Amanda Gorman, 22, became the youngest inaugural poet in U.S. history after reciting her poem “The Hill We Climb.”
“But while democracy can be periodically delayed, it can never be permanently defeated,” Gorman read. “In this truth, in this faith, we trust.”
Gorman is the current United States Poet Laureate. At age 16, Gorman became the Youth Poet Laureate of Los Angeles and later became the first National Youth Poet Laureate in 2017 as a sociology student at Harvard. First Lady Jill Biden invited Gorman to participate in the inauguration in late December after hearing the poet at the Library of Congress. Gorman immediately made waves following her reading at the inaugural ceremony, becoming the top trending Google search topic in the U.S. Her words rang across the country: “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.”
Call to action: pre-order the debut poetry collection by inaugural National Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman.
