American poet and activist Amanda Gorman captured the hearts of not just Americans, but the whole world, at President Joe Biden‘s recent Inauguration ceremony when she performed a stirring poem. And so, it’s no surprise that she’s gracing the cover of TIME’s latest Issue: “The Black Renaissance”, a special project created in collaboration with Ibram X. Kendi.

For TIME’s new cover, Amanda Gorman who was the first person to be named National Youth Poet Laureate joins former US First Lady Michelle Obama in a conversation about creativity, art, identity, optimism, the recent Inauguration among other things.

“We’re living in an important moment in Black art because we’re living in an important moment in Black life,” Gorman says. “What’s been exciting for me is I get to absorb and to live in that creation I see from other African-American artists that I look up to. But then I also get to create art and participate in that historical record,” Amanda says.