By Atakora Appiah- Padi ’20
Amanda Gorman visited Bucknell as a part of the MLK week series. In 2017 Gorman was awarded the national youth poet laureate and has used her platform to advocate for change and human rights.
Her visit to Bucknell consisted of a video presentation of her work, a beautiful 3-part speech broken up by her poems, and finally a question and answer section. The crowd was fully engaged and in awe of the young genius presenting her work. So much so, that Gorman had to encourage the crowd to interact with her as she read her poetry. Giving lessons on snapping and cheering for poetry increased how personable and open she seemed. Gorman’s final poem about the complexity of amerikkkan history coupled with the want to complete MLK’s dream was undoubtedly the most moving of all her poems. The question and answer section consisted more of the crowd getting to know Amanda Gorman with Questions about her inspiration, favorite poet, and dealing with predominately white spaces. By the end of the evening, whether you became a fan of poetry or not, everybody left inspired to create change.