22-year-old Amanda Gorman becomes the youngest inaugural poet in history as she read her original, “The Hill We Climb”, at the 59th presidential inauguration. 

Gorman was faced with a challenge of its own sorts as she strove to create a piece of inspiration and hope along with determination in light of recent events. Getting inspiration from the riot on Capitol Hill that took place on January 14, 2021, this young poet stayed up the entire night and managed to compose beautiful verses depicting American nationalism with undertones of foreshadowing. “It was like, if I try to climb this mountain all at once, I’m going to pass out,” she said during a New York Times interview. The riot at the capitol had shaken the views of multiple across the nation, but Gorman was able to harness the energy and input it into her work. 

Her poem, “The Hill We Climb”, is incorporated with all the feelings 2020 brought forth including reactions about the pandemic, Black Lives Matter protests, and the presidential election. She started off the poem by describing what it means to be a young black girl in the modern world struggling to reach goals which then transitions into the state of the country. She continually signifies words of ultimate hope and reconciliation as she steadily worked her way through her masterpiece. 

Gorman had been named America’s First Youth Poet Laureate at age 19 while attending Harvard University. She had also been named Youth Poet Laureate of Los Angeles at 16, which gave her leeway into a world of this prestigious art. Growing up with a mother who taught English, Gorman claims that poetry was her weapon and she had to breathe life and voice into her words. She had been diagnosed with a speech impediment all her life which proved to be somewhat of a struggle, but persevering took her to major places.

This September, Gorman has her first book releasing, also titled, “The Hill We Climb” along with her children’s book, “Change Sings”. Her poem performed today is also being published by Penguin Young Readers with a first printing worth $100,000. Gorman’s long-term plans for the future included running for president in 2036. 

“The Hill We Climb”

Amanda Gorman 

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’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.

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 a union with purpose, to compose a country committed to all cultures, colors, characters and conditions of man.

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, 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 should make them afraid. If we’re to live up to our own time, then victory won’t lie in the blade, but in in all of the bridges we’ve made.

That is the promise to glade, the hill we climb if only we dare it because being American is more than a pride we inherit, it’s the past we step into and how we repair it. We’ve seen a force that would shatter our nation rather than share it. That would destroy our country if it meant delaying democracy, and this effort very nearly succeeded. But while democracy can periodically be delayed, but 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 in its inception 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 can 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 burden. 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 birthright.

So let us leave behind a country better than the 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 from the golden hills of 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 sunbaked 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 the 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.