Amanda Gorman will make history on Wednesday when she becomes the youngest poet in recent history to read a poem at a presidential inauguration.
Gorman, who is 22 years old, will read her own poem, titled “The Hill We Climb,” at the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, per The Associated Press.
“We’ve seen a force that would shatter our nation rather than share it, would destroy our country if it meant delaying democracy,” part of the poem reads, according to NPR. “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.”
Gorman rose to prominence after being named the first Youth Poet Laureate of Los Angeles in 2014 and the country’s first National Youth Poet Laureate in 2017.
“It’s amazing…Especially at my age. No one really gets to say, ‘At 22, I am the inaugural poet,'” she told “CBS This Morning.”
Gorman shared that she researched the speeches of Abraham Lincoln and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in preparation for her poem, but it was the tragic events at Capitol Hill on Jan. 6 which fueled the message of her poem.
“And then on the Wednesday in which we saw the insurrection at the Capitol, that was the day that the poem really came to life. And I really put pedal to the metal,” she explained.
