Originally posted by the Voice of America.
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Poet Amanda Gorman Inspires Young People to Write and Express Themselves

Deborah Block

   WASHINGTON - As 17-year-old Darius Jackson watched TV, listening in
   rapt attention to 22-year-old Amanda Gorman recite her poem The Hill We
   Climb at the inauguration of U.S. President Joe Biden last month, he
   was struck by the "powerful words" of the young Black woman.

   It was a "defining moment in history," said Jackson, who is a high
   school senior at Central Visual and Performing Arts School in St.
   Louis, Missouri.

   With her reading on Jan. 21, televised nationally and across the globe,
   Gorman has singlehandedly lit a firestorm of interest in an art form
   that spans millennia, now drawing a new generation of enthusiasts.

   Jackson told VOA he saw some similarities in her poem to Martin Luther
   King Jr.'s stirring I Have a Dream speech in 1963 that called for an
   end to racism.

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