Amanda Gorman debuted a new poem Wednesday night at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
Gorman, who in 2017 was named the first-ever National Youth Poet Laureate, made history in 2021 when she became the youngest person ever to read a poem at a presidential inauguration. That poem, “The Hill We Climb,” was published as a book; she has since published a poetry collection, Call Us What We Carry, and two children’s books, Change Sings: A Children's Anthem, illustrated by Loren Long, and Something, Someday, illustrated by Christian Robinson.
At the convention, not long before Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz accepted the Democratic nomination for vice president, Gorman read a poem titled “This Sacred Scene.”
“We gather at this hallowed place because we believe in the American dream,” she read. “We face a race that tests if this country we cherish shall perish from the earth and if our earth shall perish from this country.”
Part of her poem invoked former President Barack Obama, whose second book was titled The Audacity of Hope. “And make no mistake, cohering is the hardest task history ever wrote, but tomorrow is not written by our odds of hardship, but by the audacity of our hope by the vitality of our vote,” she read.
The poem concluded with “Together we must birth this early republic and achieve an unearthly summit. Let us not just believe in the American dream. Let us be worthy of it.”
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
