Meet Glamour's 2018 College Women of the Year
Amanda Gorman, 20, Harvard University
TV was limited in the Gorman household, so Amanda and her twin sister got creative: She started writing poetry at age eight, and they’d put on musicals to entertain themselves. “I was an artist and a creator from a young age because I had to be,” Gorman says. But at school kids pointed out that Gorman talked and sounded different because of her speech impediment. “I just told them I was born this way,” she says. “Now experiencing that type of discrimination makes me take pride in having a marginalized voice.”
Today the sociology major is the first-ever Youth Poet Laureate of the U.S. and has read her work at the Library of Congress and on MTV (Hillary Clinton and actress 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’s on display alongside works by Elizabeth Bishop. Take that, haters.
Inbetween touring the country to read her poetry (one of her recent gigs was performing a poem at an event honoring Lin-Manuel Miranda and Dick Van Dyke at L.A.’s Geffen Playhouse), she runs One Pen One Page, her literary organization that provides free creative resources from students in America and around the world. No pressure, but Gorman also wants to run for president one day.
“It’s not that I want to run; it’s that I’m going to run,” she says. “Seeing the ways that I as a young black woman can inspire people is something I want to continue in politics. I don’t want to just speak works; I want to turn them into realities and actions.”
The 'Glamour' 2018 College Women are fighting hunger, advocating for Dreamers, and helping sick kids. They aren’t waiting for permission to change things; they’re getting it done.
