![]() ![]() Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden, Poet Laureate Tracy K. You can read a transcript of “The Hill We Climb” through The Guardian website. ( Note: An official transcript of Amanda’s poem is not currently available, so her intended line breaks for “The Hill We Climb” are not yet known.) When day comes, we step out of the shade, aflame and unafraid. That is the promise to glade, the hill we climb, if only we dare.”Īt the end of the the poem Amanda returns to her initial question of how to “find light” during difficult times: “If we’re to live up to our own time,” the poem pronounces, “then victory won’t lie in the blade, but in all the bridges we’ve made. The poem, hewing closely to the larger theme of Biden’s inaugural ceremony, “ America United,” is an address to all Americans to come together to face and overcome the challenges before us. Photo courtesy of Corinna Schutte, Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies.Īmanda’s poem begins with a question: “When day comes we ask ourselves, where can we find light in this never-ending shade?” then proceeds to trace the pitfalls and promises of our country, a country that “isn’t broken but simply unfinished,” a country “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.” (Amanda herself has presidential aspirations.) ![]() Inaugural Poet Amanda Gorman gestures while reading her poem “The Hill We Climb” at the 2021 presidential inauguration. The events spurred her to finish the poem late that night, with several news lines alluding to what had transpired. As reported by The New York Times, Gorman had completed about half of the poem when the January 6 events unfolded at the U.S. Gorman, as befitting a Harvard alumna, conducted preliminary research by reading the poems of previous inaugural poets (and talking to two of them, Richard Blanco and Elizabeth Alexander) and studying speeches of famous orators such as Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Winston Churchill. Gorman’s performance was one of the rare times in contemporary American society when poetry took center stage across the nation, and Gorman used the opportunity to deliver, as she described in an interview with Anderson Cooper, a “message of hope, unity, and healing.”Ĭomposing the poem on such short notice-she was invited to serve as inaugural poet in late December-and during such challenging times, was no small task. You can watch a video of Gorman’s recitation below: Her inaugural poem, “ The Hill We Climb,” captured viewers across the country, and made her an overnight literary sensation. ![]() Gorman, 22, became the 6th and youngest poet to recite a poem at a presidential inauguration. If you didn’t know who Amanda Gorman was before Wednesday, you do now. ![]()
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