The people inauguration poet Amanda Gorman studied ahead of her reading

The youngest inaugural poet in US history said she was inspired by Martin Luther King Jr and Britain’s former prime minister, the late Winston Churchill, as she read “The Hill We Climb”.

Amanda Gorman followed in the footsteps of some of the greatest American wordsmiths, including writer and activist Maya Angelou, who delivered “On the pulse of the morning” for President Clinton in 1993, Richard Blanco who called for “One Today” in 2009 for President Obama, and Robert Frost, the first inaugural poet, who recited “The Gift Outright” at John F Kennedy’s 1961 ceremony.

Standing at the podium in a red headband and a coat in her signature shade of yellow, the 22-year-old from Los Angeles, California, described herself as a "a skinny black girl descended from slaves and raised by a single mother [who] can dream of becoming president, only to find herself reciting for one".