By Santo Raggiri<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On January 20th, 2021, at the Inauguration of President Joe Biden, Biden was not the only person to take the stage. On that day, we saw another figure present an equally powerful message. That figure is Amanda Gorman, a 22-year-old African-American woman. She read her poem, \u2018The Hill We Climb\u2019, speaking largely about our country\u2019s past, our failures, and how we can use them to make a better future. It\u2019s, as Chloe Jean, an eighth-grader, described it: \u201cWhere we are as a country and how we can get to be in a better country.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, the words spoken in Gorman’s poem were not the only inspiring part. Ms. Koomson-Davis, a sixth-grade ethics teacher said \u201cI was struck by the image of seeing a young, African-American woman presenting to the American audience. As a young girl, I would have longed to see such an image.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Chloe Jean, a young girl herself, felt a similar connection. She said: \u201c[Amanda Gorman] was the first person I\u2019ve seen who looks like me to say something so important at the inauguration…I see myself doing something as incredible as Amanda in the future. As a black girl, I always felt like I couldn\u2019t do things because I\u2019m black and I\u2019m a girl, so it helped me realize that if Amanda can do it I can, too.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mr. Michael Moorse, an upper-school English teacher and poet, also described the moment similarly from an outside perspective. He called it \u201ca monumental, paradigm-changing moment for women of color in this country.\u201d Another poet, Mr. Ron Villanueva, a sixth-grade English teacher, summed up all of these inspirations well: \u201cThe field of play has now widened.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Though these reactions seemed similar; these students, teachers, and poets also had their own personal thoughts as well. When thinking of the poem, Ms. Koomson-Davis said \u201cit felt to me like progress, like all of the work has not been in vain.\u201d To Mr. Villanueva, it was more of a reflective time. He depicted his emotional reaction as Amanda Gorman \u201cmaking the wound come alive again and again.\u201d Mr. Moorse himself was \u201cgiddy\u201d. To him, this moment represented a relieving end to \u201cfour years of very difficult and often divisive politics.\u201d Here, though, he was ecstatic to see \u201ca poem speaking to rebuilding, reconciliation, and recovery.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The significance of the poem comes largely from inspirations and epiphanies like these. Ms. Koomson-Davis described it as being \u201cactivated\u201d. She envisioned \u201ca young Dr. King being activated in his late-teens, early twenties by his poem.\u201d Mr. Villanueva came to the realization that \u201cif we\u2019re going to make any headway we have to acknowledge, and honor, and mourn, and celebrate.\u201d Mr. Moorse discovered that \u201cwe might not know where we\u2019re going when we start, but we trust that we\u2019ll arrive somewhere.\u201d If we have learned anything from this poem though it\u2019s that that somewhere is entirely dependent on the way we act now. In his interview, Mr. Villanueva always emphasized the word \u201cwe\u201d. \u201cIt\u2019s the hill WE climb,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s something we do together.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
All in all, as Ms. Koomson-Davis described it, The Hill We Climb is \u201ca chronicle, a part of our footprint.\u201d This is why students should listen to this poem. \u201cThere has been a shift, and wherever we are, in thinking about what that shift means, that shift has an impact on every single one of us. Amanda Gorman\u2019s poem lies right within the cut of that shift.\u201d That very shift is one that we will all remember, perhaps something that has forever changed the way countless people see and believe in this very nation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Santo Raggiri On January 20th, 2021, at the Inauguration of President Joe Biden, Biden was not the only person to take the stage. On that day, we saw another figure present an equally powerful message. That figure is Amanda Gorman, a 22-year-old African-American woman. She read her poem, \u2018The Hill We Climb\u2019, speaking largely about our country\u2019s past, our failures, and how we can use them to make a better future. It\u2019s, as Chloe<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":282,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[402],"tags":[],"coauthors":[404],"class_list":["post-5237","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fieldstonian-middle-school-paper"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5237","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/282"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5237"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5237\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5240,"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5237\/revisions\/5240"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5237"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=5237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}