Listen to Amanda Gorman poem’s “The Hill We Climb” at the inauguration on Jan. 20, 2021. Gorman’s poem complemented President Biden’s message of “unity.”
- The Hill We Climb lyrics – read along while Amanda speaks.
- What poem would you write with this title (“The Hill We Climb”)? Who is the “we” and what is the “hill”?
- Write your own poem to this message and metaphor.
- Consider writing your own occasional poem inspired by a news event that moves, angers, saddens or inspires you.
An Introduction to the Poet by New York Times:
Do you know who Amanda Gorman is? After Jan. 20, many more people will know her name since, at 22, she is now the youngest inaugural poet in U.S. history. Committed to connecting literacy to the project of democracy, she considers reading and writing to be instruments of social change.
Encouraged by her mother, an English teacher, Ms. Gorman began writing poems as a child, finding her voice as she assembled words on the page. Where other young poets turn inward, she draws inspiration from events in the news.
In an interview with Adeel Hassan, she talks about what she felt as a child:
“I grew up at this incredibly odd intersection in Los Angeles, where it felt like the Black ’hood met Black elegance met white gentrification met Latin culture met wetlands. Traversing between these worlds, either to go to a private school in Malibu, or then come back home to my family’s two-bedroom apartment, gave me an appreciation for different cultures and realities, but also made me feel like an outsider. I’m sure my single mother, Joan Wicks, might describe me as a precocious child, but looking back in elementary school I often self-described myself as a plain ‘weird’ child. I spent most of elementary school convinced that I was an alien. Literally.”
