Amanda Gorman is someone we should all know.

She is the youngest poet ever to speak at the inauguration of a United States president, and in 2017 became the first ever to receive the title of National Youth Poet Laureate, then aged just 16.

Amanda is particularly concerned with inequality, feminism, race, and the African diaspora. She became instantly world famous when she recited her poem "The Hill We Climb" at Joe Biden’s inauguration. It had a dramatic impact across the United States, igniting hope after years of turbulence and uniting a nation divided by emphasizing the good in all people.

Amanda Gorman creates hope and empowers people through phrases like:

Somehow we’ve weathered and witnessed a nation that isn’t broken, but simply unfinished.

There is always light. If only we're brave enough to see it. If only we're brave enough to be it.

Her choice of words, and the faith in humanity that echoes through them, mean more than one might appreciate at first glance.

In modern pain research, experts are very aware that the way we talk about pain affects our immune system, nervous system and hormonal system, and through that our experience of pain – its manifestation, intensity, duration.

Pain can burn, stab, cut, shoot, drill. Pain is a knife, a fire, a gun. And the more we use metaphors like these, the more intensely pain is experienced. The opposite is true for words of hope and healing, and thus the media hardly exaggerated when they wrote in unison that Amanda Gorman's poem stitched a divided nation together. One journalist remarked:

“Your words healed our wounds and resurrected our spirits.”

WORDS HAVE THE POWER TO CHANGE REALITY

Words truly have the power to change our reality, so we must choose them carefully.

Whenever I’m writing, I’m looking at the history of words.

The specific history of words in the Inaugural poem was: We have seen the ways in which language has been violated and used to dehumanize.

How can I reclaim English so we can see it as a source of hope, purification and consciousness?

Amanda Gorman sees poetry and language as the beating heart of the movements that have historically changed the world, and in 2016 she founded the non-profit organization One Pen One Page, which promotes literacy and education and runs creative writing programs through which young people address inequality in American society.

She has also published a children's book titled Change Sings, which is written in the form of a hymn that should "remind young readers that they have the power to change the world."

This tribute is to Amanda Gorman for her fight to weave words of hope and healing and optimism into our narratives. Her efforts speak to my own belief in the impact of positive stories about the female body.