Amanda Gorman Tells Oprah She's "Still Absorbing" the Impact of Her Inaugural Poem

Photo credit: OWN
Photo credit: OWN
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From Oprah Daily

On a chilly morning in January, Amanda Gorman walked to a podium overlooking the National Mall in Washington, D.C. to read a poem at Joe Biden's presidential inauguration. At 22, Gorman was the country's youngest-ever inaugural poet. She was wearing a Prada coat in her favorite color, sunshine yellow, and hoop earrings from Oprah, who had also given the late Maya Angelou a gift ahead of her own inaugural recitation in 1993.

It only took six minutes for Gorman to become a permanent household name through the power of her poem, "The Hill We Climb." Lady Gaga, who recieved a Best Actress Oscar nomination for A Star Is Born had sung the national anthem moments prior—but the star being born that day was Gorman. "I have never been prouder to see a woman rise. Maya Angelou is cheering—and so am I," Oprah wrote on Instagram after the occasion.

Two months later, Gorman reflected on the career-defining moment with Oprah on an episode of The Oprah Conversation, which will be available to watch on March 26 on Apple TV+. Oprah, who wrote the introduction for Gorman's latest book, The Hill We Climb, asks Gorman in the above preview, exclusive to Oprah Daily: "When you recognized that the poem had done not even just what you expected but had surpassed anything that you could have imagined, what did that feel like in your spirit?"

Ahead of the recitation, Gorman said she stayed focused on what she could control: Namely, the performance itself. "I showed up to the podium and I laid it on the floor. I knew the poem was written. All that was left was for me to embody and I was going to do that to the best of my capability," she said.

Gorman has previously opened up about the important role writing and reciting poetry played in helping her overcome a speech impediment. "The more that I recited out loud, the more in which I practiced spoken word and that tradition, the more I was able to teach myself how to pronounce these letters which for so long had been my greatest impediment," Gorman told Anderson Cooper on CNN the evening of the inauguration.

By the time Gorman made her way off camera, she was officially a sensation, the focus of headlines, and an outpouring of support on social media. "It wasn't until the ceremony was done and I was backstage with my mom that we realized the totality of what just happened in six minutes. To the point where my phone was crashing. I was seeing images of myself on the news backstage," she said.

The poem had reshaped the contours of Gorman's life. She later became the first poet to perform at the Super Bowl. Her Instagram follower count skyrocketed to over three million. Due to overwhelming demand, her publisher ordered a printing of one million copies for her first three books.


As much as the inauguration affected her personal trajectory, Gorman is equally—if not even more—concerned with how the poem's reception may have affected the nation and the tens of millions listening.

"It felt meaningful not only for me but in a broader sense. It was looking up and saying, 'This was something the world needed to hear and I needed to write.' Very rarely do you get that type of luxury as a poet in which your words aren't just meeting a moment but making a moment in history. That is something that I'm still absorbing," she said.

In the rest of The Oprah Conversation episode, Gorman touches on her writing process and the literary heroes who inspire her work. She also introduces audiences to her mother, Joan Wicks, a middle school English teacher in Los Angeles.

To watch the entirety of Oprah and Gorman's illuminating talk, head over to AppleTV+ on Friday, March 26. The episode is available to AppleTV+ subscribers, as are Oprah's past interviews with luminaries like former President Barack Obama, historian Ibram X. Kendi, the one and only Dolly Parton, and more.

Watch The Oprah Conversation


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