Poetry: America's 1st National Youth Poet Laureate is a Black woman

his past April, Amanda Gorman of Los Angeles was named the inaugural National Youth Poet Laureate of the United States for "a history of artistic success, social justice, and youth leadership."

Before that, in 2015, Gorman published her first book, a poetry collection titled "The One for Whom Food is Not Enough." In addition to becoming a published author before graduating high school, Gorman is also the executive director of One Pen One Page, a non-profit organization promoting literacy and leadership thorough creative writing workshops. She's previously served as a United Nations Youth Delegate and introduced Hillary Clinton at this year's Vital Voices Global Leadership Awards. Amanda is 19 years old.

She spoke with Broadly about what it means to be the first ever Youth Poet Laureate of the US and her hopes for the upcoming year.

BROADLY: Looking back at 2017, what work are you most proud of?AMANDA GORMAN: It would have to be becoming the first Youth Poet Laureate of the United States in April. Since becoming Youth Poet Laureate, I’ve been doing a lot of traveling and speaking to young people, having meetings with educators and administrators. It’s also included a lot of writing for myself but also for anthologies and other publications and a lot of press and interviews as well. I enjoy doing interviews not necessarily for myself but because it’s an opportunity for me me to speak about issues that I’m passionate about.

What type of issues are you highlighting with your platform?Everything. But If I had to narrow it down: education, equality and the environment.

Has the election of President Donald Trump heightened your passion about those issuesAs a black woman, these are issues I’ve always been passionate about. But what I have noticed nationally and globally is that with the rise of white nationalism and elections going the way that a lot of people don’t want them to go, young women are being inspired to take on leadership positions to become active and to develop their political voice. That’s something I want to see from women whether you’re white or black, Republican or Democrat, I think across the board we need more representation of women voices and leadership. Personally, I’ve been seeing people realize what issues they are passionate about and working for them. This summer during my travels, I met a wide group of activists, artists, feminists, creatives who are doing all that they can to speak out and stand up.

Your poetry collection, "The One for Whom Food is Not Enough" explores themes of race, adolescence, and feminism. Since publishing your first collection in 2015, have you seen your poetry subjects evolve?My writing is always evolving, to fit the moment and time, and to fit the issues. I hope that 40 years from now, gender disparity isn’t so prevalent that I have specifically for education. I will always be passionate about fairness and equality.