February 16, 2021 • 30 mins
Hillary opens this season of You and Me Both with something we could all use right about now: hope. Joining her is Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman, who inspired so many people with her stirring poem, The Hill We Climb, on Inauguration Day. Amanda talks with Hillary about what it means to tell the story of America, her earliest poems, and how her relationship with her twin sister shaped her language. Together, they strategize about Amanda’s 2036 presidential campaign.
Amanda Gorman is the first-ever National Youth Poet Laureate. She recently performed at President Biden's Inauguration and the Super Bowl LV. The special edition of her inaugural poem, The Hill We Climb, is available in March. Her debut picture book, Change Sings, and first poetry collection, The Hill We Climb and Other Poems, will be out this September.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
You and Me Both is a production of I Heart Radio.
I'm Hillary Clinton, and I am thrilled to be back
for season two of You and Me Both. You know,
a lot has happened since season one concluded, like an
insurrection on January six, and I had the chance to
(00:22):
talk about what it was like that day in the
Capital with speaker Nancy Pelosi for a bonus episode, and
on a much happier note, we celebrated the inauguration of
President Biden and Vice President Harris. Now, I have to
tell you I've been to every inauguration since and this
(00:45):
one just felt so special. It certainly was a lot
better than the one four years before, because there was
just a palpable feeling of relief and joy and hopefulness.
And part of why I think we all felt that
way is because of Amanda Gorman, the youngest presidential inaugural
(01:10):
poet in history. Let me tell you, when that young, vibrant,
charismatic woman walked to the front of the platform in
her bright yellow coat and that magnificent presence, I was thrilled.
(01:31):
And the poem itself titled The Hill We Climb, just
captured the moment, and there were a lot of lines
that have stayed with me. But here's one Stanza that
sums up the pain and the hope of the last
four years. Let the Globe, if nothing else, say this
(01:51):
is true that even as we grieved, we grew, that
even as we hurt, we hoped, that even as we tired,
we tried. So you can imagine my excitement that we
are starting this season by talking with Amanda. Not only
(02:13):
the youngest poet ever to read at an inauguration and
the first youth poet Laurette, she's the first poet to
perform at the Super Bowl, and of course, on a
personal note, she is someone with an enviable headband collection. Hello, Hello, Hello, Hello.
(02:33):
I was trying to figure out how to wear a
headband with my headset. I love it. How how are
you doing? I mean I have to start by just saying, Wow,
what a whirlwind couple of weeks this has been for you, Amanda. Yeah, Yeah,
it's been wild. I'm doing good. I think I'm like
on the third part of the wave of just like
(02:57):
it was literally like I feel like my life changed
in like six minutes basically, and so my body has
just been processing that and now I'm feeling like, Okay,
I've absorbed that it happened. Let's move forward. So yeah,
feeling very good. Well, you sure made a lot of
us feel very good. So, uh, it's mutually reinforcing. We
(03:18):
needed some you know, positive uplift and you know, a
new sense of as you said the other day and
that wonderful interview you did with Michelle Obama, unity with purpose.
We needed to come together not just for the sake
of coming together, but to try to figure out what's
the best way forward. And you know, when I saw
(03:39):
you and your mom on the platform at the at
the Capitol, it was just so exciting and it was revealing, uh,
the feelings that people had been bottled up that they
hadn't been able to express because we were all holding
our breath for four years. Yeah, what stood out to
you from that day because it was such a happy occasion,
(04:04):
even though it was under such odd circumstances, right right, Well,
the day was both a whirlwind and endless. I'm not
sure how it was for you, And I'm really interested
in hearing more about that because the whole time we
were sitting there, my mom was like, oh my gosh,
look at Hillary. She's so beautiful. I wonder what to
go in through her head right now. You have to
(04:25):
realize every single time that I'm in the vicinity of you,
all of the grandmothers ever related to me, or like
you have to tell her how much I love her.
You know, there's no kind of like do a good job.
There's all like tell Hillary I love her. Um. But
you know what I remember from that day is, you know,
you have this incredible sensation of the historicity of the moment,
(04:45):
and it's it's something that I think is very difficult
to internalize. So, you know, you go up to the
podium and I remember distinctly seeing the Washington Monuments, seeing
the Lincoln Memorial, seeing the flags laid out for the
lives lost to COVID, and so you're standing in one
of the most sacred physical spaces in American democracy, and
(05:07):
I really remember just absorbing that, just trying to take
that in in order to do the poem justice. Yeah, well,
you more than exceeded anybody's expectation. Of course, I flashed
back immediately to my Angelou, uh and the inauguration in
in because in very different ways, because obviously age and
(05:32):
everything else that separated you your spirits seemed to be
communing on that inaugural stage this year, and it was
so touching to me personally to summon back that memory.
And I know that you have told people you had
a little bit of writer's block, you weren't quite sure
(05:53):
what you were going to say, and it was the
terrible events of January six that seemed to really spark
the creativity that led to what you did finally, right absolutely.
I mean when I began writing the poem, I want
to say, I began it on January one, and I
was just going at it like a slug. I think
(06:13):
I was writing like one sentence a day and kind
of looking at myself like, if I continue at this space,
this poem is not going to be done until two
inaugurations from now. And so I was, you know, doing
my best to kind of chug along and do the labor,
and then you know, the events of the introduction at
the Capital happened in that just it was this kind
(06:34):
of on switch moment where what I knew I needed
to say clicked into place, and how we've been discussing
coming into the poem. I knew that the theme of
the inauguration was going to be unity. But I think
as the inaugural poet, I took it as my kind
of responsibility to ask unity for what purpose? Unity to
(06:54):
what end? And I think poetry at times can speak
to that in a way that pros not and so
that really helped me finish the poem. I sent it
to the inaugural committee that night one because the poem
was finished and I was proud of it and I
wanted people to see it. But more importantly too, I
felt it really important to underscore to the committee that
(07:17):
in inaugural poem was still more than possible in that moment,
as dark as it was, and that this was something
that the country in the world and needed to hear. Well.
Amen to that, because what you were able to do
is to weave a story that was an honest story.
You didn't shy away from deep and painful parts of
(07:39):
our history, particularly our history of racism and slavery, but
you also maintained hope about the future. You threw it
into the future, and I think was cathartic. You know,
we mainly think of Catharsis as being rooted in theater,
but if you really go way way way back, I'm
(08:00):
the recitation of stories exactly which you would call poetry,
predates the acting out of play. So in a sense,
you're capturing those feelings enabled the entire country to kind
of go through them with you. Could you sense that
when you were up there was that part of your consciousness.
(08:21):
I sensed the catharsis when I was performing, but I
think even more so when I was writing, you know,
birthing it to being. I was very purposeful with myself
and understanding that this was a moment to re sanctify,
to reconsequate not only the capital building, but American democracy.
(08:41):
UM I often talk about I think in religion, catharsis
and cleansing is most often connected with rituals of water.
I think about cleansing in terms of like rituals of words.
When there's been evil or wrongdoing, how do we build
a new precedent? And often the language and the words
and the rhetoric that we use is part of that tradition.
(09:02):
And for me, it was looking at we have seen
the ways in which words and language have been violated
and also used to violate others. So how can this
inauguration day be a new dawn for the written and
spoken word and that we're actually reclaiming that tradition as
a path of healing. When did you discover poetry, How
(09:23):
old were you and what was your process your journey
like to becoming a poet. I discovered poetry, I want
to say, at a really young age, probably like four
or five. I didn't really know it was poetry. When
I first began writing, I was just putting my thoughts
on a page. I thought they were honestly songs, and
then I realized I could not sing, and I was
(09:45):
just speaking out when I was writing. Um, but yeah,
from pretty young age. My mom's an English teacher, so
that's always been at the forefront of my thinking. Funnily enough, Um,
she's not the biggest poetry fan. I think. I think
I'm one of the main only I would see reads recently.
But yeah, you know, when I was a toddler m
(10:06):
I stumbled across writing, and I think it was a
huge instrument for me because growing up I had a
speech impediment, so it was like, wow, look at this
medium in which I can express my thoughts and my ideas.
And I remember distinctly being around eight and I was writing,
and it was just this surreal dichotomy because the voice
(10:27):
that I heard in my head when I was writing
on the page sounded so different from the voice I
spoke in And I think only now as a twenty
two soon to be twenty three year old, am I
actually speaking with that voice that I heard so long ago,
you know, when I was seven and writing. That's fascinating. Well,
you're also a twin, and people talk about how twins communicate.
(10:51):
I mean, do you think there was anything about your
twinship that moved you toward being a poet. Absolutely, and
I'm so glad you brought that up. What's so funny
about being a twin is you probably hear this all
the time, like we often have her own languages. I'm
not sure that actually helped with the speech impediment, because
it was like, why do I need to speak English?
(11:12):
I had my twin language. She gets me, and my
twin often served us like my translators, like I was
a foreign dignitary. My twin was like, she wants a sandwich,
there's too much peanut butter, and my mom was just
being like, okay, great, So my poor mother would just
like have my sister work as like Google Translate for
Manda Gorman. Um, so it was really funny. Being a
(11:36):
twin I think made me lean into the idea that
who says language isn't this, who says language isn't that.
We still have her own language to this day, and
we're kind of bad about it because we use it
to talk about other people when they're in the room.
So we used to do that in high school. Uh,
and just be talking about people in our own language
(11:57):
and be like, oh, we're just talking about dinner, you know,
doing it. But yes, So I love my twin and
she's always been a great supporter of my non English conformity.
I love that we're taking a quick break, stay with us.
(12:22):
You know. When I read about your mom and the
fact that she was an English teacher and she obviously valued,
you know, education, I read that when you were a kid,
she only let you watch nineteen sitcoms, and one that
they mentioned in the article I read was The Honeymooners.
Oh my gosh, I'm dating myself, but you know I wasn't.
(12:42):
I wasn't watching that on reruns back of the day.
And if you wanted to watch so called modern TV, uh,
you had to make a social justice argument exavince her
to let you tell us what that was about, because
clearly it worked. It's a little undiventional, but it worked
exactly well. Um. You know my mom, she was really
(13:02):
hard set on us not necessarily just being consumers of content,
but creators of our own content and the stories you
wanted to see. So that started with kind of monitoring
what we were taking in and how much we were
taking in. And so we started just with like one
TV show that we were allowed to watch, with just
the Honeymooners. I was probably like a late elementary school
(13:25):
when I realized television and color was actually hid thing.
It was so funny, like I brought my friends over
to my house and I like put in the little
VCR tape and they were like, wires are screen and
black and line. I was like, isn't yours? And um.
But it was a really lovely childhood because it meant
that we were spending so much time creating plays and
(13:49):
songs and writing poetry because the television was off because
we had to be our own entertainment. And then once
we kind of graduated from the Honeymooners to things like
h or preference stuff very complex. Um, the monsters and
so on. If I wanted to watch something um that
was modern, I had to actually communicate why that was
(14:10):
something that should be in my visual effort are So
I remember wanting to watch Kim Possible and making the
argument that she was a strong female character and I
should be exposed to her in That argument worked, But
when I wanted to watch America's Next Top Model, it
was more some good try. But my mom did turn
(14:32):
it on for a few minutes and she was like, Okay,
let's talk about everything wrong with this, like what did
you just see and what were those messages? And so
it wasn't necessarily sheltering us from everything, but making sure
that we were able to articulate those stories how they
were influencing our points of view, so that we could
then speak back to them. Well, she was ahead of
her time, because now everybody says, you know, limit screen
(14:55):
time for your children, and it's no longer just the
TV you're competing with, but obviously everything online exactly. It
can't help but limit your own creativity because you are
absorbing somebody else's messaging and you've got to almost deliberately
move away from that in order to do your own creativity.
(15:17):
You know, this year, as you summed up so well,
both in in your poem but also in the interviews
that you've done, has been incredibly hard for so many people.
Were you able to finish your last year of college
before COVID hit? No, I wasn't. UM. I was in
my senior spring and our campus closed down like so
(15:39):
many others around the country. UM, and I came back home.
It wasn't until I think I was a few weeks
in to the online schooling process where I realized, I
think how much grief I personally was in. I think
for so long we didn't have a collective word for
what we were going through. It was almost an unintelligible emotion.
(16:02):
And to kind of realize that, oh my gosh, every
day I'm waking up grieving, grieving for everything I've lost
and everything I haven't yet. UM. And so that was
a really hard period. I'm not being able to have
my graduation, which you know, my family takes education so seriously.
I am a descendant of slaves. The idea that I,
as a black woman, would be walking across the Harvard
(16:25):
graduation stage graduating with honors was huge to my family,
and so just finding ways to move forward and push on.
You know, it was difficult, especially because when you're someone
that I think people look too for hope. I was
writing a lot of poems at the time, and people
kept asking me for kind of new commissions which spoke
(16:46):
to the moment, and I was like, I'm right here
with you, I am going through this, I'm in the
moment with you. You know, I'm in the fog of
war and being expected to have clarity in that um
And so that was hard, and I think how I
now navigated it and continued to cultivate my own creativity
in my voice was actually looking a lot to the
(17:07):
past and looking at the truth speakers of our history
who lived through times of im mental grief and also
intense isolation which we now call quarantining. So I was
thinking about, you know, Mornin Luther King writing a letter
from a Birmingham jail. I was thinking about Anne Frank
writing in her diary while hiding from Nazis. I was
(17:28):
even thinking about Shakespeare um during the plague and when
it hit Europe and him having to leave London um
and continue his artistry and kind of rural areas. So
there has been a precedent of storytellers continuing to document
the best and worst of humanity, and I wanted to
be part of that tradition, not to say I am
anyone of those icons, but to say that their light
(17:52):
in history has served as a beacon for me. Well,
but I think that's really important, Amanda, because what we're
missing right now is hopeful storytelling. We we are missing
the individual voices and then the chorus that they can
create that can help guide us. Like I really appreciated
(18:14):
your poem during the Super Bowl lifting up people on
the front lines, because it was a way of saying,
we're all in this together. We're about to watch a
football game, but let's not forget the people who have
been taking care of us and keeping us going. And
right now, in conversations that I'm having with people, you know,
everybody is saying, what's America's story? You know, the story
(18:37):
has been somewhat degraded and words have been weaponized. Your
poem helped to kind of pull us forward. But to
what's next? I mean, if you could have the proverbial
you know, magic wand to wave, how would you help
America regain a truthful unity with purpose? Home? You know,
(19:01):
sense of story about where we go next? Only asking
the easy questions today, aren't you killer? I'm looking for
wisdom you know, I love it well, I'm looking for
it from you so um. But you know what's really
interesting is my mom keeps saying this to me in
the aftermath of my poem about you know. The reason
that she believes it's touched so many people is she
(19:23):
was basically saying, you know, for so long, we've heard
so many words and none of them have been kind.
No one it feels like, has said a kind word
in four years. So for me, it's it's looking at
what is America's story and how do we tell it?
(19:43):
You know, which is just as important. It's just as
important of the things that we're saying as how we
are saying them, or were saying them with honesty, with kindness,
with compassion. Are we saying what is necessary? And so
I think I'm a small piece of that effort. It
was almost like on Inauguration Day there was this on switch.
(20:07):
I was watching the news in the language of coverage
was so much different, The language of journalists was so
much different, The language um that I was hearing from
fellow poets was so much different, and it wasn't as
if we were erasing anything that had happened. But it
was so amazing to see hope into kindness re enter
(20:28):
American rhetoric to all of a sudden become the dialects
that we speak in once again. And so I think
that's the power of voice, of storytelling of one person.
If one poem can reintroduce a country to what it
means to hope together yet again, that in itself is
a new chapter in the American story. Right. You create
(20:51):
the space for people once again, uh, to be kind,
to be hopeful. I think we've all been in a
kind of collective defensive crouch. It's almost like, what's going
to happen next? You know, what terrible thing is going
to occur? And of course you're not only a poet,
you're someone who has followed and expressed an interest in politics,
(21:13):
including running for presidents and six when did that first
dawn on you that hey, wait a minute, I want
to do this. I mean, probably with you, honestly, And
I know you're such an inspiration to so many people
around the world, including me. I mean, I remember being
an elementary school and you know, your name is always
(21:33):
in our household, and you know, my mom always making
sure that I saw the work that you were doing.
And then I think, you know, as I entered middle school,
what's interestingly enough, I think that is typically the phase
where girls their dreams start to change. They might have
begun hoping to be a scientist, and then you know,
they enter middle school and puberty happens and they're kind
of shepherded off to other avenues. That's kind of when
(21:56):
I doubled down, if anything on their dreams I already
had and saying I want to make a difference. I
want to make a change, and I don't just want
to write about it, I want to participate in it
and other avenues. So I would say probably around six
or seventh grade. And it was funny because, um, I
think many people at first thought it was a joke,
(22:18):
like ha ha, little girl was to be president, and
it is no joke. M I told my mom, you know,
I want to be president, and she was like, okay,
so this is what we're going to do. And we
sat down and had a great family conversation, the you know,
main message of which was I would have to be
so careful for basically the rest of my young adulthood
(22:42):
with what I put out there of myself. So I
didn't get social media until late high school. Um, and
even if I remember so many times being at parties
or hanging out with friends and they would be taking
selfies and I would just run into the bathroom more
slide away or like cover of my face, and it
was just like the de facto norm in my family
(23:03):
and our friendship group. Amanda is going to be president
in twenty five years. Um, we can't be taking photos
of her all the time. So it was just like
what happened. And I remember, you know, my sister, my
twin being at U c l A and being at
UM parties and them taking photos and her being like,
I can't be in it. My sister is running for president.
(23:24):
I don't want to be the thing that comes up
twenty five years and now. And so my family takes
it dead seriously and I love them for it. So yeah,
it's it's been a it's been a long goal. We'll
be right back. So what's next for you? How do
(23:48):
you you know envision you know the next five years,
you know, into your late twenties. For me, what's next?
For me is almost kind of like what's now? I
think so much is happening, and often it feels like
you have to say yes to everything at once. Just
the wave of attention and request that I've been getting,
(24:09):
and I've been learning that like no is a complete sentence,
it is. That's a good lesson exactly. It's it's a
really good lesson that I've been learning to kind of
just take time for myself. So I think, you know,
the next few years are going to be really interesting,
They're going to be exciting, um and it's going into
be me. I think continuing on a path of what
(24:30):
I hope is a leadership and also like a non
traditional fashion. So I think often when we think about
leaders are the political sphere, there's a very set agenda
of tick marks that you have to hit, and often
they're defined by whiteness and masculinity. That's how you achieve
a pedestal of leadership. And for me, it's like how
do I gain an imprint in society where I can
(24:53):
make change, Where I'm actually following a path that is
informed by my femininity, informed by my blackness, is inflorenced
by my poetry. So it doesn't mean stopping writing and
then you know, going to law school it means actually
continuing to write, continuing to speak, and also continuing to
learn and be educated in all of the wide spheres
(25:14):
that I can be. I think you have what is
the most important uh quality for anyone who is seeking
leadership and whatever sphere. You have a voice that is
informed by not just your own life experience, but very
importantly you know, the shoulders you stand at going back,
(25:37):
you know, generations. You have a voice because of how
you've been raised as well as educated. Uh. You have
a voice that is poetic, but it comes from a
deep place. So it's important to just remain who you
are with that voice, uh, and to seek opportunities, you know,
to try to you know, utilize it to bring people
(26:00):
together to you know, maybe set some goals, some projects,
some things that you are going to work on, because
at the end of the day, we are in great
need for a kind of revitalization of the American experiment.
Right it has you know, I'm not gonna say run aground,
(26:21):
but it's maybe out there treading water. Yeah. Yeah, you know,
there's a lot of confusion, there's a lot of conflict,
and so clarity of voice, breaking through that fog is
a necessary part of leadership always, but particularly now, I
think exactly. And I think that's something that I'm also learning,
(26:42):
which is of the pricelessness of your own voice. I
think when you have this electric moment where something you
say vicachetes throughout the entire world, people keep handing you
the mic and saying speak, say, And for me, it's
learning to kind of take a step back and actually
pass the mic onto other people, which is why I'm
(27:02):
For example, the Super Bowl poem was so important to me.
It wasn't about here's a man of Gorman again, applause, applause.
It was actually, there's these three amazing people who are
doing great work who we should recognize because they symbolize
the best of who we are, and so many thousands
of other people who are showing up every day for us. So,
you know, trying to use my voice to give voice
(27:25):
to others. Well, I can't tell you how excited I
am for what lies ahead for you. And I really
mean it when I say I want to be of
whatever help and support, because you know, there's a change
in perspective that inevitably accompanies you know, post college, entry
(27:46):
into adulthood, particularly looking for you know, political footing, and
someday when we could travel again post COVID. Uh, maybe
you and your mom and I can you know, sit
down and have a meal together. I love that amazing.
Thank you, Thank you so much. Amanda Gorman's inaugural poem,
(28:10):
The Hill We Climb, will be published in March. Her
debut children's book, Change Sings, and her first poetry collection
will be out in September. You can pre order all
three now from your favorite independent bookstore. So that's it
for this week's episode. But we do have a lot
(28:33):
to talk about in this season. We're gonna be talking
about fighting online disinformation, what to do about these tech
companies that are literally taking over our brains and in
many ways running our lives. We'll talk about the impact
the pandemic has been having on kids, what do we
do for kids who have been so dislocated, not being
(28:58):
able to go to school, being at home, trying to
make you know, online learning work. And we will also
look at the differences between real life politics and what
we see on shows like S n L. We've got
a lot of great conversations and yes, a few surprises
headed your way, so please stay tuned. You and Me
(29:24):
Both is brought to you by I Heart Radio. We're
produced by Julie Subrant, Kathleen Russo and Lauren Peterson, with
help from Huma Aberdeen, Nicky etur Oscar Flores, Lindsay Hoffman,
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(29:46):
Our engineer is Zack McNeice and original music is by
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Thanks for listening and see you next week.
You and Me Both is a production of I Heart Radio.
I'm Hillary Clinton, and I am thrilled to be back
for season two of You and Me Both. You know,
a lot has happened since season one concluded, like an
insurrection on January six, and I had the chance to
(00:22):
talk about what it was like that day in the
Capital with speaker Nancy Pelosi for a bonus episode, and
on a much happier note, we celebrated the inauguration of
President Biden and Vice President Harris. Now, I have to
tell you I've been to every inauguration since and this
(00:45):
one just felt so special. It certainly was a lot
better than the one four years before, because there was
just a palpable feeling of relief and joy and hopefulness.
And part of why I think we all felt that
way is because of Amanda Gorman, the youngest presidential inaugural
(01:10):
poet in history. Let me tell you, when that young, vibrant,
charismatic woman walked to the front of the platform in
her bright yellow coat and that magnificent presence, I was thrilled.
(01:31):
And the poem itself titled The Hill We Climb, just
captured the moment, and there were a lot of lines
that have stayed with me. But here's one Stanza that
sums up the pain and the hope of the last
four years. Let the Globe, if nothing else, say this
(01:51):
is true that even as we grieved, we grew, that
even as we hurt, we hoped, that even as we tired,
we tried. So you can imagine my excitement that we
are starting this season by talking with Amanda. Not only
(02:13):
the youngest poet ever to read at an inauguration and
the first youth poet Laurette, she's the first poet to
perform at the Super Bowl, and of course, on a
personal note, she is someone with an enviable headband collection. Hello, Hello, Hello, Hello.
(02:33):
I was trying to figure out how to wear a
headband with my headset. I love it. How how are
you doing? I mean I have to start by just saying, Wow,
what a whirlwind couple of weeks this has been for you, Amanda. Yeah, Yeah,
it's been wild. I'm doing good. I think I'm like
on the third part of the wave of just like
(02:57):
it was literally like I feel like my life changed
in like six minutes basically, and so my body has
just been processing that and now I'm feeling like, Okay,
I've absorbed that it happened. Let's move forward. So yeah,
feeling very good. Well, you sure made a lot of
us feel very good. So, uh, it's mutually reinforcing. We
(03:18):
needed some you know, positive uplift and you know, a
new sense of as you said the other day and
that wonderful interview you did with Michelle Obama, unity with purpose.
We needed to come together not just for the sake
of coming together, but to try to figure out what's
the best way forward. And you know, when I saw
(03:39):
you and your mom on the platform at the at
the Capitol, it was just so exciting and it was revealing, uh,
the feelings that people had been bottled up that they
hadn't been able to express because we were all holding
our breath for four years. Yeah, what stood out to
you from that day because it was such a happy occasion,
(04:04):
even though it was under such odd circumstances, right right, Well,
the day was both a whirlwind and endless. I'm not
sure how it was for you, And I'm really interested
in hearing more about that because the whole time we
were sitting there, my mom was like, oh my gosh,
look at Hillary. She's so beautiful. I wonder what to
go in through her head right now. You have to
(04:25):
realize every single time that I'm in the vicinity of you,
all of the grandmothers ever related to me, or like
you have to tell her how much I love her.
You know, there's no kind of like do a good job.
There's all like tell Hillary I love her. Um. But
you know what I remember from that day is, you know,
you have this incredible sensation of the historicity of the moment,
(04:45):
and it's it's something that I think is very difficult
to internalize. So, you know, you go up to the
podium and I remember distinctly seeing the Washington Monuments, seeing
the Lincoln Memorial, seeing the flags laid out for the
lives lost to COVID, and so you're standing in one
of the most sacred physical spaces in American democracy, and
(05:07):
I really remember just absorbing that, just trying to take
that in in order to do the poem justice. Yeah, well,
you more than exceeded anybody's expectation. Of course, I flashed
back immediately to my Angelou, uh and the inauguration in
in because in very different ways, because obviously age and
(05:32):
everything else that separated you your spirits seemed to be
communing on that inaugural stage this year, and it was
so touching to me personally to summon back that memory.
And I know that you have told people you had
a little bit of writer's block, you weren't quite sure
(05:53):
what you were going to say, and it was the
terrible events of January six that seemed to really spark
the creativity that led to what you did finally, right absolutely.
I mean when I began writing the poem, I want
to say, I began it on January one, and I
was just going at it like a slug. I think
(06:13):
I was writing like one sentence a day and kind
of looking at myself like, if I continue at this space,
this poem is not going to be done until two
inaugurations from now. And so I was, you know, doing
my best to kind of chug along and do the labor,
and then you know, the events of the introduction at
the Capital happened in that just it was this kind
(06:34):
of on switch moment where what I knew I needed
to say clicked into place, and how we've been discussing
coming into the poem. I knew that the theme of
the inauguration was going to be unity. But I think
as the inaugural poet, I took it as my kind
of responsibility to ask unity for what purpose? Unity to
(06:54):
what end? And I think poetry at times can speak
to that in a way that pros not and so
that really helped me finish the poem. I sent it
to the inaugural committee that night one because the poem
was finished and I was proud of it and I
wanted people to see it. But more importantly too, I
felt it really important to underscore to the committee that
(07:17):
in inaugural poem was still more than possible in that moment,
as dark as it was, and that this was something
that the country in the world and needed to hear. Well.
Amen to that, because what you were able to do
is to weave a story that was an honest story.
You didn't shy away from deep and painful parts of
(07:39):
our history, particularly our history of racism and slavery, but
you also maintained hope about the future. You threw it
into the future, and I think was cathartic. You know,
we mainly think of Catharsis as being rooted in theater,
but if you really go way way way back, I'm
(08:00):
the recitation of stories exactly which you would call poetry,
predates the acting out of play. So in a sense,
you're capturing those feelings enabled the entire country to kind
of go through them with you. Could you sense that
when you were up there was that part of your consciousness.
(08:21):
I sensed the catharsis when I was performing, but I
think even more so when I was writing, you know,
birthing it to being. I was very purposeful with myself
and understanding that this was a moment to re sanctify,
to reconsequate not only the capital building, but American democracy.
(08:41):
UM I often talk about I think in religion, catharsis
and cleansing is most often connected with rituals of water.
I think about cleansing in terms of like rituals of words.
When there's been evil or wrongdoing, how do we build
a new precedent? And often the language and the words
and the rhetoric that we use is part of that tradition.
(09:02):
And for me, it was looking at we have seen
the ways in which words and language have been violated
and also used to violate others. So how can this
inauguration day be a new dawn for the written and
spoken word and that we're actually reclaiming that tradition as
a path of healing. When did you discover poetry, How
(09:23):
old were you and what was your process your journey
like to becoming a poet. I discovered poetry, I want
to say, at a really young age, probably like four
or five. I didn't really know it was poetry. When
I first began writing, I was just putting my thoughts
on a page. I thought they were honestly songs, and
then I realized I could not sing, and I was
(09:45):
just speaking out when I was writing. Um, but yeah,
from pretty young age. My mom's an English teacher, so
that's always been at the forefront of my thinking. Funnily enough, Um,
she's not the biggest poetry fan. I think. I think
I'm one of the main only I would see reads recently.
But yeah, you know, when I was a toddler m
(10:06):
I stumbled across writing, and I think it was a
huge instrument for me because growing up I had a
speech impediment, so it was like, wow, look at this
medium in which I can express my thoughts and my ideas.
And I remember distinctly being around eight and I was writing,
and it was just this surreal dichotomy because the voice
(10:27):
that I heard in my head when I was writing
on the page sounded so different from the voice I
spoke in And I think only now as a twenty
two soon to be twenty three year old, am I
actually speaking with that voice that I heard so long ago,
you know, when I was seven and writing. That's fascinating. Well,
you're also a twin, and people talk about how twins communicate.
(10:51):
I mean, do you think there was anything about your
twinship that moved you toward being a poet. Absolutely, and
I'm so glad you brought that up. What's so funny
about being a twin is you probably hear this all
the time, like we often have her own languages. I'm
not sure that actually helped with the speech impediment, because
it was like, why do I need to speak English?
(11:12):
I had my twin language. She gets me, and my
twin often served us like my translators, like I was
a foreign dignitary. My twin was like, she wants a sandwich,
there's too much peanut butter, and my mom was just
being like, okay, great, So my poor mother would just
like have my sister work as like Google Translate for
Manda Gorman. Um, so it was really funny. Being a
(11:36):
twin I think made me lean into the idea that
who says language isn't this, who says language isn't that.
We still have her own language to this day, and
we're kind of bad about it because we use it
to talk about other people when they're in the room.
So we used to do that in high school. Uh,
and just be talking about people in our own language
(11:57):
and be like, oh, we're just talking about dinner, you know,
doing it. But yes, So I love my twin and
she's always been a great supporter of my non English conformity.
I love that we're taking a quick break, stay with us.
(12:22):
You know. When I read about your mom and the
fact that she was an English teacher and she obviously valued,
you know, education, I read that when you were a kid,
she only let you watch nineteen sitcoms, and one that
they mentioned in the article I read was The Honeymooners.
Oh my gosh, I'm dating myself, but you know I wasn't.
(12:42):
I wasn't watching that on reruns back of the day.
And if you wanted to watch so called modern TV, uh,
you had to make a social justice argument exavince her
to let you tell us what that was about, because
clearly it worked. It's a little undiventional, but it worked
exactly well. Um. You know my mom, she was really
(13:02):
hard set on us not necessarily just being consumers of content,
but creators of our own content and the stories you
wanted to see. So that started with kind of monitoring
what we were taking in and how much we were
taking in. And so we started just with like one
TV show that we were allowed to watch, with just
the Honeymooners. I was probably like a late elementary school
(13:25):
when I realized television and color was actually hid thing.
It was so funny, like I brought my friends over
to my house and I like put in the little
VCR tape and they were like, wires are screen and
black and line. I was like, isn't yours? And um.
But it was a really lovely childhood because it meant
that we were spending so much time creating plays and
(13:49):
songs and writing poetry because the television was off because
we had to be our own entertainment. And then once
we kind of graduated from the Honeymooners to things like
h or preference stuff very complex. Um, the monsters and
so on. If I wanted to watch something um that
was modern, I had to actually communicate why that was
(14:10):
something that should be in my visual effort are So
I remember wanting to watch Kim Possible and making the
argument that she was a strong female character and I
should be exposed to her in That argument worked, But
when I wanted to watch America's Next Top Model, it
was more some good try. But my mom did turn
(14:32):
it on for a few minutes and she was like, Okay,
let's talk about everything wrong with this, like what did
you just see and what were those messages? And so
it wasn't necessarily sheltering us from everything, but making sure
that we were able to articulate those stories how they
were influencing our points of view, so that we could
then speak back to them. Well, she was ahead of
her time, because now everybody says, you know, limit screen
(14:55):
time for your children, and it's no longer just the
TV you're competing with, but obviously everything online exactly. It
can't help but limit your own creativity because you are
absorbing somebody else's messaging and you've got to almost deliberately
move away from that in order to do your own creativity.
(15:17):
You know, this year, as you summed up so well,
both in in your poem but also in the interviews
that you've done, has been incredibly hard for so many people.
Were you able to finish your last year of college
before COVID hit? No, I wasn't. UM. I was in
my senior spring and our campus closed down like so
(15:39):
many others around the country. UM, and I came back home.
It wasn't until I think I was a few weeks
in to the online schooling process where I realized, I
think how much grief I personally was in. I think
for so long we didn't have a collective word for
what we were going through. It was almost an unintelligible emotion.
(16:02):
And to kind of realize that, oh my gosh, every
day I'm waking up grieving, grieving for everything I've lost
and everything I haven't yet. UM. And so that was
a really hard period. I'm not being able to have
my graduation, which you know, my family takes education so seriously.
I am a descendant of slaves. The idea that I,
as a black woman, would be walking across the Harvard
(16:25):
graduation stage graduating with honors was huge to my family,
and so just finding ways to move forward and push on.
You know, it was difficult, especially because when you're someone
that I think people look too for hope. I was
writing a lot of poems at the time, and people
kept asking me for kind of new commissions which spoke
(16:46):
to the moment, and I was like, I'm right here
with you, I am going through this, I'm in the
moment with you. You know, I'm in the fog of
war and being expected to have clarity in that um
And so that was hard, and I think how I
now navigated it and continued to cultivate my own creativity
in my voice was actually looking a lot to the
(17:07):
past and looking at the truth speakers of our history
who lived through times of im mental grief and also
intense isolation which we now call quarantining. So I was
thinking about, you know, Mornin Luther King writing a letter
from a Birmingham jail. I was thinking about Anne Frank
writing in her diary while hiding from Nazis. I was
(17:28):
even thinking about Shakespeare um during the plague and when
it hit Europe and him having to leave London um
and continue his artistry and kind of rural areas. So
there has been a precedent of storytellers continuing to document
the best and worst of humanity, and I wanted to
be part of that tradition, not to say I am
anyone of those icons, but to say that their light
(17:52):
in history has served as a beacon for me. Well,
but I think that's really important, Amanda, because what we're
missing right now is hopeful storytelling. We we are missing
the individual voices and then the chorus that they can
create that can help guide us. Like I really appreciated
(18:14):
your poem during the Super Bowl lifting up people on
the front lines, because it was a way of saying,
we're all in this together. We're about to watch a
football game, but let's not forget the people who have
been taking care of us and keeping us going. And
right now, in conversations that I'm having with people, you know,
everybody is saying, what's America's story? You know, the story
(18:37):
has been somewhat degraded and words have been weaponized. Your
poem helped to kind of pull us forward. But to
what's next? I mean, if you could have the proverbial
you know, magic wand to wave, how would you help
America regain a truthful unity with purpose? Home? You know,
(19:01):
sense of story about where we go next? Only asking
the easy questions today, aren't you killer? I'm looking for
wisdom you know, I love it well, I'm looking for
it from you so um. But you know what's really
interesting is my mom keeps saying this to me in
the aftermath of my poem about you know. The reason
that she believes it's touched so many people is she
(19:23):
was basically saying, you know, for so long, we've heard
so many words and none of them have been kind.
No one it feels like, has said a kind word
in four years. So for me, it's it's looking at
what is America's story and how do we tell it?
(19:43):
You know, which is just as important. It's just as
important of the things that we're saying as how we
are saying them, or were saying them with honesty, with kindness,
with compassion. Are we saying what is necessary? And so
I think I'm a small piece of that effort. It
was almost like on Inauguration Day there was this on switch.
(20:07):
I was watching the news in the language of coverage
was so much different, The language of journalists was so
much different, The language um that I was hearing from
fellow poets was so much different, and it wasn't as
if we were erasing anything that had happened. But it
was so amazing to see hope into kindness re enter
(20:28):
American rhetoric to all of a sudden become the dialects
that we speak in once again. And so I think
that's the power of voice, of storytelling of one person.
If one poem can reintroduce a country to what it
means to hope together yet again, that in itself is
a new chapter in the American story. Right. You create
(20:51):
the space for people once again, uh, to be kind,
to be hopeful. I think we've all been in a
kind of collective defensive crouch. It's almost like, what's going
to happen next? You know, what terrible thing is going
to occur? And of course you're not only a poet,
you're someone who has followed and expressed an interest in politics,
(21:13):
including running for presidents and six when did that first
dawn on you that hey, wait a minute, I want
to do this. I mean, probably with you, honestly, And
I know you're such an inspiration to so many people
around the world, including me. I mean, I remember being
an elementary school and you know, your name is always
(21:33):
in our household, and you know, my mom always making
sure that I saw the work that you were doing.
And then I think, you know, as I entered middle school,
what's interestingly enough, I think that is typically the phase
where girls their dreams start to change. They might have
begun hoping to be a scientist, and then you know,
they enter middle school and puberty happens and they're kind
of shepherded off to other avenues. That's kind of when
(21:56):
I doubled down, if anything on their dreams I already
had and saying I want to make a difference. I
want to make a change, and I don't just want
to write about it, I want to participate in it
and other avenues. So I would say probably around six
or seventh grade. And it was funny because, um, I
think many people at first thought it was a joke,
(22:18):
like ha ha, little girl was to be president, and
it is no joke. M I told my mom, you know,
I want to be president, and she was like, okay,
so this is what we're going to do. And we
sat down and had a great family conversation, the you know,
main message of which was I would have to be
so careful for basically the rest of my young adulthood
(22:42):
with what I put out there of myself. So I
didn't get social media until late high school. Um, and
even if I remember so many times being at parties
or hanging out with friends and they would be taking
selfies and I would just run into the bathroom more
slide away or like cover of my face, and it
was just like the de facto norm in my family
(23:03):
and our friendship group. Amanda is going to be president
in twenty five years. Um, we can't be taking photos
of her all the time. So it was just like
what happened. And I remember, you know, my sister, my
twin being at U c l A and being at
UM parties and them taking photos and her being like,
I can't be in it. My sister is running for president.
(23:24):
I don't want to be the thing that comes up
twenty five years and now. And so my family takes
it dead seriously and I love them for it. So yeah,
it's it's been a it's been a long goal. We'll
be right back. So what's next for you? How do
(23:48):
you you know envision you know the next five years,
you know, into your late twenties. For me, what's next?
For me is almost kind of like what's now? I
think so much is happening, and often it feels like
you have to say yes to everything at once. Just
the wave of attention and request that I've been getting,
(24:09):
and I've been learning that like no is a complete sentence,
it is. That's a good lesson exactly. It's it's a
really good lesson that I've been learning to kind of
just take time for myself. So I think, you know,
the next few years are going to be really interesting,
They're going to be exciting, um and it's going into
be me. I think continuing on a path of what
(24:30):
I hope is a leadership and also like a non
traditional fashion. So I think often when we think about
leaders are the political sphere, there's a very set agenda
of tick marks that you have to hit, and often
they're defined by whiteness and masculinity. That's how you achieve
a pedestal of leadership. And for me, it's like how
do I gain an imprint in society where I can
(24:53):
make change, Where I'm actually following a path that is
informed by my femininity, informed by my blackness, is inflorenced
by my poetry. So it doesn't mean stopping writing and
then you know, going to law school it means actually
continuing to write, continuing to speak, and also continuing to
learn and be educated in all of the wide spheres
(25:14):
that I can be. I think you have what is
the most important uh quality for anyone who is seeking
leadership and whatever sphere. You have a voice that is
informed by not just your own life experience, but very
importantly you know, the shoulders you stand at going back,
(25:37):
you know, generations. You have a voice because of how
you've been raised as well as educated. Uh. You have
a voice that is poetic, but it comes from a
deep place. So it's important to just remain who you
are with that voice, uh, and to seek opportunities, you know,
to try to you know, utilize it to bring people
(26:00):
together to you know, maybe set some goals, some projects,
some things that you are going to work on, because
at the end of the day, we are in great
need for a kind of revitalization of the American experiment.
Right it has you know, I'm not gonna say run aground,
(26:21):
but it's maybe out there treading water. Yeah. Yeah, you know,
there's a lot of confusion, there's a lot of conflict,
and so clarity of voice, breaking through that fog is
a necessary part of leadership always, but particularly now, I
think exactly. And I think that's something that I'm also learning,
(26:42):
which is of the pricelessness of your own voice. I
think when you have this electric moment where something you
say vicachetes throughout the entire world, people keep handing you
the mic and saying speak, say, And for me, it's
learning to kind of take a step back and actually
pass the mic onto other people, which is why I'm
(27:02):
For example, the Super Bowl poem was so important to me.
It wasn't about here's a man of Gorman again, applause, applause.
It was actually, there's these three amazing people who are
doing great work who we should recognize because they symbolize
the best of who we are, and so many thousands
of other people who are showing up every day for us. So,
you know, trying to use my voice to give voice
(27:25):
to others. Well, I can't tell you how excited I
am for what lies ahead for you. And I really
mean it when I say I want to be of
whatever help and support, because you know, there's a change
in perspective that inevitably accompanies you know, post college, entry
(27:46):
into adulthood, particularly looking for you know, political footing, and
someday when we could travel again post COVID. Uh, maybe
you and your mom and I can you know, sit
down and have a meal together. I love that amazing.
Thank you, Thank you so much. Amanda Gorman's inaugural poem,
(28:10):
The Hill We Climb, will be published in March. Her
debut children's book, Change Sings, and her first poetry collection
will be out in September. You can pre order all
three now from your favorite independent bookstore. So that's it
for this week's episode. But we do have a lot
(28:33):
to talk about in this season. We're gonna be talking
about fighting online disinformation, what to do about these tech
companies that are literally taking over our brains and in
many ways running our lives. We'll talk about the impact
the pandemic has been having on kids, what do we
do for kids who have been so dislocated, not being
(28:58):
able to go to school, being at home, trying to
make you know, online learning work. And we will also
look at the differences between real life politics and what
we see on shows like S n L. We've got
a lot of great conversations and yes, a few surprises
headed your way, so please stay tuned. You and Me
(29:24):
Both is brought to you by I Heart Radio. We're
produced by Julie Subrant, Kathleen Russo and Lauren Peterson, with
help from Huma Aberdeen, Nicky etur Oscar Flores, Lindsay Hoffman,
Brianna Johnson, Nick Merrill, Rob Russo, Opal Vedan and Lona Valmorrow.
(29:46):
Our engineer is Zack McNeice and original music is by
Forrest Gray. If you like You and Me Both, please
share it with your friends. Let them know they can
subscribe to You and Me Both on the I heart
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Thanks for listening and see you next week.
Host
Hillary Clinton
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