America's First Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman on the Power of Young Women

For Amanda Gorman, TV was limited in her household when she was growing up, so she got creative and started writing poetry at age eight. Today the sociology major at Harvard University is the first-ever Youth Poet Laureate of the U.S. and has read her work at the Library of Congress and on MTV. She can say that Hillary Clinton and Cynthia Erivo are fans. Her poem “In This Place (An American Lyric)” was acquired by the Morgan Library and Museum in New York City, where it is on display alongside works by Elizabeth Bishop.

And now she can count herself as one of Glamour's 2018 College Women of the Year, along with nine other change-makers. As you can see, Gorman's not your average 20-year-old.

Due to a speech impediment, speaking up for Gorman wasn't always easy. But she made her voice heard by reading and writing.

"You don’t have to be a poet, you don’t have to be a politician or be in the White House to make an impact with your words," she says. "We all have this capacity to find solutions for the future."

In an original poem for Glamour celebrating this year's College Women of the Year, Gorman says:

When I see young women, I see their glow From their impact, how they act what they do and what they know

It’s a kind of sheen that can’t be seen in glass, diamond, or dew drops But the light of a wave of girls who refuse to be stopped

We don’t need permission for our mission to make change, To be ourselves, unapologetically confident, beautifully strange

We’re a dawn of a billion beams, that radiant gleam The stardust of a girl following her dreams

You can’t steal this sparkle of mine It only comes from a woman letting herself shine

Hear Gorman read her poem in the video above and read about all 10 winners of Glamour's College Women of the Year competition here.