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The Presidential Inauguration of 2021

Gorman premiered “The Hill We Climb” in a live, televised performance that took place as part of the U.S. presidential inauguration ceremony for Joe Biden, on January 20, 2021. She was the youngest poet ever to take part in a presidential inauguration, and she followed in the footsteps of a select few other poets who had previously taken part in this ceremony. Most famously, Robert Frost read a poem for John F. Kennedy’s inauguration in 1961, and Maya Angelou read for Bill Clinton’s in 1993. The tradition of the inaugural poem calls on poets to look forward and articulate a hopeful vision for the country’s next chapter. As such, inaugural poems always arrive at something of a turning point. In Gorman’s case, the sense of a political turning point was arguably more urgent than usual. Only two weeks prior to the inauguration, supporters of the previous administration had invaded the Capitol Building in an effort to overturn the official election results. Gorman reportedly altered her poem in the wake of this event, incorporating language that makes veiled reference to it (lines 50–51):

We’ve seen a force that would shatter our nation rather than share it,    
Would destroy our country if it meant delaying democracy.

In response to this attempt to overturn democracy, which is itself a symptom of the country’s profound divisions, Gorman’s poem cultivates a vision of unity.

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