Amanda Gorman; Inspiring girls all over the world

By Sarah Musa

On January 20, 2021, people from all over the world watched in awe as Amanda Gorman recited a beautiful and inspiring speech; The Hill we Climb. She recited it with emotion, changing the tone of her voice to match the feeling of the poem. This was on Biden’s Inauguration day, where she was chosen from millions of people to recite the poem to symbolize the start of a new time.

Amanda Gorman was just a “skinny black girl with a speech impediment descended from slaves.” She became an inspiration to women and girls all around the world with just a poem and a strong spirit. She became used to people treating her like less when she tried to achieve her dreams because of the color of her skin. She has many inspirational poems that she has shared with the world.

Gorman is also an activist for things like oppression, feminism, race and marginalization. She is the youngest inaugural poet ever. She is also an award winning writer and a graduate of Harvard university. She has many books such as; The Hill we Climb and Other Poems, Change Sings and The Hill we Climb. 

Though she started out as just a young girl from Los Angeles, she began writing inspirational and amazing poems. She has won many awards including an invitation to perform at the Obama White House and for Lin Manuel- Miranda, Hillary Clinton, Malala Yousafzai and many others as well as interviews on The Daily Show by Trevor Noah, New York Times and other news shows. These are her two poems, The Hill we Climb and The Miracle of Morning.

The Miracle of Morning:

I thought I’d awaken to a world in mourning. 

Heavy clouds crowding, a society storming. 

But there’s something different on this golden morning. 

Something magical in the sunlight, wide and warming. 

 I see a dad with a stroller taking a jog. 

Across the street, a bright-eyed girl chases her dog.

A grandma on a porch fingers her rosaries.

She grins as her young neighbor brings her groceries.

 While we might feel small, separate, and all alone,

Our people have never been more closely tethered. 

The question isn’t if we can weather this unknown,

But how we will weather this unknown together.

 So on this meaningful morning, we mourn and we mend. 

Like light, we can’t be broken, even when we bend.

 As one, we will defeat both despair and disease. 

We stand with healthcare heroes and all employees;

With families, libraries, waiters, schools, artists; 

Businesses, restaurants, and hospitals hit hardest.

  We ignite not in the light, but in lack thereof, 

For it is in loss that we truly learn to love. 

In this chaos, we will discover clarity.

In suffering, we must find solidarity. 

 For it’s our grief that gives us our gratitude, 

Shows us how to find hope, if we ever lose it.

So ensure that this ache wasn’t endured in vain:

Do not ignore the pain. Give it purpose. Use it.

 Read children’s books, dance alone to DJ music.

Know that this distance will make our hearts grow fonder.

From these waves of woes our world will emerge stronger.

 We’ll observe how the burdens braved by humankind 

Are also the moments that make us humans kind;

Let each morning find us courageous, brought closer;

Heeding the light before the fight is over.

When this ends, we’ll smile sweetly, finally seeing 

In testing times, we became the best of beings. 

 April 2020

The Hill we Climb:

We’ve braved the belly of the beast, we’ve learned that quiet isn’t always peace. And the norms and notions of what just is isn’t always justice. 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 only to find herself reciting for one.

And yes, we are far from polished, far from pristine, but that doesn’t mean we are striving to form a union that is perfect. We are striving to forge our union with purpose. To compose a country committed to all cultures, colors, characters and conditions of man.

And so we lift our gazes not to what stands between us, but what stands before us. We close the divide, because we know to put our future first, we must first put our differences aside. We lay down our arms so we can reach out our arms to one another. We seek harm to none and harmony for all.

“Let the globe, if nothing else, say this is true: that even as we grieved, we grew; that even as we hurt, we hoped; that even as we tired, we tried; that we’ll forever be tied together victorious, not because we will never again know defeat but because we will never again sow division. 

Scripture tells us to envision that ‘everyone shall sit under their own vine and fig tree and no one shall make them afraid.’ If we’re to live up to our own time, then victory won’t lie in the blade but in all the bridges we’ve made.

That is the promise to glade, the hill we climb if only we dare it, because being American is more than a pride we inherit – it’s the past we step into and how we repair it. 

We’ve seen a force that would shatter our nation rather than share it, would destroy our country if it meant delaying democracy. And this effort very nearly succeeded. But while democracy can be periodically delayed, it can never be permanently defeated.

In this truth, in this faith we trust for while we have our eyes on the future, history has its eyes on us. This is the era of just redemption we feared at its inception.

We did not feel prepared to be the heirs of such a terrifying hour, but within it we found the power to author a new chapter, to offer hope and laughter to ourselves. So while once we asked ‘how could we possibly prevail over catastrophe,’ now we assert: ‘how could catastrophe possibly prevail over us?’

We will not march back to what was, but move to what shall be: a country that is bruised but whole, benevolent but bold, fierce and free. We will not be turned around or interrupted by intimidation because we know our enaction and inertia will be the inheritance of the next generation.

Our blenders become their burdens but one thing is certain: If we merge mercy with might, and might with right, then love becomes our legacy in change, our children’s birthright.

So let us leave behind a country better than the one we were left. With every breath from my bronze-pounded chest, we will raise this wounded world into a wondrous one. We will rise from the gold-limbed hills of the west, we will rise from the winds swept north, east where our forefathers first realized revolution. We will rise from the lake-rinsed cities of the midwestern states. We will rise from the sun-baked South. We will rebuild, reconcile, and recover in every known nook of our nation and every corner called our country, our people diverse and beautiful will emerge battered and beautiful.

When day comes, we step out of the shade, aflame and unafraid. The new dawn blooms as we free it. For there is always light if only we’re brave enough to see it, if only we’re brave enough to be it.”

Sources:

https://www.10tv.com/article/news/politics/national-politics/amanda-gorman-inauguration/65-791fe780-f241-4923-a0ab-1a121c2397a1

https://www.theamandagorman.com/

https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/20/politics/amanda-gorman-inaugural-poem-transcript/index.html

Image from: https://apnews.com/article/poet-laureate-amanda-gorman-inauguration-5c4e371fd0d7566bb742740c2ffb0238