It's the past we step into and how we repair it. It's because being American is more than a pride we inherit. That is the promise to glade, the hill we climb, if only we dare. If we're to live up to our own time, then victory won't lie in the blade, but in all the bridges we've made. Scripture tells us to envision that everyone shall sit under their own vine and fig tree, and no one shall make them afraid. Not because we will never again know defeat, but because we will never again sow division. That we'll forever be tied together, victorious. Let the globe, if nothing else, say this is true. We seek harm to none and harmony for all. We lay down our arms so we can reach out our arms to one another. We close the divide because we know to put our future first, we must first put our differences aside.
To compose a country committed to all cultures, colors, characters and conditions of man.Īnd so we lift our gaze, not to what stands between us, but what stands before us. We are striving to forge our union with purpose. We, the successors of a country and a time where a skinny Black girl descended from slaves and raised by a single mother can dream of becoming president, only to find herself reciting for one.Īnd, yes, we are far from polished, far from pristine, but that doesn't mean we are striving to form a union that is perfect. Somehow we weathered and witnessed a nation that isn't broken, but simply unfinished. We've learned that quiet isn't always peace, and the norms and notions of what "just" is isn't always justice.Īnd yet the dawn is ours before we knew it. When day comes, we ask ourselves, where can we find light in this never-ending shade? Martin Luther King Jr.ĭuring her reading, Gorman wore a ring with a caged bird, a gift from Oprah for the occasion and tribute to symbolize Maya Angelou, a previous inaugural poet.
Gorman drew inspiration from the speeches of American leaders during other historic times of division, including Abraham Lincoln and the Rev. "There is space for grief and horror and hope and unity, and I also hope that there is a breath for joy in the poem, because I do think we have a lot to celebrate at this inauguration." "We have to confront these realities if we're going to move forward, so that's also an important touchstone of the poem," she told the Times. The poet, whose work examines themes of race and racial justice in America, felt she couldn't "gloss over" the events of the attack, nor of the previous few years, in her work. Gorman ended up staying up late following the unprecedented attack and finished her piece, "The Hill We Climb," that night. 6, pro-Trump rioters stormed the Capitol Building. Gorman told The New York Times she wasn't given any direction in what to write, but that she would be contributing to the event's theme of "America United." She was about halfway finished with the piece when, on Jan.
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