Watch Amanda Gorman read her poem, ‘The Hill We Climb,’ at the Biden Inauguration here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZ055ilIiN4&t=6s
Amanda Gorman is the youngest inauguration poet in recent memory.
The 22-year-old from Los Angeles will read a poem at President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration Jan. 20. She joins a modern tradition of poets — including Maya Angelou, Richard Blanco and Elizabeth Alexander, among others — reading their verse for incoming Democratic presidents. The poem she’ll read at the inauguration is titled, “The Hill We Climb.”
In an interview with the PBS NewsHour before the event, Gorman read another poem of hers called “The Miracle of Morning.” It was written last spring, in the early months of the coronavirus pandemic. The poem offers a pocket of hope: “While we might feel small, separate, and all alone,/ Our people have never been more closely tethered.”
Gorman told the NewsHour that the poem took a while to craft.
“I feel like sculpting something out of stone, like you’re just banging the hammer trying to find the shape from within,” she said of her writing process.
Gorman was named the first Youth Poet Laureate of Los Angeles in 2014. Three years later, the Library of Congress announced she would be the country’s first National Youth Poet Laureate.
Photo by Kelia Anne
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