Celebrate Poetry Month with Poet Amanda Gorman

Poetry has the power to evoke emotions and build relationships. It can provide solace, strength, and joy. When read or shared, poetry creates a sense of community.

To help students discover the role of poetry in their lives and to inspire them to write and perform their own words in the service of positive change, award-winning writer and inaugural poet Amanda Gorman shares her thoughts, recommendations, and resources to help educators make both performance and written poetry more accessible to all.

Recommend Poetry

Amanda Gorman’s Picks

• Change Sings by Amanda Gorman & Illustrated by Loren Long
• Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson 
• The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo
• Love by Matt de la Peña & illustrated by Loren Long
• Life Doesn’t Frighten Me by Maya Angelou; edited by Sara Jane Boyers; and illustrated by Jean-Michel Basquiat
• The Day you Begin by Jacqueline Woodson & illustrated by Rafael Lopez
• Inside Out and Back Again by Thanhha Lai
• Voices in the Air: Poems for Listeners by Naomi Shihab Nye

NEA’s Read Across America Selections 

These titles and resources can help students use poetry to explore how people and places shape their identity, their feelings about where they live, and how they connect with the world around them.

• Change Sings: A Children's Anthem
• Kiyoshi's Walk
• The Poetry of US: More Than 200 Poems That Celebrate the People, Places, and Passions of the United States
• Say Her Name
• Song of the Wild: A First Book of Animals
• They Call Me Güero: A Border Kid’s Poems
• With a Star in My Hand: Rubén Darío, Poetry Hero
• Woke: A Young Poet’s Call to Justice

More Resources for Poetry Month

• Living Nations, Living Words, the signature project of U.S. Poet Laureate Joy Harjo
• The Poetry Foundation
• Poetry Out Loud
• Poets.org
• Reading Rockets National Poetry Month Resources
• Teach this Poem