Amanda Gorman is ending her extraordinary year on a hopeful note.
The 23-year-old kicked off 2021 with a reading of her own poem, "The Hill We Climb," at President Joe Biden’s inauguration on Jan. 20, 2020. The event rocketed Gorman to international stardom and garnered critical acclaim for the young author's work.
On Thursday, Gorman released a new poem entitled "New Day’s Lyric" on Instagram alongside a video where Gorman recites the words. Dressed in a white dress in an empty theater, Gorman's five-stanza poem begins:
"May this be the day
We come together.
Mourning, we come to mend,
Withered, we come to weather,
Torn, we come to tend,
Battered, we come to better."
The poem was published in partnership with Instagram and its parent company, Meta Platforms, as a fundraiser for the International Rescue Committee. The IRC supports international efforts primarily aimed towards refugees, but also has programs that tackle the coronavirus, global inequity, humanitarian issues and more. Meta has pledged $50,000 to the cause.
"New Day’s Lyric” is a five-stanza, 48-line resolution with themes of struggle and healing known to admirers of “The Hill We Climb” and of her bestselling collection “Call Us What We Carry,” which came out in early December.
In the 11 months since Biden's inauguration, Gorman's star has been on the rise. Not only did she perform her piece “Chorus of the Captains” at the pre-game ceremonies for the Super Bowl, Gorman also served as one of four co-hosts for the 2021 Met Gala, alongside actor Timothée Chalamet, musician Billie Eilish and tennis star Naomi Osaka.
Poets rarely enjoy the kind of attention Gorman received in 2021, but in an email to The Associated Press she reflected less on her own success than on the state of the country. Gorman wrote that the “chaos and instability” of the past year had made her reject the idea of going “back to normal” and instead fight to “move beyond it.”
She also mentioned Maya Angelou’s poem “Human Family” and added, “To be a family, a country, doesn’t necessitate that we be the same or agree on everything, only that we continue to try to see the best in each other and move forward into a shared future. Whether we like it or not, we are in this together.”
Gorman offered an alliterative response when asked what inspired “New Day’s Lyric,” telling the AP that she “wanted to write a lyric to honor the hardships, hurt, hope and healing of 2021 while also harkening the potential of 2022.”
“This is such a unique New Year’s Day, because even as we toast our glasses to the future, we still have our heads bowed for what has been lost,” she wrote. “I think one of the most important things the new year reminds us is of that old adage: This too shall pass. You can’t relive the same day twice — meaning every dawn is a new one, and every year an opportunity to step into the light.”
