Becoming the youngest inaugural poet in United States history, 22-year-old Amanda Gorman delivered a rousing poem called “The Hill We Climb” at the 2021 presidential inauguration ceremony on Wednesday in Washington, D.C.
Raised in Los Angeles by her mother, a teacher named Joan Wicks, with her two siblings, she majored in sociology at Harvard University.
Poet Amanda Gorman reads her poem The Hill We Climb during the 59th presidential inauguration in Washington, D.C., U.S., on January 20, 2021
In an interview with USA Today, the young poet revealed she was contacted by the Biden inaugural committee back in December.
The future first lady Jill Biden recommended Amanda Gorman after seeing a video of her performance of “In This Place: An American Lyric,” at the Library of Congress in 2017.
Amanda captivated the country in a sunny-yellow coat from Prada that has been tailored in Italy from wool in a longline double-breasted silhouette.
She styled her canary-yellow hue coat with a white poplin shirt, earrings gifted to her by Oprah Winfrey, and a red satin headband.
Amanda Gorman wears a sunny-yellow double-breasted natté toile coat from Prada
“I am weaving my own type of symbolism into my outfit, and it’s really special and important to me to deliver these nuggets of information and sentimentality as I’m reciting the poem,” the 22-year-old told Vogue.
“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,” she read.
Shortly after the inauguration, Penguin Young Readers announced a publication of 150,000 hardcover copies of “The Hill We Climb” in spring.
“YES @TheAmandaGorman. YES!!!!!! God bless you. “It’s the past we step into and how we repair it,” Kerry Washington tweeted in praise of the 22-year-old poet.
“’How could catastrophe possibly prevail over us?’ ❤️ chills ❤️ ‘There is always light, if only we are bold enough to see it, if only we are bold enough to be it.” -Amanda Gorman,” added Busy Philipps.
Credit: Instar / WENN