Amanda Gorman, the youngest poet in U.S. history to mark the transition of presidential power, offered a hopeful vision for a deeply divided country on Wednesday (January 20) with her poem “The Hill We Climb”.
Gorman, 22, a Los Angeles resident, joined the ranks of previous inaugural poets Robert Frost, Maya Angelou and Elizabeth Alexander, with a powerful performance at the swearing-in of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.
Her prose summoned images both dire and triumphant – as she told Americans watching at home: “Even as we grieved, we grew.”
Ms Gorman referenced everything from Biblical scripture to Hamilton, and at times echoed the oratory of John F Kennedy and the Rev Martin Luther King Jr.
“Being American is more than a pride we inherit. It’s the past we step into and how we repair it,” Gorman said, in a poem that was greeted with a hail of critical acclaim on social media.
Speaking on the steps of the U.S. Capitol just two weeks after a violent mob laid siege to the seat of American government with Confederate flags, pipe bombs and a noose, Gorman said Americans could rise above the hatred.
“While democracy can be temporarily delayed, it can never be permanently defeated,” she said.
“Let us leave behind a country better than the one we were left. We will raise this wounded world into a wondrous one.”
Gorman was named the first U.S. National Youth Poet Laureate in 2017.
John F. Kennedy, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama also had poets read at their inauguration. Critical acclaim poured from across the country and the political spectrum, including Republican strategist Lincoln Project and Stacey Abrams the Democratic organizer and gubernatorial candidate from Georgia, who said, “Amanda Gorman’s message serves as an inspiration to us all.” Singer Sheryl Crow tweeted: “If the future looks like inaugural poet laureate Amanda Gorman, we are in good shape. Wise and inspiring.”
Background
Gorman told the New York Times that she had not wanted to dwell on the rancour, racism and division of America’s four years under the Trump administration: she wanted to “use my words to envision a way in which our country can still come together and can still heal”. That way would require action, her poem declares: “We lift our gazes not to what stands between us, but what stands before us. We close the divide because we know to put our future first, we must first put our differences aside. We lay down our arms so we can reach out our arms to one another, we seek harm to none and harmony for all.”
Gorman knows the importance of taking action to make the change you want to see. Raised in Los Angeles by a single mother, Joan Wicks, a middle-school English teacher, Gorman overcame daunting obstacles to forge her path. Amanda and her twin sister Gabrielle, an activist and filmmaker, were born prematurely. In kindergarten, the future poet was diagnosed with an auditory disorder that gave her a speech impediment. When she was in third grade, a teacher introduced her to poetry, and it was through writing and reciting poetry that she found her voice.
She found a role model in the poet Maya Angelou, whose autobiography I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings reminded her of her own life, she remarked in one interview: “[Angelou] overcame years of not speaking up for herself, all for the love of poetry.”
Church Goer
We read that in an “inauguration ceremony saturated with the faith, there was one hidden Catholic figure that slipped even my own eye. Most of the world knows that President Biden is a practicing Catholic, and also that Kamala Harris was also sworn in by Catholic Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Many are even aware that Lady Gaga, perhaps the day’s principal musician, is known to attend Mass as well.” This list included also the nation’s youngest poet laureate (and newest celebrity best-seller), Amanda Gorman.
The Outfit
On inauguration day, Gorman wore a ring depicting a caged bird, a gift from Oprah Winfrey that attests to the link the young poet represents between the past and the future.
It not only summoned thoughts of the poet’s first inspiration, Angelou; it reminded anyone looking for portents that Angelou, as the US poet laureate, had also recited a poem to a new president on the Capitol steps: Bill Clinton, in 1993.
One day, Gorman may be the audience, not the author, of such a poem: she has presidential plans. “I am working on hashtags,” she told the Harvard Gazette. “Save the 2036 date on your iPhone calendar.”
Book Seller
Within hours of Wednesday’s delivery, her soul-stirring reading of The Hill We Climb, at the swearing-in of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris had landed the 22-year-old’s two upcoming books at the top of Amazon’s bestseller list.
“I am on the floor. My books are number 1 and number 2 on Amazon after day 1,” the Los Angeles native wrote on Twitter.
Gorman, who described herself as a book worm as a child, overcame a speech impediment in her youth to become the first US national youth poet laureate in 2017.
Full text of the poem
Mr. President, Dr. Biden, Madam Vice President, Mr. Emhoff, Americans and the world.
When day comes we ask ourselves where can we find light in this never-ending shade? The loss we carry a sea we must wade. We’ve braved the belly of the beast. We’ve learned that quiet isn’t always peace. And the norms and notions of what just is isn’t always justice. And yet, the dawn is ours before we knew it. Somehow we do it. Somehow we’ve weathered and witnessed a nation that isn’t broken, but simply unfinished. We, the successors of a country and a time where a skinny black girl descended from slaves and raised by a single mother can dream of becoming President only to find herself reciting for one.
“And yes, we are far from polished, far from pristine, but that doesn’t mean we are striving to form a union that is perfect. We are striving to forge our union with purpose to compose a country committed to all cultures, colors, characters, and conditions of man. And so we lift our gazes not to what stands between us, but what stands before us. We close the divide because we know to put our future first, we must first put our differences aside. We lay down our arms so we can reach out our arms to one another. We seek harm to none and harmony for all. Let the globe, if nothing else, say this is true: That even as we grieved, we grew. That even as we hurt, we hoped. That even as we tired, we tried. That we’ll forever be tied together victorious, not because we will never again know defeat, but because we will never again sow division.
“Scripture tells us to envision that everyone shall sit under their own vine and fig tree and no one shall make them afraid. If we’re to live up to our own time, then victory won’t lie in the blade, but in all the bridges we’ve made. That is the promise to glade, the hill we climb if only we dare it because being American is more than a pride we inherit. It’s the past we step into and how we repair it. We’ve seen a forest that would shatter our nation rather than share it, would destroy our country if it meant delaying democracy. And this effort very nearly succeeded. But while democracy can be periodically delayed, it can never be permanently defeated.
“In this truth, in this faith we trust, for while we have our eyes on the future, history has its eyes on us. This is the era of just redemption. We feared it at its inception. We did not feel prepared to be the heirs of such a terrifying hour, but within it, we found the power to author a new chapter, to offer hope and laughter to ourselves. So while once we asked, how could we possibly prevail over catastrophe? Now we assert, how could catastrophe possibly prevail over us?
“We will not march back to what was, but move to what shall be a country that is bruised, but whole, benevolent, but bold, fierce, and free. We will not be turned around or interrupted by intimidation because we know our inaction and inertia will be the inheritance of the next generation. Our blunders become their burdens. But one thing is certain: if we merge mercy with might and might with right, then love becomes our legacy and change our children’s birthright.
“So let us leave behind a country better than the one we were left. With every breath from my bronze-pounded chest, we will raise this wounded world into a wondrous one. We will rise from the gold-limbed hills of the West. We will rise from the wind-swept Northeast where our forefathers first realized revolution. We will rise from the Lake Rim cities of the Midwestern states. We will rise from the sun-baked South. We will rebuild, reconcile and recover in every known nook of our nation, in every corner called our country, our people diverse and beautiful will emerge battered and beautiful. When day comes, we step out of the shade aflame and unafraid. The new dawn blooms as we free it. For there was always light if only we’re brave enough to see it, if only we’re brave enough to be it.”
Reuters / The Guardian / SKY / New York Times
