Amanda Gorman, welcome to The Daily Social Distancing Show.
Thank you so much for having me.
-I'm super excited. -Uh, I’m the one
who should be excited, because, I mean,
2021 kicked off with a bang.
It's been a whirlwind for everybody,
but I think for you more than most people
it has been extra whirlwind-y.
Which is a word I trademarked you can use one day,
if you'd like to, in one of your poems.
Um, you-you...
you went from not just being notable
because you read a poem, the youngest ever inaugural poet,
but also because of what the poem meant to people,
because of the inspiration behind it,
because of how people felt after they heard what you did.
What has it been like for you?
Just in this little period since the inauguration,
what has your world been like?
My world has been crazy.
I mean, it's been turned upside down.
I mean, when I was writing the poem,
I knew it was a historic moment,
I knew it was an important moment,
which is why I wanted to do just service,
but I wasn't really paying attention to the ways
in which my own personal life might change.
So I went, I did my inaugural poem, I walked off,
and just kind of expected everything to be the same.
And then I remember trying to open my Instagram
just to, you know, look at other people's posts,
and all of my apps have just crashed,
'cause of all the followers that were just, you know,
flocking to my channel.
So it's been amazing,
and I'm still kind of absorbing it all like a sponge.
The poem, um, "The Hill We Climb,"
wasn't just momentous because of the day it was performed on.
I think what made it special was that you incorporated
up until that day the things that so many people were feeling
about America.
If you don't mind, walk me through why you felt
it was important to write a poem for that moment,
and then even still be writing the poem
on the actual day that you were delivering it.
Right. Exactly. Well, for me, I mean,
I was writing it and trying to find a way to encapsulate
what had gone on over the past, you know, four years,
and even looking more expansively than that.
And then, you know, we had the insurrection at the Capitol.
So for me, it was trying to say: we've had this reminder
of the ways in which democracy is both fragile
and also enduring, and how necessary it is to defend it.
And I think a lot of times in cultures, we think of the ways
in which we can cleanse ourselves with water.
I think of the ways that we can cleanse ourselves with words.
Meaning that this poem was an opportunity
to kind of re-sanctify, re-purify and reclaim
not just the Capitol Building but American democracy
and what it stands for.
A pretty high ask of myself, but, you know, that's what I did
when showed up and I rolled up my sleeves,
and that was the aim of the poem,
to use words, to try to go back to the quintessence
of what America can be.
I think you achieved that.
I think you achieved that a thousand times over.
And it showed in how people responded.
I mean, consider it from this perspective,
and you may not, but this is how I saw it.
I went, on a day when Joe Biden's inaugurated,
Kamala Harris is stepping into the role as VP,
um, Lady Gaga's performing, Jennifer Lopez is performing,
you were the thing that people were looking,
you were the trending thing.
I mean, it was, like, you competing
with, like, Bernie Sanders' mittens,
was basically it.
That must be, do you take a moment to go like,
"Man, this is surreal"?
That is so surreal, especially because my friends,
they're so funny, and, you know, they come for blood.
So they were texting me, like, "Well, Joe Biden did a good job
"opening up for Amanda Gorman.
We know who won that inauguration."
Actually, it's not a competition.
You know, it's not a fight over who wins the inauguration.
They're like, "But you did."
And so I think for me it was so daunting to be on a stage.
You know, there was Michelle Obama to my right
and Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton,
and what happened to the figures that have been,
you know, mythologized for me,
and to find myself not only being in that space,
but owning it and claiming it, um, was, I think,
the highlight of my career.
I believe that you are slated to perform at the Super Bowl.
-That is correct? -Yes. I didn't...
You understand, you understand the juxtaposition
of this right now, right?
Poetry at the Super Bo... You understand the levels
you've made it to, where they were like,
"This person is so good that we have to bring her
-to do poetry at the Super Bowl." -Right.
Easily, that went over my head.
Um, because I knew about the Super Bowl
and the inauguration around the same time,
and it was, like, there was not space in my head for both.
Like, I kept being like,
"I gotta write that inauguration poem,"
and my team was like, "There's this little thing
called the Super Bowl which you should also keep in mind."
And so, you know, it's very rare, and I want to say,
you know, it's not, you know, an extant possibility
that a poet will be at something like the Super Bowl.
It's just nothing I have really heard about before.
-Right. -And so these are the moments I strive for
in my lifetime, which is to bring poetry
into the spaces that we least expect it,
so that we can fully kind of grapple with the ways
in which it can heal and kind of resurrect us.
Let's talk a little bit about poetry.
I mean, it feels like poetry, like some art forms,
has its highs, and then it has moments where it disappears.
Why do you think we should never forget poetry?
What is it about poetry that you feel society needs
-to hold on to? -MM-hmm.
Well, what I always say is,
poetry stands as a great reminder
of the past that we stand on and the future that we stand for.
I do not think it is any, you know, coincidence
that when America seeks to kind of consecrate its ideals,
it does so through poetry.
I don't think it's a coincidence that we see a poem
at the base of the Statue of Liberty,
as opposed to, like, a scientific formula
or even a prosaic paragraph.
You know, why is it that we call forth poetry in those moments.
Or even point out to students, you know,
when you're at a Black Lives Matter march
and you see, you know, banners that say,
"They buried us, but they didn't know we were seeds,"
that's poetry at the front of the racial justice movement.
And so poetry,
because it's inherently rebellious in its nature,
I think it really becomes the language and the rhetoric
of the people.
We get to kind of coopt it and, um, play on it,
and what's more, we get to use those words
to... realize our thoughts
and transform those thoughts into action.
Um, you have a journey ahead of you
that I think nobody can predict,
uh, which is exciting, and...
you've had a journey that has been unpredictable.
You know, you... you've talked about it.
You know, growing up in a family with a single mom
who was raising yourself and your twin sister
and your brother as well, and how you just fought to achieve.
My question to you then is: What are you aspiring to,
seeing that you've basically done it all,
I mean, in the past few weeks?
Right. Um, that's a great question.
I mean, I'm really taking that time to kind of sit back
and think and be like, "Well, wow, that was it."
Um, kind of, what's next?
And for me, I don't think it's about, um...
kind of beating my last thing
or even competing against myself.
I hear that a lot, and that's fine for other people.
I'm not necessarily fighting against myself
or competing or contesting against anything I've done,
but I want to keep on the trajectory
that I started for myself.
I never want to kind of dally or diverge from that.
And for me, that just means using my poetry
to touch and heal and impact as many people as possible,
and that can be at the inauguration,
the Super Bowl, it can be in a living room,
it's often in classrooms with other students,
and so that's what's next for me,
um, on the more, like, résumé tick thing
that I always have to mention when I'm on talk shows.
I'm like, "I have three books coming out."
So there's also that, and there's...
immediate what I need to write, but, you know,
I'm just chugging forward.
Well, I know everyone's gonna be reading the books.
Well, I know everyone's gonna be reading the books
Thank you so much, Amanda Gorman,
and congratulations on all your success.
Thank you so much.