--- title: What Amanda Gorman Teaches Us About Our Shared America description: Novelist Viet Thanh Nguyen on why Amanda Gorman's inaugural poem captured the democratic spirit of America and spoke to shared public spaces canonical: https://time.com/5938544/amanda-gorman-poem-america/ author: TIME article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2021-02-12T12:00:37.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-10-14T09:09:56.404Z article:section: Ideas og:title: Viet Thanh Nguyen on What Amanda Gorman Teaches Us About Our Shared America og:description: "What is more practical than poetry, which can illuminate the feelings we all share, the beauty we all need, the grief we all experience?" og:url: https://time.com/5938544/amanda-gorman-poem-america/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltffbbe3b20da1c11b/698a17260116827fac980542/amanda-gorman-poem.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1024 og:image:height: 576 og:image:alt: 59th Presidential Inauguration og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Viet Thanh Nguyen on What Amanda Gorman Teaches Us About Our Shared America twitter:description: "What is more practical than poetry, which can illuminate the feelings we all share, the beauty we all need, the grief we all experience?" twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltffbbe3b20da1c11b/698a17260116827fac980542/amanda-gorman-poem.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # What Amanda Gorman Teaches Us About Our Shared America > Sponsored content. 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A paid TIME subscription is separate and available at time.com/subscribe-agent. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-inside-2026q3/newsletters?i=34f3148e-d034-41d6-a6c5-1665d4d34632&cr=time-nl-inside-2026q3-v1) ## Video: Amanda Gorman: 'The Hill We Climb' [Watch (HLS stream): Amanda Gorman: 'The Hill We Climb'](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/u7xVZPFx.m3u8) (5:57)  _Published 2021-02-04. Amanda Gorman recites 'The Hill We Climb'. Directed by Awol Erizku for TIME._ by [Viet Thanh Nguyễn](https://time.com/author/viet-thanh-nguyen/) ## Viet Thanh Nguyễn Nguyễn is a Pulitzer Prize-winning author. His latest book is To Save and to Destroy: Writing as an Other Feb 12, 2021 12:00 PM UTC Amanda Gorman recites 'The Hill We Climb'. Directed by Awol Erizku for TIME. by [Viet Thanh Nguyễn](https://time.com/author/viet-thanh-nguyen/) ## Viet Thanh Nguyễn Nguyễn is a Pulitzer Prize-winning author. His latest book is To Save and to Destroy: Writing as an Other Feb 12, 2021 12:00 PM UTC [Amanda Gorman](https://time.com/5933596/amanda-gorman-michelle-obama-interview/) moved me deeply, as she did many others, with her inaugural poem “[The Hill We Climb](https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/20/amanda-gormans-inaugural-poem-the-hill-we-climb-full-text.html).” When I found out that she was nurtured at least partly by the Los Angeles Public Library, whose books I have often borrowed as a fellow Angeleno, I [tweet](https://twitter.com/viet%5Ft%5Fnguyen/status/1351951014371360768)ed that “Public libraries and young poets make America great.” Dreams of being a writer were implanted in me when the San Jose Public Library gave me an award for my book “Lester the Cat” in the third grade. Gorman managed the much more astonishing feat of becoming the [Los Angeles Youth Poet Laureate](https://ktla.com/morning-news/l-a-native-amanda-gorman-makes-history-as-the-youngest-poet-to-deliver-the-inaugural-poem/) when she was sixteen. She was one of [nineteen finalists brought to the stage of the Taper Auditorium](https://www.lapl.org/collections-resources/blogs/lapl/lapl-plays-role-selection-citys-first-youth-poet-laureate) of the Central Library. How many aspirations were encouraged, how many future poets were named? A crucial question and an important task, as poets can speak to the conscience of a country. If I had known when I tweeted that Dr. Jill Biden [had invited her to](https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/books/story/2021-01-17/amanda-gorman-biden-inauguration-poet) write the inaugural poem, I would have added that community colleges also make America great, given Dr. Biden’s teaching career at Northern Virginia Community College. While I teach at a private research university, I still take classes at my local community college, and what community colleges share with public libraries and poetry of a certain kind is nothing less than the democratic spirit, the same spirit that Gorman defended and celebrated in her poem. Was it democracy or an assault on democracy when a mob attacked and ransacked the Capitol on January 6 even as she was still writing her poem? In response, Gorman [says](https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/20/amanda-gormans-inaugural-poem-the-hill-we-climb-full-text.html) _Somehow we’ve weathered and witnessed_ _a nation that isn’t broken_ _but simply unfinished_ The poem itself doubles as a political speech, a move which both enhances the accessibility of the poem and raises the bar for political speeches, many of which would benefit from a dose of poetry. Gesturing towards reconciliation and peace, Gorman echoes and amplifies President Biden’s rhetorical themes: _We lay down our arms_ _so we can reach out our arms_ _to one another_ _We seek harm to none and harmony for all_ The democratic spirit that animates this poem and this poet is cultivated in public places much more so than in private ones, in the open air of an inaugural platform versus a smoke-filled room or a chummy club. I appreciate the hushed luxury of the libraries in private research universities, but the price of entry, to be a professor or a student, is high. In contrast, the public libraries of Los Angeles, from the magnificent Central Public Library to the many small local ones, bring together broad swathes of the city. From toddlers to retirees, from students to teachers, from the well-heeled to the homeless, all can be found in these libraries, paid for by our taxes and free for all. Benjamin Franklin opened the first lending library in 1731, the predecessor to the free public library. He was not fond of immigrants, Asians, Black people, or indeed certain categories of Europeans now considered white, like Spaniards and Italians. But the library he founded has expanded beyond his own prejudices, his ideas transcending his limitations. Now, nearly three centuries later, American libraries can include _a skinny Black_ _girl descended from slaves and raised by a single mother_ As well as myself, a refugee from Vietnam, or, in Franklin’s [words](https://www.gutenberg.org/files/35508/35508-h/35508-h.htm), a “tawny” person coming to an America that would be better off “excluding Blacks and Tawneys.” “I am partial to the Complexion of my Country,” Franklin wrote, “for such Kind of Partiality is natural to Mankind.” If this is natural, is there also a countervailing natural impulse in us, as people and as Americans, to expand into impartiality rather than stay stuck in partiality? Should we not seek to cultivate such an impulse? This embrace of expansiveness against the confinement of prejudice is Gorman’s project: _And every known nook of our nation and every corner called our_ _country, our people diverse and beautiful, will emerge battered_ _and beautiful._ **The public spaces** of our country are too often battered and beautiful, underfunded and overused. And yet they manage to bring forth talent like Gorman, who went to Harvard and whose admission must have been boosted by being a poet laureate. We must get beyond the easy idea that it is only the STEM students and the “practical” majors who will help our society and advance our country. What is more practical than poetry, which can illuminate the feelings we all share, the beauty we all need, the grief we all experience? Support poetry and support the places where poetry grows best, which is where poetry is free, as in libraries. Free libraries cost taxpayers money and illustrate the power of sharing our resources, a value that well-meaning adults teach to their children and then sometimes forget themselves. And while great poets have come from Harvard, the university is a symbol of private achievement. Great talent also exists at my local community college, where my fellow students are much more diverse than the students at my elite university. My community college charges $46 per unit. Harvard charges $1551 a unit. We should be celebrating community colleges as much as Harvard, since community colleges do the hard, democratic work of educating many more students than exclusive, expensive universities. How great is it that our First Lady is a working woman who teaches community college students? How great is it that she chose a young woman to give voice to the hopes of the country, and not a poet of the establishment? How great is it that this youthful laureate demonstrated, through word, gesture, and performance, the power of poetry for the people? This is the greatness of our unfinished country, and we can only hope that what the poet says is true, that “while democracy can be periodically delayed, it can never be permanently defeated.” As we start a new political era in this country, let us not neglect the tools that we already have to defend democracy: free books, affordable education, and the love of beauty that is found in anyone who has ever been thrilled by a rhyme and moved by a verse. All these things open our minds and our hearts, which inevitably opens us to others. Some fear and some embrace this, one of the most fundamental challenges of democracy, which is learning to live and share with others who are not like us. ## Transcript The hill we climb. Mr. President. Madam Vice President. Americans and the world. When they comes, we ask ourselves, where can we find light in this never ending shade? The loss. We carry a sea. We must wait. We've braved the belly of the beast. We've learned that quiet isn't always peace. And the norms and notions of what just is isn't always just is. And yet the dawn is ours. Before we knew it. Somehow we do it. Somehow we've weathered into. Witnessed a nation that isn't broken, but simply unfinished. We are the successors of a country in the time where a skinny black girl descended from slaves and raised by a single mother can dream of becoming president only to find herself reciting for one. And yes, we are far from polished, far from pristine. But this doesn't mean we are striving to form a union that is perfect. We are striving to forge our union with purpose, to compose a country committed to all cultures, colors and characters of man. And so we lift or a gaze is not what stands between us, but what stands before us. We closed the divide because we know to put our future first, we must first put our differences aside. We lay down our arms so we can reach our arms to one another. We seek harm to none and harmony for all. 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 try that will forever be tied together victorious. Not because we will never again know defeat, but because we will never again. So division. Scripture tells us to envision that everyone shall sit under their own vine and fig tree into no one. So make them afraid. If we're to live up to our own time, then victory won't lie in the blade. But in all the bridges we've made, that is the promise to glade the hill we climb. If only we dare. It's because being American is more than a pride we inherit. It's the past we step into. And how we were parents. We've seen a forest that would shatter our nation rather than share, would destroy our country. Ever delaying democracy. And this effort very nearly succeeded. But while democracy can be periodically delayed, it can never be permanently defeated in this truth, in this faith we trust. For while we have our eyes on the future, history has its eyes on us. This is the era of just redemption. We feared it at its inception. We did not feel prepared to be the heirs of such a terrifying hour. But within it, we found the power to author a new chapter to offer hope and laughter to ourselves. So while once we asked how could we possibly prevail over catastrophe, now we assert, how could catastrophe possibly prevail over us? We will not march back to what was but moved to what shall be a country that is bruised but whole benevolence but bold, fierce and free. We will not be turned around or interrupted by intimidation because we know our action in our self will be the inheritance of the next generation. Our blunders become their burdens. But one thing is certain If we merge mercy with mites into mites with rights, then love becomes our legacy and change our children's birthright. So let us leave behind a country better than the one we were left with every breath from our bronze pounded chests, we will raise this wounded world into a wondrous one. We will rise from the gold limbed hills of the West. We will rise from the windswept north east where our forefathers first realized revolution. We will rise from the lake rimmed cities of the Midwestern states. We will rise from the sunbaked south. We will rebuild, reconcile and recover in every known nook of our nation, in every corner called our country. Our people diverse and beautiful, will emerge battered but beautiful. When day comes, we step out of the shade, aflame and unafraid. The new dawn blooms as we free Its further is always light. If only we're brave enough to see it. 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