Inaugural poet Amanda Gorman summoned images dire and triumphant Wednesday as she called out to the world “even as we grieved, we grew” in her poem “The Hill We Climb.”
In language referencing Biblical scripture and at times echoing the oratory of John F. Kennedy and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., the 22-year-old Gorman began by asking “Where can we find light/In this never-ending shade?” and used her own poetry and life story as an answer.
The poem’s very title suggested both labor and transcendence.
Gorman is the youngest by far of the poets who have read at presidential inaugurations.