POLITICO
The political roots of Amanda Gorman’s genius
From Maya Angelou to Gil Scott-Heron, the inaugural poet laureate comes from a long line of activist poets of color.
National youth poet laureate Amanda Gorman reads a poem during Joe Biden s inauguration ceremony on the West Front of the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday. | Patrick Semansky-Pool/Getty Images
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At the end of a political era defined
by half-truths, insults and capped by a failed insurrection, poet Amanda Gorman used her words to heal.
Her inaugural poem, “The Hill We Climb” was a poignant recognition of the pain of America’s past particularly its most immediate past and the promise of its future. Wearing a bright-yellow coat and standing in front of a Capitol that just two weeks prior was overrun by enraged and radicalized Trump supporters, she offered hope, self-criticism and self-forgiveness to a country:
An Incomplete List of the Writers, Editors, and Great
Literary Minds We Lost This Year
December 18, 2020
The year is at an end, and I think I speak for pretty much everyone when I say: good riddance. (While we don’t have any guarantee that 2021 will be an improvement, it seems like it would have to be.) Among the many unhappinesses of this year, we lost what seems like an unusually large number of members of the literary community, from poets to novelists to editors to critics to publishers to booksellers. To them, we say a last thank you, and goodbye. They will be missed.