The speaker pleads with the nation to “lay down our arms / so we can reach out our arms / to one another” (Lines 32-34) and suggests that America’s ability to overcome pain, division, and loss is its greatest strength. The next section of the poem focuses on moving on from division and moving into unity. The Union is not perfect, nor will it ever be instead, it is an ever evolving experiment designed to confirm that all people are created equal and should be treated equally. Gorman then references herself: The fact that a young Black woman is reciting a poem for the President is indicative of the promise of America.

Speaking in the first-person plural, Gorman asks where we can find light out of the darkness, only to then express hope that “the dawn is ours” (Line 10): We have come out of the darkness and into the light, and that the nation is not broken, but “simply unfinished” (Line 15). The poem opens with an image of night and the coming dawn.

Gorman has ambitions to one day become President of the United States, and she has repeatedly said she will run when she is old enough in 2036. A month later, Gorman performed her poem “Chorus of the Captains” at Super Bowl LV, a first for the game’s typically musical halftime show.

Gorman’s upcoming books became instant best sellers, and she was featured in ad campaigns, and became prominent in both the literary and fashion worlds. Critics viewed her as a powerful voice for the fight for social justice and political progress. Gorman’s performance at Joe Biden’s inauguration wearing a striking yellow coat turned her into a celebrity. Gorman graduated from Harvard in 2020 with a degree in sociology. She published her first book of poetry, The One for Whom Food is Not Enough, in 2015, shortly after becoming the city’s first youth poet laureate. When she was 15 years old and already a noted youth poet, Gorman became involved with social justice activist work in Los Angeles while writing poetry and also working on a novel. Gorman began reading and writing at an early age, partly due to her attempts to overcome a speech impediment. On its publication, critics and popular figures lauded the poem as a tour de force of political rhetoric and spoken word poetry.Īmanda Gorman was born and raised in Los Angeles, California, in 1998. The poem looks to the future and rejects the narrative that division defines America. The poem draws on American tropes and imagery to describe a country that is wounded, but not completely broken. Coming on the heels of the divisive 2020 United States election and the insurrection attempt of January 6, 2021, when supporters of Donald Trump stormed the United States Capitol to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s election victory, the poem echoes President Biden’s message of unity and hope. “The Hill We Climb” is a poem of unification.

Amanda gorman the hill we climb