Amanda Gorman, Inaugural National Youth Poet Laureate
We were blown away by Amanda Gorman's reading at the 2021 Presidential Inauguration. Amanda is the youngest inaugural poet in US History. She was born in Los Angeles. After graduating cum laude from Harvard, she moved back to LA. She was named the first ever National Youth Poet Laureate of the United States in 2017. Amanda has two books coming out this fall: a picture book called Change Sings, illustrated by the marvelous Loren Long, and a collection of poems -- including the one she performed at the inauguration -- called The Hill We Climb. Both books are scheduled to publish in September, and you can pre-order them here now.
NEWS FLASH: The publisher has just announced that due to overwhelming demand, Penguin Young Readers will publish a special hardcover edition of “The Hill We Climb,” the poem written and delivered by Amanda Gorman at the Inauguration. This will be a small, hardbound gift book and is scheduled to publish in mid-March. It will only contain that single poem, along with an introduction by Oprah Winfrey. The anthology in September will include that poem along with others by this wonderful young poet.


