Amanda Gorman: Innauguration Poet
Amanda Gorman was writing a new poem two weeks ago called “The Hill We Climb.” Feeling tired, she was concerned that she might not have enough energy to complete the monumental task of writing a poem about national unity for President-elect Biden’s inauguration.
“I had this huge thing, probably one of the most important things I’ll ever do in my career,” she said in an interview. “It was like, if I try to climb this mountain all at once, I’m just going to pass out.”
Gorman had not finished the poem when pro-Trump rioters smashed into the halls of Congress, several of them carrying Confederate flags. Throughout the night, Gorman added verses to her poem to depict what transpired that day in the Capitol.
At 22, Gorman is a member of a unique group of poets recruited by the White House to write a presidential inauguration poem, following Robert Frost, Maya Angelou, Miller Williams, Elizabeth Alexander, and Richard Blanco.
But Gorman faced unique challenges not faced by her predecessors. Her poem didn’t just acknowledge Trump’s incitement of violence but also inspired hope when our country is reeling from a deadly pandemic and barbarian hordes of white supremacists.
She also took cues from people like Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, Winston Churchill, and Martin Luther King, Jr., all of whom understood how to call for hope and unity in times of despair and division. Gorman said she studied these speakers’ works to examine how rhetoric can be used for good.
She read her poem with unshakable poise, speaking to “a force that would shatter our nation rather than share it” and “destroy our country if it meant delaying democracy.” It continued: “This effort very nearly succeeded/But while democracy can be periodically delayed, it can never be permanently defeated.”
She told the New York Times: “Now more than ever, the United States needs an inaugural poem . . . . Poetry is typically the touchstone that we go back to when we have to remind ourselves of the history that we stand on, and the future that we stand for.”