Youth poet laureate to read at presidential inauguration
NEW YORK — At age 22, poet Amanda Gorman, chosen to read at the inauguration of Presidentelect Joe Biden, already has a history of writing for official occasions.
“I have kind of stumbled upon this genre,” she says. “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.”
The Los Angeles resident has written for everything from a July Fourth celebration to the inauguration of Harvard University President Larry Bacow at her alma mater.
When she reads her poetry Wednesday, she will be continuing 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 contacted.
“The three of us are together in mind, body and spirit,” 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 became the country’s first national youth poet laureate. She has appeared on MTV and written a tribute to Black athletes for Nike. She 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 one, the picture book “Change Sings,” 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 inaugural officials told her that she had been recommended by the incoming first lady, Jill Biden.
She is calling her inaugural poem “The Hill We Climb.” Gorman says she was not given specific instructions on what to write, but was encouraged to
emphasize unity and hope over “denigrating anyone.”
The Jan. 6 siege of the U.S. Capitol by President Donald Trump supporters seeking to overturn the election was a challenge for keeping a positive tone but also an inspiration, she says. Before what she calls “the Confederate insurrection,” she had written only about 3½ minutes of poetry. Now she has about 6 minutes.
“That day gave me a second wave of energy to finish the poem,” says Gorman, adding that she will not refer directly to Jan. 6 but will “touch” upon it. She said the Capitol attack did not upend the poem she had been working on because it didn’t surprise her.
“The poem isn’t blind,” she says. “It isn’t turning your back to the evidence of discord and division.”
In other writings, Gorman has honored her ancestors, acknowledged and reveled in her own vulnerability (“Glorious in my fragmentation”) and confronted social issues. She wrote “In This Place (An American Lyric)” for the inaugural reading of U.S. poet laureate Tracy K. Smith at the Library of Congress in September 2017, a month after a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va. “Tiki torches string a ring of flame” is one line from that poem. She holds up her art form as a force for democracy:
Tyrants fear the poet. Now that we know it / we
can’t blow it.
We owe it / to show it / not slow it
Gorman says she would love to read at the 2028 Olympics, scheduled to be held in Los Angeles. In 2037, she’d like to return to the presidential inauguration — as the new chief executive.
“I’m going to tell Biden that I’ll be back,” she says with a laugh.