America was introduced to a young Black female poet at the Inauguration of Joe Biden on January 20, 2021. She was Amanda Gorman, a twenty-two-year-old woman who had become the nation’s first National Youth Poet Laureate in 2017 when she was a teenager.
The poem that she recited at the Biden Inauguration was called, “The Hill We Climb.” She delivered it in exquisite tone and clarity and the words rolled off her tongue as she spoke these words:
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.
Jill Biden, had asked Gorman to deliver a poem at the Inauguration in December. She was informed of her selection on December 30, 2020, and was asked to write a poem that contributed to the inauguration's overall theme of "America United", but without any other direction.
Gorman wrote several lines a day and had the poem around half completed when the storming of the United States Capitol occurred on January 6. In an interview with CBS News, she said that the storming marked "the day that the poem really came to life" as she worked the events into it. Gorman finished the poem on the night of January 6.
"The Hill We Climb" was widely praised for its message, phrasing, and delivery. Most considered the recitation one of the highlights of the inauguration. Many felt that the poem represented a call for unity and would remain relevant beyond the inauguration, which is what Gorman later said was her purpose.
Yet not everyone was quite as enthused about her message. In 2023, Gorman's poetry collection The Hill We Climb (published in Sept. 2021) was restricted to an area reserved for middle school students at Bob Graham Education Center in Miami Lakes, Florida. The restriction was based on a complaint to Miami-Dade County Public Schools that the book contains "hate messages” in the passage that was printed here. Other school districts were requested to sequester her book.
Daily Salinas, the mother who requested the removal of the book, also requested the removal of poetry by Langston Hughes and other famous works by people of color. The advocacy group Miami Against Fascism posted photos of Salinas at rallies with members of Proud Boys and Moms for Liberty, a conservative group that has protested school curriculums that mention LGBTQ rights, critical race theory, and other issues. Salinas said that she was not a member of either group, saying she had merely attended rallies where their members were present.
Amanda Gorman was born in Los Angeles, California in 1998, and was raised by her single-parent mother, Joan Wicks. She has a twin sister, Gabrielle, who is currently an activist and filmmaker. Gorman struggled with an auditory processing disorder as a child and is hypersensitive to sound. She also had a speech impediment during childhood. Gorman participated in speech therapy during her childhood but recounts that she never viewed this as a disability or obstacle.
"I always saw it as a strength because since I was experiencing these obstacles in terms of my auditory and vocal skills, I became really good at reading and writing. I realized that at a young age when I was reciting the Marianne Deborah Williamson quote that 'Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate, our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure' to my mom."
In an interview with CBS News, she noted that she used songs as a form of speech therapy, and explained, "My favorite thing to practice was the song 'Aaron Burr, Sir,' from Hamilton because it is jam-packed with R's. And I said, 'if I can keep up with Leslie in this track, then I am on my way to being able to say this R in a poem."
Her hard work paid off. Gorman attended New Roads, a private school in Santa Monica, for grades K–12. As a senior, she received a Milken Family Foundation college scholarship and went on to study sociology at Harvard College, graduating cum laude in 2020.
While attending Harvard in 2017, Amanda Gorman became the first youth poet to open the literary season for the Library of Congress, and she has read her poetry on MTV. She wrote "In This Place: An American Lyric" for her September performance at the Library of Congress, which commemorated the inauguration of Tracy K. Smith as Poet Laureate of the United States. Part of that iconic poem included these lines:
There’s a poem in Charlottesville
where tiki torches string a ring of flame
tight round the wrist of night
where men so white they gleam blue—
seem like statues
where men heap that long wax burning
ever higher
where Heather Heyer
blooms forever in a meadow of resistance.
As you can see, Gorman's spoken and written word art and activism focus on issues of oppression, feminism, race, and marginalization, as well as the African diaspora. In that same year, while still a student, she became the nation’s first National Youth Poet Laurette.
Not long after her recitation at the Inauguration of Joe Biden, Gorman appeared on the cover of TIME magazine. Yet, within just a few weeks of being on the cover of TIME, she was racially profiled by a security guard near her home. She tweeted later,
"He left, no apology. This is the reality of black girls: One day you're called an icon, the next day, a threat." Later she followed up and added: "In a sense, he was right. I Am a Threat: a threat to injustice, to inequality, to ignorance. Anyone who speaks the truth and walks with hope is an obvious and fatal danger to the powers that be. A threat and proud."
Powerful women especially powerful Black women are a threat to the patriarchy that has maintained the white supremacist status quo in the United States for centuries. Women like Amanda Gorman do indeed make white supremacy quake and lash out in fear.
She uses her powerful voice and creativity to speak out on issues of today and speaks to the conscience of the nation. In the wake of the May 2022 Robb Elementary School shooting in Uvalde, Texas, Gorman published a short poem on Twitter and encouraged action to promote gun safety, as well as penning the poem, “Hymn for the Hurting.” She continued to express her support for Roe v. Wade and abortion rights in a poem posted on Twitter on June 24, 2022, which includes the line, "We will not let Roe v. Wade slowly fade."
Her words in a “Hymn for the Hurting” provided this empathetic vision:
May we not just grieve, but give:
May we not just ache, but act;
May our signed right to bear arms
Never blind our sight from shared harm;
May we choose our children over chaos.
May another innocent never be lost.
Maybe everything hurts,
Our hearts shadowed & strange.
But only when everything hurts
May everything change.
Amanda Gorman is only 26 years old. Our country, and yes, the world will have Gorman and her talent for decades to come. Young people like her, and there are many, provide light and hope in a world that seems dark and confused sometimes. But the words of the poet provide a lamp and a roadway to a better-shared future. Thank you, Amanda Gorman.
If you didn’t get to hear Amanda at the Inauguration, you can see it here:
Here is a book written by Amanda Gorman for children, “Change Sings: A Children’s Anthem.”