What’s So Good About Amanda Gorman’s Inauguration Poem “The Hill We Climb”

25Jan 2021 by admin

“This is a larger debate about speaking truth to power versus racial illiteracy in literature… ” – dimitrireyespoet.com

Amanda Gorman’s Inaugural Poem, “The Hill We Climb” is a sensation. Countless people in the media and on my feed are singing the praises of this poem by this 22 year old black woman. With strength and grace, she delivered a poem America needed to hear, on a platform where we were listening. She was pushing unity, success, and equity. She also raised the bar in how the world is seeing and feeling poetry.

Recently there has been criticism for the work rearing its ugly head in the corners of the internet with message boards abound breaking down the “craft” and “content” of “The Hill We Climb” and of course, this was expected.

As the 2017 US Youth Poet Laureate, it is not surprising that her poem was a poised recitation of the new school of poetry, as newer generations of poets — particularly poets of color — are raised in the space of Spoken Word culture that is derived from the Confessionalist, Beats, Black Arts, Nuyorican, & Breakbeat discipline which has become our canon.

And on such a platform as the White House backdrop, the other Inaugural poems before her being read by Blanco, Alexander, WIlliams, Angelou, and Frost were all from a particularly different school that is held in the standard of Academic/ Poetic Literature.

What Are the Problems with “The Hill We Climb?”

So this is where the pushback comes and the immediate upturned noses of classicists that don’t deem it appropriate to have room at the literary table for “lesser forms“of art. Nevertheless, it is this form in which Gorman spoke— that still contained uses of rhyme, alliteration, and allusion— that was the language of the people, and connected on an emotional level as generations of poets have before her.

And dare I say, what made Gorman’s poem so different was her timing: in how her work also spoke to the spiritual climate of the United States, where we are currently in a gargantuan shift between our leaders’ worldviews and how this country is seen. But this isn’t something that was niche and simply wrote for the Inauguration as many of the poems in the past were.

Amanda Gorman’s “The Hill We Climb and Other Poems”

Amanda Gorman’s first collection, “The Hill We Climb and Other Poems” will soon be coming out from Penguin/Random House and has ALREADY BROKE THE INTERNET with preorders! With an ISBN and a release date for 2021 this most likely means it’s been in the works for quite some time, which means she’s been working on this book— and this poem— for quite some time, of course with some revisions here and there as our ever changing political world updates itself on a daily basis.

This is quite special. It is safe to say that— much like a lot of work being published currently, that this poem as well as the rest of the book is a documented recording of the poet’s experience, giving way to honesty, vulnerability, and a voice speaking to social change.

So Why the Friction?

This is a larger debate about speaking truth to power versus racial illiteracy in literature that I will not debate among commenters on my blog and YouTube because work like Amanda Gorman’s and countless other poets such as myself are already engaging in these conversations.

Respect our work by spending time with it, we can meet you on the page for those willing to learn.

I will end with a piece of an interview featuring Gorman on PBS where she speaks about writing “too confidently.”