character arc of Amanda Gorman
A life drawn by Character Arc from the public record
Born on 7 March 1998 in Los Angeles, and raised by her single mother, a sixth grade English teacher, with her twin sister and brother. Between then and now sit an auditory processing disorder and a childhood speech impediment, speech therapy done partly by singing, a discovery of Toni Morrison in middle school, a scholarship, a first poetry book at seventeen, a youth writing charity founded at eighteen, the first National Youth Poet Laureate title in 2017, a Harvard degree in 2020, a poem read at a presidential inauguration in January 2021, and a Super Bowl. The line below draws the story so far, in order.
Drag along the line to move, pinch or use the buttons to look closer. Tap the line to pluck it, or any mark for its card. Drawn from the public record of her life; the sources are at the foot of the page.
Who is Amanda Gorman?
She could not say her Rs, so she rapped until she could.
She grew up in Los Angeles with her twin sister and her brother, raised by their mother, a sixth grade English teacher in Watts, in a house with limited television. She has an auditory processing disorder and is hypersensitive to sound, and as a child she had a speech impediment. She had speech therapy, and she has been consistent about how she reads all of it: because she was up against obstacles in hearing and speaking, she became very good at reading and writing, and she has called the impediment a gift and a strength rather than a crutch.
She practised in part by singing. Her favourite thing to work on was a track from a musical that is packed with Rs, on the reasoning that if she could keep up with the performer on that track, she was on her way to being able to say the letter in a poem.
In middle school she found the work of Toni Morrison, and has said she realised then that stories could be about people who look like her. She went to the same private school in Santa Monica from kindergarten to the end of high school, won a foundation scholarship as a senior, and at sixteen was already editing the first draft of a novel she had been writing for two years. At sixteen she was chosen as the first youth poet laureate of Los Angeles. At seventeen she published a poetry book. At eighteen she founded a youth writing and leadership charity.
In April 2017, while at Harvard, she became the first person ever named National Youth Poet Laureate, chosen from five finalists. That year she was also the first youth poet to open the literary season for the Library of Congress, and the poem she wrote for it was later acquired by a New York museum and hung near work by Elizabeth Bishop. She studied sociology, spent a semester in Madrid, and graduated in 2020 with honours.
On 20 January 2021 she read her poem The Hill We Climb at a presidential inauguration, the youngest inaugural poet in the country's history. Two of her books became bestsellers within weeks. Three weeks later she became the first poet to perform at a Super Bowl. A collection followed in December 2021 and won a readers' choice award and a Grammy nomination, she was the first poet to appear on the cover of Vogue, a genus of alga was named after her in 2022, and she has said she turned down seventeen million dollars of endorsement offers that did not speak to her.
The moments
Amanda Gorman's timeline.
The 2000s
A teacher for a mother
Everyday. Not much television, and an English teacher at the kitchen table.
A sound she could not make
Setback, and it changed everything. A child who could not say the letter, deciding it made her a writer.
Hide the voice, or train it
Crossroads, decided.
The paths laid out: work on saying it out loud, taken, or stay on the page. She read aloud at a presidential inauguration and at a Super Bowl in the same month.
Practising the R in a song
Milestone, and it changed everything. She rehearsed the hardest letter in the alphabet by rapping it.
The 2010s
She finds Toni Morrison
Milestone, and it changed everything. One book in a school library, and the writing changed.
A novel at sixteen
Milestone. Two years of a novel, finished before she could drive.
First youth poet of LA
Milestone, and it changed everything. Sixteen years old, and the first the city had ever named.
A book at seventeen
Milestone, and it changed her direction. A published poet before she finished school.
A charity at eighteen
Milestone, and it changed her direction. A scholarship for her, and a writing programme for everyone else.
First National Youth Poet Laureate
Milestone, and it changed everything. The first person in the country ever to hold the title.
The Library of Congress
Milestone, and it changed her direction. A poem written for one night, hung in a museum beside Elizabeth Bishop.
The 2020s
Harvard, with honours
Milestone, and it changed her direction. A sociology degree, a semester in Spain, and honours at the end.
The Hill We Climb
Milestone, and it changed everything. Twenty two years old, one poem, and the largest audience a poem has had.
First poet at a Super Bowl
Milestone, and it changed everything. A hundred million people watching a football game, listening to a poem.
Call Us What We Carry
Milestone, and it changed her direction. A full collection, a Grammy nomination and an Emmy in two years.
Seventeen million turned down
Milestone, and it changed everything. Seventeen million dollars, declined, because the offers were not hers.
A deer on a cinema screen
Milestone. A poet, doing a voice in a cartoon, for the fun of it.
The poems keep arriving and the voice that was slow to come is now the one everybody quotes. What it has set moving is every child in a speech therapy room who has been told their mouth is the problem: she was that child, and she read to the largest audience a poem has ever had.
Your turn
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Hers began with a child who could not say a letter, practising it in a song. Yours is already further along than you think, and drawing it takes about five minutes.
Amanda Gorman: frequently asked questions
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Where does this timeline of Amanda Gorman's life come from?
More character arcs
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Sources
- Amanda Gorman, English Wikipedia biography, filed under living people.
- Her own interviews with The Harvard Gazette in 2018 and an American breakfast programme in 2021, on her speech and her therapy, as quoted there.
- National Youth Poet Laureate records for April 2017 and Library of Congress records for September 2017.
- Her political activity, her stated ambitions and the contested questions she has taken positions on are deliberately left off this page.