A star was born at the inauguration of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.
Amanda Gorman. 22-year old, stole the show as the nation’s first-ever National Youth Poet Laureate (and the youngest) reciting her poem “**The Hill We Climb,”** about the soul of America and our will to save it and be the change. With her words, Gorman painted a picture of the country Biden and Harris’s administration was inheriting but spoke of hope for the country and its future.
The native of Los Angeles was raised by her single mother a 6th grade English teacher, Joan Wicks. She has a twin sister Gabrielle, who is a filmmaker and activist. Gorman was invited to speak at the inauguration by the Inaugural Committee by First Lady Jill Biden when she saw her recite a poem at the Library of Congress.
While pressured to write something inspiring, Gorman hit a roadblock. It wasn’t until she watched a pro-Trump mob descend on the Capitol that she was able to finish “The Hill We Climb.”
The Harvard graduate began writing poetry at an early age and for years grappled with a speech impediment. Yet she labored to perfect sounds most people take for granted.
For much of Gorman’s life, including when she was still an undergraduate, she had trouble pronouncing the letter “R.” To practice saying the letter, she’d listen on repeat to one song she said was “packed with R’s” — Aaron Burr, Sir from Lin-Manuel Miranda’s historical opus “Hamilton.” She thought if she can train herself to do the song and she could try herself to say the letter “R.” Sure enough practicing the fast-paced rhymes worked, and she called it part of her speech pathology.
She included references from the hit musical and received glowing responses from its creator Lin-Manuel Miranda. “You were perfect. Perfectly written, perfectly delivered. Every bit of it. Brava,” he tweeted.
Dressed in a bright yellow Prada coat with a red headband, she paid homage to the Black female poets who came before her by wearing earrings and a birdcage ring (a gift from Oprah), to symbolize I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou, who spoke at President Bill Clinton’s inauguration speech in 1993. Winfrey celebrated Gordon’s accomplishments and posted a photo on Instagram writing, “I have never been prouder to see another young woman rise!”
Gorman’s historic Inauguration Day recital has sparked such a great demand for her work that two of her books shot to the top of Amazon’s bestseller’s list – eight months before they’re published. The books are No. 1 & 2 on the list.
A book based on the poem “The Hill We Climb” was at the top spot within hours with a children’s book “Change Sings: A Children’s Anthem,” was No. 2. Amazon list both is being published in September. The poet says she was driven by the desire to publish a book in which kids could see themselves represented as change-makers in history rather than just observers. “Change Sings” will be illustrated by Loren Long, who created the art in Obama’s “Of Thee I Sing: A Letter to My Daughters.”
Michelle Obama posted on Instagram ” With her strong and poignant words, @amandasgorman reminds us of the power we each hold in upholding our democracy. Keep shining, Amanda! I can’t wait to see what you do next. #BlackGirlMagic
Amanda Gorman wasn’t given any direction in what to write, only that she would be contributing to the event’s theme of “America United.” While speaking with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, she stated: “I felt like that was the type of poem I needed to write, and it was the type of poem that the country and the world needed to hear.” The US Capitol attack influenced her “message of hope and unity and healing.”
The Hill We Climb
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 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 hours 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 lighten 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’s because being American is more than a pride we inherit. It’s the past we stepped into and how we repair it.
We’ve seen a force 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 — at its deception. 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 birth right.
So let us leave behind a country better than 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 through the gold-limbed hills in the west, we will rise from the windswept northeast where our forefathers first realized revolution. We will rise from the lake-rimmed 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 is always light if only we’re brave enough to see it, if only we’re brave enough to be it.
