At age 22, poet Amanda Gorman, chosen to read at the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden, already has a history of writing for official occasions.
\u201cI have kind of stumbled upon this genre. It\u2019s been something I find a lot of emotional reward in, writing something I can make people feel touched by, even if it\u2019s just for a night,\u201d says Gorman. The Los Angeles resident has written for everything from a July 4 celebration featuring the Boston Pops Orchestra to the inauguration at Harvard University, her alma mater, of school president Larry Bacow.
When she reads next Wednesday, she will be continuing a tradition \u2014 for Democratic presidents \u2014 that includes such celebrated poets as Robert Frost and Maya Angelou.
The latter\u2019s \u201cOn the Pulse of Morning,\u201d 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.
\u201cThe three of us are together in mind, body and spirit,\u201d she says.
Gorman is the youngest inaugural poet in memory, and she has made news before. In 2014, she was named the first Youth Poet Laureate of Los Angeles, and three years later she became the country\u2019s first National Youth Poet Laureate. She has appeared on MTV; written a tribute to Black athletes for Nike; published her first book, \u201cThe One for Whom Food Is Not Enough,\u201d as a teenager, and has a two-book deal with Viking Children\u2019s Books. The first work, the picture book \u201cChange Sings,\u201d comes out later this year.
Gorman says 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, have been aware of her: Gorman says the inaugural officials told her she had been recommended by the incoming first lady, Jill Biden.
She is calling her inaugural poem \u201cThe Hill We Climb\u201d while otherwise declining to preview any lines. Gorman says she was not given specific instructions on what to write, but was encouraged to emphasize unity and hope over \u201cdenigrating anyone\u201d or declaring \u201cding, dong, the witch is dead\u201d over the departure of President Donald Trump.
The siege last week of the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters seeking to overturn the election was a challenge for keeping a positive tone, but also an inspiration. Gorman says that she has been given 5 minutes to read, and before what she described during an interview as \u201cthe Confederate insurrection\u201d of Jan. 6 she had only written about 3 1-2 minutes worth.
The final length runs to about 6 minutes.
\u201cThat day gave me a second wave of energy to finish the poem,\u201d says Gorman, adding that she will not refer directly to Jan. 6, but will \u201ctouch\u201d upon it. She said last week\u2019s events did not upend the poem she had been working on because they didn\u2019t surprise her.
\u201cThe poem isn\u2019t blind,\u201d she says. \u201cIt isn\u2019t turning your back to the evidence of discord and division.\u201d
In other writings, Gorman has honored her ancestors, acknowledged and reveled in her own vulnerability (\u201cGlorious in my fragmentation,\u201d she has written) and confronted social issues. Her poem \u201cIn This Place (An American Lyric),\u201d written for the 2017 inaugural reading of U.S. Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith, condemns the racist march in Charlottesville, Virginia (\u201ctiki torches string a ring of flame\u201d) and holds up her art form as a force for democracy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
At age 22, poet Amanda Gorman, chosen to read at the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden, already has a history of writing for official occasions.\u201cI have kind of stumbled upon this genre. It\u2019s been something I find a lot of emotional reward in, writing something I can make people feel touched by, even if it\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/toptrendingnews.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102404"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/toptrendingnews.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/toptrendingnews.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toptrendingnews.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toptrendingnews.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102404"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/toptrendingnews.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102404\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/toptrendingnews.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toptrendingnews.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toptrendingnews.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}