Most of my preparation was stepping into the emotionality of the poem, getting my body and my psyche ready for that moment. But everything was moving so quickly, I actually didn’t get to really sit down with the text until the night before. When I first wrote the poem, I was thinking that in the week leading up to the Inauguration I would be rehearsing every day. But you being the amazing person you are, you always remember. How did you prepare yourself for a moment like that?Įvery time we meet, I secretly hope you forget me because then I get a clean slate. I have to say I felt proud too you’ve always had so much poise and grace, but seeing you address the whole country like that, I couldn’t help thinking to myself: Well, this girl has grown all the way up. It was your presence onstage, the confidence you exuded as a young Black woman helping to turn the page to a more hopeful chapter in American leadership. The power of your words blew me away-but it was more than that. We are striving to forge our union with purpose.Like the rest of the country, I was profoundly moved as I watched you read your poem “The Hill We Climb” at last month’s Inauguration. But this doesn’t mean we’re striving to form a union that is perfect. “And yes, we are far from polished, far from pristine. While Biden’s theme for the inauguration was unity, Gorman gave it more weight with her poem. “I don’t want to say that my poem took a drastic left turn, because it was already going towards a location, but those events just solidified for me how important it was to have a poem about unity and the new chapter of America in this inauguration,” she told the NewsHour. 6, she was about halfway through her poem. When the pro-Trump insurrectionists attacked the U.S. The Los Angeles native told the PBS NewsHour days before the ceremony that she started writing the new poem in early January, shortly after being invited to present an inauguration poem. Gorman, describing herself, nodded to the fact that 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.”
WATCH: Poet Amanda Gorman on how she prepared for Inauguration Day Of this group of esteemed poets, Gorman is the youngest in recent memory to read a poem on Inauguration Day. The 22-year-old poet was the latest to follow in a tradition of poets - including Robert Frost, Maya Angelou, Elizabeth Alexander, and Richard Blanco - who have read for incoming Democratic presidents. Capitol, which two weeks ago was attacked by a largely white pro-Trump mob, and reminded us that “Somehow, we’ve weathered and witnessed / A nation that isn’t broken, but simply unfinished.”
Amanda Gorman opened her inauguration poem, “The Hill We Climb,” with a question.Īddressing newly sworn in President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, those of us watching, and the world, she said:
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