YouSaid · the spoken record

Amanda Gorman

lines on the record: 63
first: 2023-01-19
most recent: 2023-01-19
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Oh, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, school can be a very cruel place if ye are different or other. I will say I was very fortunate that I had the support of my family and my friends and my educational environment was incredibly encouraging. But every single time I met someone who was new or a stranger who let's say hadn't been introduced to my different way of speaking, I would constantly get met with where are you from because you can't be from here because you speak different from me. I'd say I'm from LA and they'd go, no, where are you really from?”
2023-01-19 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 518 — Amanda Gorman · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Or recite poetry exactly. And so this was a challenge which, you know, existed in my life for several sub-years, you know, the two decades of my life. And I remember just really deep periods of frustration because I love poetry so much and I love it on the page, but I also love the way it feels in your mouth. adore something so much and to have an impediment which keeps you from accessing that power in a way. I think that was something that really caused me a lot of pain as I was, you know, aspiring to be a poet. Over time, however, when I...”
2023-01-19 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 518 — Amanda Gorman · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And to be honest with you, it's a mountain that I'm still climbing. I think I've gone into a specific hilltop that I appreciate. But, you know, ever since I could remember, I struggled with speech, specifically any versions of the R sound. That could be ur, that could be r that could be ear, that could be R or all these kind of different variations, whether it's in the beginning, middle, or end. And as you can imagine, that becomes very hard when you're attempting to speak the English language or say words like your last name, which is Gorman, or say things like poetry. Or recital.”
2023-01-19 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 518 — Amanda Gorman · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“To help students write, they have this idea that if they don't want to write about a red wheelbarrow, their poetry is disqualified, that they're not allowed to write about race or gender or change or the environment. And so I guess it's less so me trying to criticize something and me trying to open up space for new voices in poetry who want to write beyond the themes of the classics.”
2023-01-19 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 518 — Amanda Gorman · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They're all dead, yeah, yeah. I don't have to say that. I love Shakespeare, which always wasn't the case. And I think that. Critique that you're getting to, which I forget where I exactly said that, but I think I was more so pushing back on the hegemonic white male dominance of poetry in which it was mostly understood through this idea of, let's say leisure in a natural space. That is to say, if you ask a share proper to write a poem about the land and do write someone who's never asked someone who's never worked in a field before to write a poem about the land, they can write incredibly different things, incredibly beautiful things, but what those differences can tell us is who historically have been the tillers and the workers of the land in the United States, which was built on a system of slavery. So that is to say, I love classical poetry, but I get frustrated because when I show up to the classroom,”
2023-01-19 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 518 — Amanda Gorman · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“WIFRS should first say, I love classical poetry. I love Homer. I love Ovid. I love the Aeneid. I love all of those kinds of things. They're all day.”
2023-01-19 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 518 — Amanda Gorman · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Bestowed upon me is this understanding that words have origins and they have past and histories that we need to speak to in order to envision a better future. So I'm glad to say by me becoming a poet, I think she's warmed up a little bit more to genre outside of what you would typically read. Yeah.”
2023-01-19 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 518 — Amanda Gorman · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We'll do her next week. Exactly. I think that would have to be a really good in depth conversation for me to have with her. What I will say about my mom, which I find absolutely really funny, is my mom loves language, but growing up, I'm not sure I would have considered her the biggest fan of poetry. I think a lot of the literature my mom took in when she was young and she would count these stories to me is she loved romance novels, she loved kind of thick fiction. She also really loves history books. So any biography on Lincoln, any biography on grants she would read. And I do think that I absorbed that in a way because I try to ground my poetics in a passion for history and in an understanding of the past. And so I think what she”
2023-01-19 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 518 — Amanda Gorman · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, absolutely. And I think that can be said for so many other people's caregivers in their lives. I think with my mom, as I was growing up, watched her not only teach but get her master's, get her doctorate degree in education. And so I was witnessing someone who was bringing joy and life and support into her family while juggling that with her education and with her own career. I think what that taught me is that Wouldn't have to sell myself short in life to be a good daughter, a good woman, or even potentially a fantastic mother that I could be a poet and still have a personal life.”
2023-01-19 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 518 — Amanda Gorman · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's me, my mom, and my twin sister were kind of what I call the woman Trinity, I think, growing up together and having such a female household has made us the feminists and the woman that we are.”
2023-01-19 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 518 — Amanda Gorman · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You know, for me, I like to focus what I talk about on my mom because I would rather elevate and celebrate her for being present than to center conversation around someone who's not there.”
2023-01-19 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 518 — Amanda Gorman · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, thank you so much for that question. I guess reading the conversation in, I think, my light, because I don't think that always happens. I think sometimes when someone can gain visibility at a very unique moment in their lives, sometimes it just takes, I think, a little bit more of a wider perception to say, hey, this didn't begin that day or that inauguration. There was a journey and a life and a person behind that poem. And so when people, I think, have inquiries about that and are interested not just in my words, but in who I am as a person, I'm always so grateful for that to give you a little details about my family. My family's very cookie. As I mentioned in my poem, I was raised by an incredible, strong, intelligent, single mother who also happens to be an English teacher. And I think what that meant for me.”
2023-01-19 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 518 — Amanda Gorman · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Mr. President, Dr. Biden, Madam Vice President, Mr. Mhoff, Americans, and the world. One day comes we ask ourselves, where can we find light in this never ending shade? The loss we carry a sea we must wade, we've braved the belly of the beast, we've learned that quiet isn't always peace in the norms and notions of what just isn't always just is the dawn is hours before we knew it somehow we do it, somehow we've weathered and witnessed a nation that isn't broken but simply unfinished we the successors of a country In the time where a skinny black girl descended from slaves and raised by a single mother can dream of becoming president, only to find herself reciting for one.”
2023-01-19 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 518 — Amanda Gorman · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source