Amanda Gorman Quotes

Storytelling is the way that unarticulated memory becomes art, becomes artifact, becomes fact, becomes felt again, becomes free. Empires have been raised & razed on much less.

Since the world is round,
There is no way to walk away
From each other, for even then
We are coming back together.
Some distances, if allowed to grow,
Are merely the greatest proximities.

Trauma is like a season, deep & dependable, a force we board our windows against. Even when it passes, it will wail its wild way back to our porch.

Our whole year swallowed, As if by a massive maw. What else could stomach Our hearts, huge with hurt, Everyone & everything hell

That's what only words can do — Prod us toward something new
& in doing so, move us closer -> together.

Erasure demands a lifetime of rehearsal. Do you really understand what it is to be this disposable body. We recognize the sobs now for the flags they were. The jerk of our heads, as if waking from a dream — or a nightmare. You decide. This is not the nation we built, at most not the nation we've known. Know. Oh, no. This is the nation we've sewn. It is our right to weep for the wound we've always been. A silent shock out of the blue: a hand hung to another or a head pillowed by a shoulder is by far worth more than anything we've won or wanted. When told we can't make a difference, we'll still make a sound.

And yes, we are far from polished, far from pristine. But this doesn’t mean we’re striving to form a union that is perfect. We are striving to forge our union with purpose,

We added a thousand false steps To our walk tracker today Because every step we’ve taken Has required more than we had to give.

The future isn’t attained. It is atoned, until It is at one with history, Until home is more than memory, Until we can hold near Who we hold dear.

While we might feel small, separate & all alone, Our people have never been more closely tethered. The question isn’t if we can weather this unknown, But how we will weather this unknown together.