Hope (with Amanda Gorman)

President Biden and Vice President Harris. Now, I have to tell you I've been to every inauguration since and this one just felt so special. It certainly was a lot better than the one four years before, because there was just a palpable feeling of relief and joy and hopefulness. And part of why I think we all felt that way is because of Amanda Gorman, the youngest presidential inaugural

poet in history. Let me tell you, when that young, vibrant, charismatic woman walked to the front of the platform in her bright yellow coat and that magnificent presence, I was thrilled. And the poem itself titled The Hill We Climb, just captured the moment, and there were a lot of lines that have stayed with me. But here's one Stanza that sums up the pain and the hope of the last

four years. Let the Globe, if nothing else, say this is true that even as we grieved, we grew, that even as we hurt, we hoped, that even as we tired, we tried. So you can imagine my excitement that we are starting this season by talking with Amanda. Not only the youngest poet ever to read at an inauguration and the first youth poet Laurette, she's the first poet to perform at the Super Bowl, and of course, on a

personal note, she is someone with an enviable headband collection. Hello, Hello, Hello, Hello. I was trying to figure out how to wear a headband with my headset. I love it. How how are you doing? I mean I have to start by just saying, Wow, what a whirlwind couple of weeks this has been for you, Amanda. Yeah, Yeah,

it's been wild. I'm doing good. I think I'm like on the third part of the wave of just like it was literally like I feel like my life changed in like six minutes basically, and so my body has just been processing that and now I'm feeling like, Okay, I've absorbed that it happened. Let's move forward. So yeah, feeling very good. Well, you sure made a lot of

us feel very good. So, uh, it's mutually reinforcing. We needed some you know, positive uplift and you know, a new sense of as you said the other day and that wonderful interview you did with Michelle Obama, unity with purpose. We needed to come together not just for the sake of coming together, but to try to figure out what's

the best way forward. And you know, when I saw you and your mom on the platform at the at the Capitol, it was just so exciting and it was revealing, uh, the feelings that people had been bottled up that they hadn't been able to express because we were all holding our breath for four years. Yeah, what stood out to you from that day because it was such a happy occasion, even though it was under such odd circumstances, right right, Well,

the day was both a whirlwind and endless. I'm not sure how it was for you, And I'm really interested in hearing more about that because the whole time we were sitting there, my mom was like, oh my gosh, look at Hillary. She's so beautiful. I wonder what to go in through her head right now. You have to realize every single time that I'm in the vicinity of you, all of the grandmothers ever related to me, or like you have to tell her how much I love her.

You know, there's no kind of like do a good job. There's all like tell Hillary I love her. Um. But you know what I remember from that day is, you know, you have this incredible sensation of the historicity of the moment, and it's it's something that I think is very difficult

to internalize. So, you know, you go up to the podium and I remember distinctly seeing the Washington Monuments, seeing the Lincoln Memorial, seeing the flags laid out for the lives lost to COVID, and so you're standing in one of the most sacred physical spaces in American democracy, and I really remember just absorbing that, just trying to take that in in order to do the poem justice. Yeah, well,

you more than exceeded anybody's expectation. Of course, I flashed back immediately to my Angelou, uh and the inauguration in in because in very different ways, because obviously age and everything else that separated you your spirits seemed to be communing on that inaugural stage this year, and it was so touching to me personally to summon back that memory.

And I know that you have told people you had a little bit of writer's block, you weren't quite sure what you were going to say, and it was the terrible events of January six that seemed to really spark the creativity that led to what you did finally, right absolutely. I mean when I began writing the poem, I want to say, I began it on January one, and I

was just going at it like a slug. I think I was writing like one sentence a day and kind of looking at myself like, if I continue at this space, this poem is not going to be done until two inaugurations from now. And so I was, you know, doing my best to kind of chug along and do the labor, and then you know, the events of the introduction at the Capital happened in that just it was this kind of on switch moment where what I knew I needed to say clicked into place, and how we've been discussing

coming into the poem. I knew that the theme of the inauguration was going to be unity. But I think as the inaugural poet, I took it as my kind of responsibility to ask unity for what purpose? Unity to what end? And I think poetry at times can speak to that in a way that pros not and so that really helped me finish the poem. I sent it to the inaugural committee that night one because the poem was finished and I was proud of it and I

wanted people to see it. But more importantly too, I felt it really important to underscore to the committee that in inaugural poem was still more than possible in that moment, as dark as it was, and that this was something that the country in the world and needed to hear. Well. Amen to that, because what you were able to do is to weave a story that was an honest story. You didn't shy away from deep and painful parts of our history, particularly our history of racism and slavery, but

you also maintained hope about the future. You threw it into the future, and I think was cathartic. You know, we mainly think of Catharsis as being rooted in theater, but if you really go way way way back, I'm the recitation of stories exactly which you would call poetry, predates the acting out of play. So in a sense, you're capturing those feelings enabled the entire country to kind of go through them with you. Could you sense that when you were up there was that part of your consciousness.

I sensed the catharsis when I was performing, but I think even more so when I was writing, you know, birthing it to being. I was very purposeful with myself and understanding that this was a moment to re sanctify, to reconsequate not only the capital building, but American democracy. UM I often talk about I think in religion, catharsis and cleansing is most often connected with rituals of water. I think about cleansing in terms of like rituals of words.

When there's been evil or wrongdoing, how do we build a new precedent? And often the language and the words and the rhetoric that we use is part of that tradition. And for me, it was looking at we have seen the ways in which words and language have been violated and also used to violate others. So how can this inauguration day be a new dawn for the written and spoken word and that we're actually reclaiming that tradition as

a path of healing. When did you discover poetry, How old were you and what was your process your journey like to becoming a poet. I discovered poetry, I want to say, at a really young age, probably like four or five. I didn't really know it was poetry. When I first began writing, I was just putting my thoughts on a page. I thought they were honestly songs, and then I realized I could not sing, and I was just speaking out when I was writing. Um, but yeah,

from pretty young age. My mom's an English teacher, so that's always been at the forefront of my thinking. Funnily enough, Um, she's not the biggest poetry fan. I think. I think I'm one of the main only I would see reads recently. But yeah, you know, when I was a toddler m I stumbled across writing, and I think it was a huge instrument for me because growing up I had a speech impediment, so it was like, wow, look at this medium in which I can express my thoughts and my ideas.

And I remember distinctly being around eight and I was writing, and it was just this surreal dichotomy because the voice that I heard in my head when I was writing on the page sounded so different from the voice I spoke in And I think only now as a twenty two soon to be twenty three year old, am I actually speaking with that voice that I heard so long ago, you know, when I was seven and writing. That's fascinating. Well, you're also a twin, and people talk about how twins communicate.

I mean, do you think there was anything about your twinship that moved you toward being a poet. Absolutely, and I'm so glad you brought that up. What's so funny about being a twin is you probably hear this all the time, like we often have her own languages. I'm not sure that actually helped with the speech impediment, because it was like, why do I need to speak English? I had my twin language. She gets me, and my twin often served us like my translators, like I was

a foreign dignitary. My twin was like, she wants a sandwich, there's too much peanut butter, and my mom was just being like, okay, great, So my poor mother would just like have my sister work as like Google Translate for Manda Gorman. Um, so it was really funny. Being a twin I think made me lean into the idea that who says language isn't this, who says language isn't that.

We still have her own language to this day, and we're kind of bad about it because we use it to talk about other people when they're in the room. So we used to do that in high school. Uh, and just be talking about people in our own language and be like, oh, we're just talking about dinner, you know, doing it. But yes, So I love my twin and she's always been a great supporter of my non English conformity. I love that we're taking a quick break, stay with us.

You know. When I read about your mom and the fact that she was an English teacher and she obviously valued, you know, education, I read that when you were a kid, she only let you watch nineteen sitcoms, and one that they mentioned in the article I read was The Honeymooners. Oh my gosh, I'm dating myself, but you know I wasn't. I wasn't watching that on reruns back of the day.

And if you wanted to watch so called modern TV, uh, you had to make a social justice argument exavince her to let you tell us what that was about, because clearly it worked. It's a little undiventional, but it worked exactly well. Um. You know my mom, she was really hard set on us not necessarily just being consumers of content, but creators of our own content and the stories you wanted to see. So that started with kind of monitoring what we were taking in and how much we were

taking in. And so we started just with like one TV show that we were allowed to watch, with just the Honeymooners. I was probably like a late elementary school when I realized television and color was actually hid thing. It was so funny, like I brought my friends over to my house and I like put in the little VCR tape and they were like, wires are screen and black and line. I was like, isn't yours? And um.

But it was a really lovely childhood because it meant that we were spending so much time creating plays and songs and writing poetry because the television was off because we had to be our own entertainment. And then once we kind of graduated from the Honeymooners to things like h or preference stuff very complex. Um, the monsters and

so on. If I wanted to watch something um that was modern, I had to actually communicate why that was something that should be in my visual effort are So I remember wanting to watch Kim Possible and making the argument that she was a strong female character and I should be exposed to her in That argument worked, But when I wanted to watch America's Next Top Model, it

was more some good try. But my mom did turn it on for a few minutes and she was like, Okay, let's talk about everything wrong with this, like what did you just see and what were those messages? And so it wasn't necessarily sheltering us from everything, but making sure that we were able to articulate those stories how they were influencing our points of view, so that we could

then speak back to them. Well, she was ahead of her time, because now everybody says, you know, limit screen time for your children, and it's no longer just the TV you're competing with, but obviously everything online exactly. It can't help but limit your own creativity because you are absorbing somebody else's messaging and you've got to almost deliberately move away from that in order to do your own creativity.

You know, this year, as you summed up so well, both in in your poem but also in the interviews that you've done, has been incredibly hard for so many people. Were you able to finish your last year of college before COVID hit? No, I wasn't. UM. I was in my senior spring and our campus closed down like so many others around the country. UM, and I came back home. It wasn't until I think I was a few weeks in to the online schooling process where I realized, I

think how much grief I personally was in. I think for so long we didn't have a collective word for what we were going through. It was almost an unintelligible emotion. And to kind of realize that, oh my gosh, every day I'm waking up grieving, grieving for everything I've lost and everything I haven't yet. UM. And so that was a really hard period. I'm not being able to have my graduation, which you know, my family takes education so seriously.

I am a descendant of slaves. The idea that I, as a black woman, would be walking across the Harvard graduation stage graduating with honors was huge to my family, and so just finding ways to move forward and push on. You know, it was difficult, especially because when you're someone

that I think people look too for hope. I was writing a lot of poems at the time, and people kept asking me for kind of new commissions which spoke to the moment, and I was like, I'm right here with you, I am going through this, I'm in the

moment with you. You know, I'm in the fog of war and being expected to have clarity in that um And so that was hard, and I think how I now navigated it and continued to cultivate my own creativity in my voice was actually looking a lot to the past and looking at the truth speakers of our history who lived through times of im mental grief and also intense isolation which we now call quarantining. So I was thinking about, you know, Mornin Luther King writing a letter

from a Birmingham jail. I was thinking about Anne Frank writing in her diary while hiding from Nazis. I was even thinking about Shakespeare um during the plague and when it hit Europe and him having to leave London um and continue his artistry and kind of rural areas. So there has been a precedent of storytellers continuing to document the best and worst of humanity, and I wanted to be part of that tradition, not to say I am anyone of those icons, but to say that their light

in history has served as a beacon for me. Well, but I think that's really important, Amanda, because what we're missing right now is hopeful storytelling. We we are missing the individual voices and then the chorus that they can create that can help guide us. Like I really appreciated your poem during the Super Bowl lifting up people on the front lines, because it was a way of saying, we're all in this together. We're about to watch a football game, but let's not forget the people who have

been taking care of us and keeping us going. And right now, in conversations that I'm having with people, you know, everybody is saying, what's America's story? You know, the story has been somewhat degraded and words have been weaponized. Your poem helped to kind of pull us forward. But to what's next? I mean, if you could have the proverbial you know, magic wand to wave, how would you help America regain a truthful unity with purpose? Home? You know,

sense of story about where we go next? Only asking the easy questions today, aren't you killer? I'm looking for wisdom you know, I love it well, I'm looking for it from you so um. But you know what's really interesting is my mom keeps saying this to me in the aftermath of my poem about you know. The reason that she believes it's touched so many people is she was basically saying, you know, for so long, we've heard so many words and none of them have been kind.

No one it feels like, has said a kind word in four years. So for me, it's it's looking at what is America's story and how do we tell it? You know, which is just as important. It's just as important of the things that we're saying as how we are saying them, or were saying them with honesty, with kindness, with compassion. Are we saying what is necessary? And so I think I'm a small piece of that effort. It was almost like on Inauguration Day there was this on switch.

I was watching the news in the language of coverage was so much different, The language of journalists was so much different, The language um that I was hearing from fellow poets was so much different, and it wasn't as if we were erasing anything that had happened. But it was so amazing to see hope into kindness re enter American rhetoric to all of a sudden become the dialects that we speak in once again. And so I think that's the power of voice, of storytelling of one person.

If one poem can reintroduce a country to what it means to hope together yet again, that in itself is a new chapter in the American story. Right. You create the space for people once again, uh, to be kind, to be hopeful. I think we've all been in a kind of collective defensive crouch. It's almost like, what's going to happen next? You know, what terrible thing is going

to occur? And of course you're not only a poet, you're someone who has followed and expressed an interest in politics, including running for presidents and six when did that first dawn on you that hey, wait a minute, I want to do this. I mean, probably with you, honestly, And I know you're such an inspiration to so many people

around the world, including me. I mean, I remember being an elementary school and you know, your name is always in our household, and you know, my mom always making sure that I saw the work that you were doing. And then I think, you know, as I entered middle school, what's interestingly enough, I think that is typically the phase

where girls their dreams start to change. They might have begun hoping to be a scientist, and then you know, they enter middle school and puberty happens and they're kind of shepherded off to other avenues. That's kind of when I doubled down, if anything on their dreams I already had and saying I want to make a difference. I want to make a change, and I don't just want to write about it, I want to participate in it and other avenues. So I would say probably around six

or seventh grade. And it was funny because, um, I think many people at first thought it was a joke, like ha ha, little girl was to be president, and it is no joke. M I told my mom, you know, I want to be president, and she was like, okay, so this is what we're going to do. And we sat down and had a great family conversation, the you know, main message of which was I would have to be so careful for basically the rest of my young adulthood with what I put out there of myself. So I

didn't get social media until late high school. Um, and even if I remember so many times being at parties or hanging out with friends and they would be taking selfies and I would just run into the bathroom more slide away or like cover of my face, and it was just like the de facto norm in my family and our friendship group. Amanda is going to be president in twenty five years. Um, we can't be taking photos of her all the time. So it was just like

what happened. And I remember, you know, my sister, my twin being at U c l A and being at UM parties and them taking photos and her being like, I can't be in it. My sister is running for president. I don't want to be the thing that comes up twenty five years and now. And so my family takes it dead seriously and I love them for it. So yeah, it's it's been a it's been a long goal. We'll be right back. So what's next for you? How do you you know envision you know the next five years,

you know, into your late twenties. For me, what's next? For me is almost kind of like what's now? I think so much is happening, and often it feels like you have to say yes to everything at once. Just the wave of attention and request that I've been getting, and I've been learning that like no is a complete sentence, it is. That's a good lesson exactly. It's it's a really good lesson that I've been learning to kind of

just take time for myself. So I think, you know, the next few years are going to be really interesting, They're going to be exciting, um and it's going into be me. I think continuing on a path of what I hope is a leadership and also like a non traditional fashion. So I think often when we think about leaders are the political sphere, there's a very set agenda of tick marks that you have to hit, and often they're defined by whiteness and masculinity. That's how you achieve

a pedestal of leadership. And for me, it's like how do I gain an imprint in society where I can make change, Where I'm actually following a path that is informed by my femininity, informed by my blackness, is inflorenced by my poetry. So it doesn't mean stopping writing and then you know, going to law school it means actually continuing to write, continuing to speak, and also continuing to learn and be educated in all of the wide spheres

that I can be. I think you have what is the most important uh quality for anyone who is seeking leadership and whatever sphere. You have a voice that is informed by not just your own life experience, but very importantly you know, the shoulders you stand at going back, you know, generations. You have a voice because of how you've been raised as well as educated. Uh. You have a voice that is poetic, but it comes from a

deep place. So it's important to just remain who you are with that voice, uh, and to seek opportunities, you know, to try to you know, utilize it to bring people together to you know, maybe set some goals, some projects, some things that you are going to work on, because at the end of the day, we are in great need for a kind of revitalization of the American experiment. Right it has you know, I'm not gonna say run aground,

but it's maybe out there treading water. Yeah. Yeah, you know, there's a lot of confusion, there's a lot of conflict, and so clarity of voice, breaking through that fog is a necessary part of leadership always, but particularly now, I think exactly. And I think that's something that I'm also learning,

which is of the pricelessness of your own voice. I think when you have this electric moment where something you say vicachetes throughout the entire world, people keep handing you the mic and saying speak, say, And for me, it's learning to kind of take a step back and actually pass the mic onto other people, which is why I'm For example, the Super Bowl poem was so important to me. It wasn't about here's a man of Gorman again, applause, applause.

It was actually, there's these three amazing people who are doing great work who we should recognize because they symbolize the best of who we are, and so many thousands of other people who are showing up every day for us. So, you know, trying to use my voice to give voice to others. Well, I can't tell you how excited I

am for what lies ahead for you. And I really mean it when I say I want to be of whatever help and support, because you know, there's a change in perspective that inevitably accompanies you know, post college, entry into adulthood, particularly looking for you know, political footing, and someday when we could travel again post COVID. Uh, maybe you and your mom and I can you know, sit down and have a meal together. I love that amazing. Thank you, Thank you so much. Amanda Gorman's inaugural poem,

The Hill We Climb, will be published in March. Her debut children's book, Change Sings, and her first poetry collection will be out in September. You can pre order all three now from your favorite independent bookstore. So that's it for this week's episode. But we do have a lot to talk about in this season. We're gonna be talking about fighting online disinformation, what to do about these tech companies that are literally taking over our brains and in

many ways running our lives. We'll talk about the impact the pandemic has been having on kids, what do we do for kids who have been so dislocated, not being able to go to school, being at home, trying to make you know, online learning work. And we will also look at the differences between real life politics and what we see on shows like S n L. We've got a lot of great conversations and yes, a few surprises headed your way, so please stay tuned. You and Me

Both is brought to you by I Heart Radio. We're produced by Julie Subrant, Kathleen Russo and Lauren Peterson, with help from Huma Aberdeen, Nicky etur Oscar Flores, Lindsay Hoffman, Brianna Johnson, Nick Merrill, Rob Russo, Opal Vedan and Lona Valmorrow. Our engineer is Zack McNeice and original music is by Forrest Gray. If you like You and Me Both, please

share it with your friends. Let them know they can subscribe to You and Me Both on the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for listening and see you next week.