The Hill We Climb
That is the name of the poem that the nation's first Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman recited at the inauguration of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. Her reading has been applauded all around the nation for being strong, poignant and meeting the moment. Celebrities were impressed and awed all over Twitter. We too were amazed at how breathtaking her words were and as one BBC reporter put it "Amanda Gorman delivered her piece with grace, the words it contained will resonate with people the world over: today, tomorrow, and far into the future."
Amanda Gorman is an award winning writer, studied Sociology at Harvard, and has every intention of running for president in 2036 when she is old enough to do so. Watching Kamala Harris be sworn into office helped fuel that ambition even more. As she told the Los Angeles Times, "There’s no denying that a victory for her is a victory for all of us who would like to see ourselves represented as women of colour in office, it makes it more imaginable."
Watch the full reading below, captured through ABC News. The Hill provides a transcript of the poem here.
Excerpt:
"And yet the dawn is ours
before we knew it
Somehow we do it
Somehow we've weathered and witnessed
a nation that isn’t broken
but simply unfinished
We the successors of a country and a time
Where a skinny Black girl
descended from slaves and raised by a single mother
can dream of becoming president"
Learn more about Amanda Gorman by visiting her website here.
