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Who is Amanda Gorman and what inspired her inauguration poem, The Hill We Climb
About two weeks ago, poet Amanda Gorman was struggling to finish The Hill We Climb. She was feeling exhausted, and she worried she wasnât up to the monumental task she faced: composing a poem about national unity to recite at the inauguration of Joe Biden as president.
âI had this huge thing, probably one of the most important things Iâll ever do in my career,â she said in an interview. âIt was like, if I try to climb this mountain all at once, Iâm just going to pass out.â
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Her precocious path was paved with both opportunities and challenges, an early passion for language and the diverse influences of her native city. Gorman grew up near Westchester but spent the bulk of her time around the New Roads School, a socioeconomically diverse private school in Santa Monica. Her mother, Joan Wicks, teaches middle school in Watts. Shuttling among the neighborhoods gave Gorman a window onto the deep inequities that divide ZIP Codes.
“Having a mom who is a teacher had a huge impact on me,” said Gorman, who witnessed her ability to empower young people through language. Long before she began reading her own poetry aloud in grand spaces for grand occasions from the Fourth of July to the inauguration of a new president of Harvard University Gorman was falling in love, simultaneously, with the written and spoken word.
BY JULIA BARAJAS Los Angeles Times
January 21, 2021
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Like most of us, Amanda Gorman has been cooped up in her West Los Angeles apartment binge-watching “The Great British Baking Show” because of the pandemic. Unlike most of us, she got some very exciting news recently via Zoom: She’d been handpicked to read a poem at President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration.
The incoming first lady, Dr. Jill Biden, was a fan of her work, and convinced the inaugural committee Gorman would be a perfect fit.
Gorman, all of 22, became the youth poet laureate of Los Angeles at age 16 in 2014 and the first national youth poet laureate three years later. On Wednesday, she became the youngest poet to recite her work at a presidential inauguration, following in the considerably more experienced footsteps of Maya Angelou and Robert Frost.
Erin Schaff/Pool via Reuters
Books by inaugural poet Amanda Gorman shot to the top of Amazon s bestsellers list.
A division of Penguin Random House will publish two books by Gorman in September 2021. Maya Angelou is cheering – and so am I, Oprah Winfrey wrote on Twitter.
Two upcoming books by inaugural poet Amanda Gorman shot to the top of Amazon s bestsellers list on Wednesday, after the 22-year-old gave a stirring recital of her poem The Hill We Climb to welcome President Joe Biden into office.
A book of poetry, also titled The Hill We Climb, and a picture book, Change Sings: A Children s Anthem, illustrated by Loren Long, were both scheduled to be published in September 2021 by Viking Books for Young Readers, a division of Penguin Random House.
Erin Schaff-Pool / Getty Images
Originally published on January 21, 2021 11:48 am
The morning after her powerful performance of The Hill We Climb at the inauguration of President Biden, poet Amanda Gorman hit another high point: She took the top two slots on Amazon s bestseller list for titles that won t be out until the fall.
At No. 1 is her debut poetry collection, also called
The Hill We Climb, and at No. 2 is a picture book called
Gorman told NPR s Steve Inskeep that she struggled with her inaugural poem at first, because you don t even really know the entry point in which to step into the murk. But the insurrection at the Capitol on Jan. 6 spurred her to finish. I was like, Well, this is something we need to talk about.