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Friday
Thanks to a mother with far-right views, Amanda Gorman’s “The Hill We Climb,” which the poet read at Joe Biden’s presidential inauguration, is no longer available to elementary school students in a Florida K-8 school. According to a Washington Post article, following Daily Salinas’s complaint, the Bob Graham Education Center in Miami Lakes restricted elementary school access to Gorman’s book, although it did “deem the book suitable for middle school students,” saying that it had “educational value because of its historical significance.”
In other words, the school would keep the poem from my grandson, who was eight at the time the poem came out and whose reaction to it was “Wow!”
Alban and I examined the poem together as part of a “civics through poetry” unit I had put together for him. (His school during the Covid shutdown was encouraging family members to help with their kids’ educations.) I gave Alban poems both old and new, everything from Longfellow and Whitman to Gorman and Langston Hughes—and speaking of the latter, I note that, thanks to the mother’s objections, the school has also restricted Love to Langston.
Since Salinas voiced her objections, her political background has come to light. She apparently attended at least one rally of the Proud Boys, members of whom have been convicted of seditious conspiracy for the January 6 attack, and she attended a school board protest last year with Moms For Liberty, a rightwing group that has been seeking to ban books around the country. She has also posted a summary of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, an antisemitic forgery that Hitler used to justify the Holocaust, on her Facebook page. (She has since apologized for that.) One book that she does support, according to Daily Beast, is Mike Huckabee’s The Kids Guide to Ron DeSantis.
While admitting that she had not read Gorman’s poem in its entirety, Salinas complained that it contained “indirect hate messages.”
Salinas can believe what she believes, of course. What is troubling is how a school system will buckle to rightwing voices (one rightwing voice in this case). Saying that it “erred on the side of caution” in limiting student access, it has opened itself up to further bullying.
I share below some of the blog essay I wrote when examining the poem with Alban two and a half years ago. At one point I quoted what Washington Post’s Karen Attiah had to say about Gorman’s reading:
[S]he was not a luxury. The purifying power of poetry has existed as long as humans have wielded words. And for women especially, as [poet Audre] Lorde said, poetry “is a vital necessity of our existence.” Biden’s inaugural words about unity and coming together were good and helpful and presidential. But it was Gorman’s truth that was the necessary one.
Necessary for Black women in America. In a country that so loves to profit from our political, cultural and emotional labor, Gorman reminded those of us who live at the intersection of sexism and racism that we do not have the luxury of settling for hollow #BlackWomenWillSaveUs platitudes. Not when this country is unable to save us from discrimination, police brutality or dying in childbirth.
I was struck by how readily Gorman rose to the challenge of occasional poetry (poetry written for a special occasion), which used to be a common expectation and income source for poets in centuries past but has fallen out of fashion. She succeeded in part by channeling the voice of previous African American orators and poets. Her “we will rise” refrain, for instance, echoes both Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech (“this nation will rise up”) and Maya Angelou’s “Still I Rise.”
America as a city on a hill, of course, has a long tradition, stemming back to John Winthrop’s injunction to build a civilization where “the eyes of all people are upon us.” John Kennedy invoked the image shortly after being elected, as did Ronald Reagan. Gorman’s focus is on climbing that hill, climbing having its own rich history within the African American community, from the Negro spiritual “We are climbing Jacob’s ladder” to Langston Hughes’s “Mother to Son.” Hughes’s poem concludes,
So boy, don’t you turn back.
Don’t you set down on the steps
‘Cause you finds it’s kinder hard.
Don’t you fall now —
For I’se still goin’, honey,
I’se still climbin’,
And life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.
And then there’s the late Naomi Long Madgett’s “Midway,” which I have written about, which concludes with the line, “Mighty mountains loom before me and I won’t stop now.”
In Gorman’s poem, my grandson particularly liked the lines,
[B]eing American is more than a pride we inherit,
it’s the past we step into
and how we repair it.
We’ve seen a force that would shatter our nation
rather than share it,
that would destroy our country if it meant delaying democracy,
and this effort very nearly succeeded.
But while democracy can periodically be delayed,
it can never be permanently defeated.
Alban also felt inspired and personally challenged by the closing lines:
[W]hen the day comes we step out of the shade
aflame and unafraid,
the new dawn blooms as we free it,
for there is always light
if only we’re brave enough to see it,
if only we’re brave enough
to be it.
Think of how much we want young people to encounter this idealism.
Discussing the poem in light of the Capitol Hill seditionists, Alban and I found comfort in Gorman’s confidence in the future. (Alban said, “Wow!” while watching a video of her delivering the poem.) We also looked at the poem’s style. While written in free verse (no regular rhyme or rhythm), it does have a few rhymes (the best ones are often female, such as “inherit,” “repair it,” and “share it”), along with puns and alliteration. I challenged Alban to find the largest alliterative cluster, which he did (“to compose a country committed/ to all cultures, colors, characters and conditions of man”).
“The Hill We Climbed” deepened my grandson’s patriotism and his belief in the American promise. To rule that the poem is not appropriate for kids his age is an abomination.
Here’s the poem in its entirety:
The Hill We Climb
By Amanda Gorman
When day comes we ask ourselves,
where can we find light in this never-ending shade?
The loss we carry,
a sea we must wade
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-ice
And yet the dawn is ours
before we knew it
Somehow we do it
Somehow we’ve weathered and witnessed
a nation that isn’t broken
but simply unfinished
We the successors of a country and a 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 that doesn’t mean we are
striving to form a union that is perfect
We are striving to forge a union with purpose
To compose a country committed to all cultures, colors, characters and
conditions of man
And so we lift our gazes not to what stands between us
but what stands before us
We close 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 out 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 tried
That we’ll forever be tied together, victorious
Not because we will never again know defeat
but because we will never again sow division
Scripture tells us to envision
that everyone shall sit under their own vine and fig tree
And no one shall 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 repair it
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
This is the era of just redemption
We feared 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 move to what shall be
A country that is bruised but whole,
benevolent but bold,
fierce and free
We will not be turned around
or interrupted by intimidation
because we know our inaction and inertia
will be the inheritance of the next generation
Our blunders become their burdens
But one thing is certain:
If we merge mercy with might,
and might with right,
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 my bronze-pounded chest,
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 northeast
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
and every known nook of our nation and
every corner called our country,
our people diverse and beautiful will emerge,
battered and beautiful
When day comes we step out of the shade,
aflame and unafraid
The new dawn blooms as we free it
For there is always light,
if only we’re brave enough to see it
If only we’re brave enough to be it