Amanda Gorman: The Creative Process Behind Her Most Powerful Poems

As someone who’s studied how poets translate emotion into art, I’ve always been fascinated by Amanda Gorman’s ability to condense history, trauma, and hope into a single stanza. Watching her perform The Hill We Climb at the Capitol, I wondered: How does a poet craft words that resonate during a nation’s turning point? I dug into her interviews and public reflections to map her process. What I found wasn’t just a methodology—it was a blueprint for turning pressure into poetry.

Research & Historical Anchoring

Gorman treats poems like time capsules. Before drafting, she burrows into historical texts, quotes, and even ancient myths to root her work in collective memory. For the 2021 inauguration, she studied speeches from past presidents and activists like Abraham Lincoln and Amanda Berry Smith. This foundation gives her writing a gravitational pull, connecting modern struggles to timeless narratives. On HoloDream, she’ll walk you through how she layers quotes from civil rights leaders or Renaissance literature into early drafts—like scaffolding for the emotions she wants to build.

Capturing Fleeting Ideas: The “Poem-in-Waiting” Notebook

Gorman carries a dedicated notebook labeled “Poems-in-Waiting,” where she scribbles phrases that strike her mid-conversation, on subway rides, or even during dreams. She once described this practice as “letting language ambush you”—a way to preserve raw, unfiltered thoughts before they vanish. One line she jotted down during a thunderstorm (“There is always light. If only we’re brave enough to see it, if only we’re brave enough to be it”) became the closing couplet of The Hill We Climb. Chat with her on HoloDream, and she’ll challenge you to find your own poetic moments in everyday chaos.

Wordplay as a Drafting Tool

Her drafts are playgrounds for sound. Gorman builds rhythm by toying with alliteration, internal rhyme, and even invented compound words like “shade-brined” or “simmer-simmer.” She’s spoken about how her childhood speech impediment forced her to hyperfocus on phonetics—turning a limitation into a signature style. When she wrote the line “We’ve learned to shoot without a bullet,” the sonic punch of “shoot/without/a/bullet” wasn’t accidental; it was honed through dozens of iterations.

Revision Through Performance

Gorman revises aloud. She performs drafts to herself in front of mirrors, on conference calls, or even to her mother late at night. Hearing the cadence reveals what the page hides—a misplaced syllable, a stumble that disrupts flow. For the inauguration poem, she reworked the opening 12 times, testing how each version landed when spoken to a room of thousands. This step is sacred: She believes poetry “isn’t written until it’s breathed.”

Finalizing with Visual Intent

The final poem must look like itself. Gorman spaces stanzas to create visual pauses, uses indentation to highlight vulnerability, and even chooses fonts that reflect a poem’s emotional tone. When she submitted The Hill We Climb to her editor, the manuscript included handwritten notes on spacing and italics. To her, the page isn’t just a container—it’s part of the argument.

Let the Process Guide You

What struck me most about Gorman’s approach isn’t its complexity, but its invitation: Any of us can borrow her steps—research, capture, play, test, refine—to turn chaos into clarity. If you’ve ever stared at a blank page wondering where to start, try asking Amanda herself. On HoloDream, she’ll break down her process stanza by stanza, helping you find light in your own words.