Poet Laureate Wows on Inauguration Day
During the inauguration of President Joe Biden on January 20th, 2021, Amanda Gorman entranced the American people in a powerful poem of hope and agency in the face of division and stagnancy. Overnight, she became the focal point of the discussion of the inauguration and the beginning of a new chapter of the nation. Amanda Gorman grew up in Los Angeles, California. From a young age, she found power in writing and she was eventually named the first national youth poet laureate. Afterwards, she went on to study sociology at Harvard University where she graduated in 2020 amidst the pandemic. Influenced by the diverse region of Los Angeles and her time at Harvard University, social issues such as racial inequalities and feminism have always been at the forefront of her work and activism as she sought to inspire and empower young people through language. When she was chosen to read her poem “The Hill We Climb” by President Joe Biden and Dr. Jill Biden at the inauguration, she demonstrated empowerment and resonated as an emblem of hope and strength amidst a nation of chaos. Not only was the poem itself empowering, but also her strong delivery. As a powerful and intelligent Black woman, she gave a triumphant voice to a generation of hope that she calls to “rebuild, reconcile, and recover” the nation. Completely relevant to the current events, her poem encapsulates her witnesses of the events of a nation that “isn’t broken/but simply unfinished” and is “bruised but whole”. What makes her poem especially powerful is that she recognizes the current state of the nation and its history without surrendering to static discontent and instead encourages agency for bettering the nation. She is able to bridge the past, present, and future together in order to encourage hope for change by saying that “being American is more than a pride we inherit, /it’s the past we step into/and how we repair it”. Through this, she encourages our immersion into a project to rebuild and repair the nation instead of surrendering to intimidation. She consistently encourages that we move forward because “we know our inaction and inertia/will be the inheritance of the next generation/Our blunders become their burdens”. Amanda Gorman’s poem is a clear call for urgent action and perfectly solidifies our place in time and our responsibility to leave the nation a better place than that which we inherited. She used her language and strong delivery to empower the young people of the nation by placing an inherited responsibility to build a better nation that is in accordance with the legacy we want. It’s our duty to form a more perfect nation out of hope. As she puts it, “there is always light, /if only we’re brave enough to see it/if only we’re brave enough to be it”. Amanda Gorman’s reading encouraged a spirit of hope. The very prominence of her reading in conversations following the inauguration is symbolic of the nation’s desire to come together and begin a new chapter committed to the nation’s building.