Amanda Gorman: Who is the 22-year-old poet who read at Joe Biden’s inauguration
Gorman was not given specific instructions on what to write, but was encouraged to emphasise unity and hope
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Amanda Gorman has become the youngest ever poet to read at a presidential inauguration, with a message of unity at the swearing-in of Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.
At age 22, the artist has made news before, previously being named the first Youth Poet Laureate of Los Angeles in 2014 and later becoming the country’s first National Youth Poet Laureate.
She has appeared on MTV; written a tribute to Black athletes for Nike; published her first book, The One for Whom Food Is Not Enough, as a teenager; and has a two-book deal with Viking Children's Books. The first work, the picture book Change Sings, comes out later this year.
The Los Angeles resident has written for everything from a 4 July celebration featuring the Boston Pops Orchestra to the inauguration at Harvard University, her alma mater, of school president Larry Bacow.
“I have kind of stumbled upon this genre. It’s been something I find a lot of emotional reward in, writing something I can make people feel touched by, even if it's just for a night,” Gorman told The Associated Press in a recent interview.
As she read on Wednesday, she continued a tradition – for Democratic presidents – that includes such celebrated poets as Robert Frost and Maya Angelou. The latter's “On the Pulse of Morning”, written for the 1993 inauguration of President Bill Clinton, went on to sell more than 1 million copies when published in book form. Recent readers include poets Elizabeth Alexander and Richard Blanco, both of whom Gorman has been in touch with.
“The three of us are together in mind, body and spirit,” she said.
Gorman said she was contacted late last month by the Biden inaugural committee. She has known numerous public figures, including former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and former first lady Michelle Obama, but says she will be meeting the Bidens for the first time. The Bidens, apparently, are already fans: Gorman says the inaugural officials told her she had been recommended by the incoming first lady, Jill Biden.
Her poem was called “The Hill We Climb”. Gorman says she was not given specific instructions on what to write, but was encouraged to emphasise unity and hope over “denigrating anyone” or declaring “ding, dong, the witch is dead" over the departure of President Donald Trump.
The final length ran to about six minutes.
In other writings, Gorman has honoured her ancestors, acknowledged and revelled in her own vulnerability ("Glorious in my fragmentation," she has written) and confronted social issues. Her poem “In This Place (An American Lyric)”, written for the 2017 inaugural reading of US Poet Laureate Tracy K Smith, condemns the racist march in Charlottesville, Virginia ( “tiki torches string a ring of flame”) and holds up her art form as a force for democracy, reading:
Tyrants fear the poet.
Now that we know it
we can’t blow it.
We owe it
to show it
not slow it
Gorman has rare status as a poet, and has dreams of other ceremonies. She would love to read at the 2028 Olympics, scheduled to be held in Los Angele. In 2037, she wouldn't mind finding herself in an even more special position at the presidential inauguration – as the new chief executive.
“I'm going to tell Biden that I’ll be back,” she said with a laugh.