Amanda Gorman's Books Leap to Amazon Best Sellers Hours After Inauguration
- by Virginia Carter
- in World Media
- — Jan 22, 2021
Children's musician Raffi also approved, calling her performance "unforgettable".
"One of the things that struck me about The Hill We Climb which is the name of that poem, is that it's like a hill".
"We have to confront these realities if we're going to move forward, so that's also an important touchstone of the poem", she said.
"Wow, you're just, you're awesome", Cooper replied.
Reactions poured from across the country and the political spectrum, including former president Barack Obama, political action committee the Lincoln Project and Stacey Abrams, the Democratic organiser and gubernatorial candidate from Georgia, who said, "Amanda Gorman's message serves as an inspiration to us all". And there she discovered that her two books were holding the top two spots among all book sales on the site. Titled "The Hill We Climb", the piece was written specifically for the occasion. Now, Biden and Vice-President Kamala Harris embark on an ambitious day one agenda that includes rolling back former President Donald Trump's "Muslim Ban", preserving DACA and rejoining the Paris Accords.
In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Gorman said: "I wasn't trying to write something in which those events were painted as an irregularity or different from an America that I know".
Gorman echoed, in dynamic and propulsive verse, the same themes that Biden has returned to again and again, and which he wove throughout his inaugural address: Unity, healing, grief and hope, the painful history of American experience and the redemptive power of American ideals.
"To me, words matter". And so, I crafted an inaugural poem that recognises these scars and these wounds. "For there is always light, if only we are fearless enough to see it - if only we are courageous enough to be it". "She said, 'I saw this video of you and you were wearing yellow and I loved it'". It's something that we have to demand of ourselves. I was honestly scared of writing such a poem. She's credited writing for being her way of getting through challenges. Mainly the letter "R".
"The way she sees the world is unbelievable", she said, "from the mundane to today, talking about democracy". "And I would try to keep up with Leslie Odom Jr. as he's doing this incredible rap, and I'd say, 'If I can train myself to do this song, then I can train myself to say this letter.' So that's been a huge part of my own speech pathology". It's why I included it in the inaugural poem. "I had to really work at it and practice to get to where I am today".
"America is messy", she said.
Taking to Twitter, Miranda had nothing but praise for Gorman's words. "I'm so incredibly proud of you".
"You were ideal. Perfectly written, perfectly delivered", the composer wrote on Twitter.
