Amanda Gorman Quotes

Some days, we just need a place where we can bleed in peace. Our only word for this is poem.

Love the earth / like we've failed it. To put it plain / we have shipwrecked the earth [...] Listen. [...] / Our future nedds us / alarmed. Man is a myth / in the making. / What is now dust will not return, / not the beloveds / nor their breath [...] / Extinction is a chorus / of quiet punching / that same note.

We destroy everything good just so it will not shame us. How easy it is to both leave & love this place.

through some fictions we find fact; in some fantasies we discover ourselves & then some.

This is the era of just redemption. We feared it at its inception. We did not feel prepared to be the heirs of such a terrifying hour, but within it, we found the power to author a new chapter, to offer hope and laughter to ourselves so while once we asked, "How could we possibly prevail over catastrophe? " Now we assert, "How could catastrophe possibly prevail over us?"

Some griefs, like rivers, are uncross / able. They are not to be waded across / but walked beside. Our loss / colossal & blossomed / is never lost on us....

[from 'Alarum']

Our scars are the brightest Parts of us.

Fundamentally supremacism means doing anything to keep one's soul conceit, even if it means losing one's soul.

It means not wearing the mask that would save you, because it would mean taking off one's privilege.

It means always choosing poisonous pride over preservation,
pride over nation,
pride over anyone or anything.

This realization is not ours.

It is.

If we merge mercy with might, and might
with right, Then love becomes our legacy, And change, our children’s birthright.

Call us an exodus, Plagued ten times over, For all we see is red. Intentional language, like a poem, Is to separate our waters like a gash, To find the sea also grieving & giving Enough to be walked through.

We might not be fully sure of all that we are. & yet we have endured all that we were.

As far away as it is, the late sun looks peelable in our palm. That is to say, distance renders all massiveness carriable.

If we're to live up to our own time,
then victory won't lie in the blade.
But in all the bridges we've made,
that is the promise to glade,
the hill we climb.
If only we dare.
It's because being American is more than a pride we inherit,
it's the past we step into
and how we repair it.

A virus is fought inside us, While violence is fought amongst us. In both, our triumph is not in conquering others, But conquering the most destructive agents & instincts that we carry Within our mortal forms. Hate is a virus. A virus demands a body. What we mean is: Hate only survives when hosted in humans. If we are to give it anything, Let it be our sorrow & never our skin. To love just may be The fight of our lives.

Never forget that to be alone Has always been a price for some & a privilege for others.