Amanda Gorman, 22 made history on Wednesday when she became the youngest poet to ever perform at a presidential inauguration.
Gorman, like Biden overcame a speech impediment as a child. She had difficulty pronouncing certain sounds and that was one of the reasons she was drawn to poetry at a such a young age.
Her speech impediment not only connects her to President Joe Biden, but to past inaugural poets as well.
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“Maya Angelou was mute growing up as a child and she grew up to deliver the inaugural poem for President Bill Clinton,” she told NPR. “So I think there is a real history of orators who have had to struggle with a type of imposed voicelessness, you know, having that stage in the inauguration.”
Gorman was hallway through the poem on January 6 when a pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol hoping to delay the certification of President Joe Biden’s victory, according to the New York Times. She stayed up late that night to finish the poem, adding verses about the Capitol siege.
An excerpt of Gorman’s poem:
We’ve seen a force that would shatter our nation rather than share it,
would destroy our country if it meant 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.
