The life of Amanda Gorman

Brut America

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.

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