The President-elect Joe Biden stands with his wife Jill Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris stands with her husband Doug Emhoff with the Washington Monument in the background. They were looking at the lights that were placed around the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool during a COVID-19 memorial on Tuesday, Jan. 19, 2021, in Washington. The Los Angeles native Amanda Gorman appeared regal as she read her beautiful poem, ‘The Hill We Climb.” It tipped its hat at the hit musical ‘Hamilton.’
Amanda Gorman, who is currently 22 years old has drawn a lot of praise from different places across the world for the patriotic and moving poem that she had read at the inauguration of the President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. The Californian took to the podium on Jan. 20 to read her powerful composition. She held her head high and her delivery was indeed flawless. Just as the Harvard graduate was standing on the steps of the Capitol, Amanda made a history for becoming the youngest person in modern history to have read a poem at the Presidential inaugration. It was apparently like following the footsteps of giants like the late Maya Angelou (who spoke at President Bill Clinton’s 1993 inauguration). Her composition was mostly focused on unity and faith overcoming division.
In a January 19 interview, the National Youth Poet Laureate had refused to gloss over the insurrection which happened in the Washington DC just 2 weeks prior than the MAGA supporting rioters stormed the Capitol building. Other than her recitation, she said: “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.”
Fordham University law professor, Jed Shugerman, tweeted, “So much to love about poet Amanda Gorman, age 22. I’m struck by her echoing lines from the Bible and the musical Hamilton: ‘Sit under our own vine and fig tree.’ ‘History has its eyes on you. “A thread connecting Old Testament to 1776 & 1787 to our modern diverse America.”