Amanda Gorman Using your voice is a political choice TED

[Music]

[Applause]

i

have two questions for you one

whose shoulders do you stand on and

two what do you stand for

these are two questions that i always

begin my poetry workshops with students

because at times

poetry can seem like this dead art form

for like old

white men who just seem like they were

born to be old like you know

benjamin button or something and i asked

my students these two questions

and then i share how i answer them which

is in these three sentences that go

i am the daughter of black writers were

descended from freedom fighters who

broke their chains and changed the world

they call me and these are words i

repeat in a mantra before

every single poetry performance in fact

i was like doing it in the corner over

there i was like making faces um

and so i repeat them to myself as a way

to gather myself because i’m not sure if

you know

but public speaking is pretty terrifying

um i know i’m on stage and i have my

heels

i look all glam but i’m horrified um

and the way in which i kind of

strengthen myself

is by having this mantra most of my life

i was particularly terrified of speaking

up because i had a speech impediment

which made it difficult to pronounce

certain letters

sounds and i felt like i was fine

writing on the page

once i got on stage i was worried my

words might jumble and stumble what was

the point

in trying not to mumble these thoughts

in my head if everything’s already been

said

before but finally i had a moment of

realization

where i thought if i choose not to speak

out of fear

then there’s no one that my silence is

standing for

and so i came to realize that i cannot

stand standing to the side

standing silent i must find the strength

to speak

up and one of the ways i do that is

through this mantra where i call back to

what i call

honorary ancestors these are people who

might not be related to you by blood

or by birth but who are more than worth

saying their names

because you stand on the shoulders all

the same and it’s only from the height

of these shoulders that we might have

the sight to see the mighty power

of poetry the power of language made

accessible accessible poetry

is interesting because not everyone is

going to become

a great poet but anyone can be and

anyone can enjoy poetry

and it’s this openness this

accessibility of poetry that

makes it the language people poetry has

never been the language barriers it’s

always been

the language of bridges and it’s this

connection making that makes

poetry yes powerful but also makes it

political one of the things that

irritates me to no end is when i get

that phone call and it’s usually from a

white man

and he’s like man amanda we love your

poetry we’d love to get you to write a

poem about this subject but don’t

make it political which to me

sounds like i have to draw a square but

not make it a rectangle

or like build a car and not make it a

vehicle it doesn’t make much sense

because all art is political

the decision to create the artistic

choice to have a voice

the choice to be heard is the most

political act of all

and by political i mean poetry is

political at least

three ways one what stories we tell

when we’re telling them how we’re

telling them if we’re telling them

why we’re telling them so so much about

the political beliefs we have about

what types of stories matter secondly

who gets to have those stories told i’m

talking who is legally allowed to read

who has the resources to be able to

write who are we reading in our

classrooms

says a lot about the political and

educational systems

that all these stories and storytellers

exist in

lastly poetry is political because it’s

preoccupied with people

if you look in history notice that

tyrants often go after the poets and the

creatives first they burn

books they try to get rid of poetry in

the language arts

because they’re terrified of them poets

have this

phenomenal potential to connect the

beliefs of the

private individual with the cause of

change of the public

the population the polity the political

movement and when you leave here i

really want you to try to hear

the ways in which poetry is actually at

the center

on our most political questions about

what it means to be a democracy

maybe later you’re going to be at a

protest and someone’s gonna have a

poster that says

they buried us but they didn’t know we

were seeds

that’s poetry you might be in your u.s

history class and your teacher may play

a video

of martin luther king jr saying we will

be able to hew

out of this mountain of despair a stone

of hope

that’s poetry or maybe even here in new

york city you’re going to go visit the

statue of liberty where there’s a sonnet

that declares as americans

give us you’re tired you’re poor your

huddled masses

yearning to be free so you see when

someone asks me to write a poem

that’s not political what they’re really

asking me is to not ask

charged and challenging questions in my

poetic work

and that does not work because poetry is

always at the pulse

of the most dangerous and the most

daring questions that a nation

or world might face what path

do we stand on as a people and what

future

as a people do we stand for and the

thing about

poetry is that it’s not really about

having the right answers it’s about

asking

these right questions about what it

means to be

a writer doing right by your words and

your actions

and my reaction is to pay honor to those

shoulders of people who use those pens

to roll over boulder so i might have a

mountain of hope

on which to stand so that i might

understand the power of telling stories

that matter no matter what

so that i might realize that if i choose

not out of fear

but out of courage to speak then there’s

something unique that my words can

become

and all of a sudden that fear that my

words my jumble and stumble

go away as i’m humbled by the thoughts

of thousands of stories a long time

coming that i know

are strumming inside me as i celebrate

those people in their time who stood up

so this little black girl could vine

as i celebrate and call their names all

the same these people

who seemed like they were just born to

be bold

maya angelou and ozaki shanghai phyllis

wheatley

lucille clifton gwendolyn brooks joan

wicks audrey lord and so

many more it might feel like every story

has been told before but the truth is

no one’s ever told my story in the way i

would tell it

as the daughter of black writers who

were descended from freedom fighters who

broke their chains and changed the world

they call me i call them and one day

i’ll write a story right

by writing it into tomorrow on this

earth

more than worth standing for