Famous, local poet Nikki Giovanni reacts to Amanda Gorman’s Inauguration Day poem
BLACKSBURG, Va. – Amanda Gorman, the first-ever National Youth Poet Laureate, delivered a moving message on Wednesday during the Inauguration of President Joe Biden. “It really just choked me up,” said Nikki Giovanni about the young woman’s words. Giovanni, a world-renowned poet and a university distinguished professor at Virginia Tech, said that Gorman’s poem is what the nation needed to hear. With the world’s eyes watching, Giovanni said that Gorman delivered the poem with grace. She did wish that the late poet Gwendolyn Brooks, the first African American to win a Pulitzer Prize in 1950, could have been around to hear Gorman’s poem.