Twenty-two-year-old Amanda Gorman made half the nation shed a tear (or several) at President Joe Biden's inauguration with her reading of her powerful and passionate poem "The Hill We Climb." Not only was Gorman named the first National Youth Poet Laureate at the age of 17, she was also the sixth, and youngest, presidential inaugural poet in U.S. history.
The physical book--a slim hardcover with a cover featuring red and blue text on a yellow background--is a lovely piece of art, clearly designed to match Gorman's January 20, 2021, outfit: a sunny yellow jacket, gold jewelry and a "Fiery Red" satin headband. In her foreword, Oprah Winfrey, who sent the young woman the jewelry, says Gorman is exactly what the nation had been waiting for, a " 'skinny Black girl, descended from slaves,' showing us our true selves, our human heritage, our heart." They don't come often, she writes, "these moments of incandescence where the welter of pain and suffering gives way to hope. Maybe even joy." But that is what Gorman made listeners feel with her stunning poem--the aching, the agony, the will to endure.
The Hill We Climb will certainly be given to many a 2021 graduate. Its beautiful design and small format, with the text of the poem spread out over 30 pages, allows the book to be the kind of keepsake one may turn to when a dose of hope is needed. "Let the globe, if nothing else, say this is true," Gorman wrote, "That even as we grieved, we grew,/ That even as we hurt, we hoped,/ That even as we tired, we tried." --Siân Gaetano, children's and YA editor, Shelf Awareness