Amanda Gorman Explains Why She Almost Didn't Perform at the Inauguration
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When Amanda Gorman read her poem "The Hill We Climb" at President Joe Biden's inauguration in 2021, she became the youngest inaugural poet ever at just 22 years old. But that history-making moment almost didn't happen.
As she revealed in a new essay for The New York Times, Gorman nearly declined the honor after loved ones repeatedly expressed their safety concerns for her, given the political climate. The inauguration was held just two weeks after rioters and white supremacists stormed the Capitol in D.C.
"I was scared of failing my people, my poetry. But I was also terrified on a physical level," Gorman wrote. "Covid was still raging, and my age group couldn't get vaccinated yet. Just a few weeks before, domestic terrorists assaulted the U.S. Capitol, the very steps where I would recite. I didn't know then that I'd become famous, but I did know at the inauguration I was going to become highly visible—which is a very dangerous thing to be in America, especially if you're Black and outspoken and have no Secret Service."
She added that she was told by friends to buy a bulletproof vest and that she and her mom practiced defensive measures, writing, "My mom had us crouch in our living room so that she could practice shielding my body from bullets. A loved one warned me to 'be ready to die' if I went to the Capitol building, telling me, 'It's just not worth it.' I had insomnia and nightmares, barely ate or drank for days. I finally wrote to some close friends and family, telling them that I was most likely going to pull out of the ceremony."
The night before she was to give her final decision to the Inaugural Committee, the poet said that she decided to "listen" to her fears rather than run from them.
"I closed my eyes in bed and let myself utter all the leviathans that scared me, both monstrous and minuscule. What stood out most of all was the worry that I'd spend the rest of my life wondering what this poem could have achieved. There was only one way to find out," she wrote. "By the time the sun rose I knew one thing for sure: I was going to be the 2021 inaugural poet. I can't say I was completely confident in my choice, but I was completely committed to it."
The day of her performance, she recalled her fears melting away as she recited her poem. "As I stepped up to the dais to recite, I felt warm, like the words waiting in my mouth were aflame," she wrote. "It seemed that the world stood still. I looked out and spoke to it. I haven't looked back."
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