Lyric poet Amanda Gorman is writing a poem in the studbook for the USA and the rest of the world at the turn of the year. The moving text is about the difficulties of the coming year and a better future.
One of the first major political events in 2021 made Amanda Gorman famous. At the inauguration of the new US President Joe Biden in January, the poet read her poem “The Hill We Climb”, in which she expressed the division of the nation, but also the hope for a new beginning together. With this, Gorman not only moved many Americans, but people all over the world.
At the turn of the year Gorman, who published her volume of poetry “Call Us What We Carry” in December, speaks up again. In a video on Instagram she recites a new, own poem entitled “New Day’s Lyric”. In it, the 23-year-old ties in with “The Hill We Climb”: She takes up the challenges that American society had to contend with this year, but at the same time creates a future vision of cohesion and reconciliation.
Amanda Gorman: “What Was Cursed We Will Heal”
The poem is five stanzas and a total of 48 lines long. It says, loosely translated, among other things: “Let us not return to what was normal, but let us reach for what lies ahead of us.” “No matter how depressed we are, we always have to pave a way forward,” said Gorman. And she promises: “What was cursed, we will heal.”
The AP news agency Gorman said “the chaos and instability” of 2021 was the reason it did not want to “go back to business as usual”. Instead, she wants to fight to overcome these grievances. The poem should “honor the difficulties, injuries, hope and healing of 2021 and also listen to the potential of 2022”.
“This is such a unique New Year because even if we drink to the future, our heads will still be bowed down to what we have lost,” Gorman told the AP, referring to the New Year. “I think one of the most important things that the New Year reminds us of is the old adage: It will pass too. You cannot experience the same day twice, that is, every morning is a new one and every year an opportunity to to step into the light. “
Read Amanda Gorman’s poem “New Day’s Lyric” here in full:
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.
Tethered by this year of yearning,
We are learning
That though we weren’t ready for this,
We have been readied by it.
We steadily vow that no matter
How we are weighed down,
We must always pave a way forward.
This hope is our door, our portal.
Even if we never get back to normal,
Someday we can venture beyond it,
To leave the known and take the first steps.
So let us not return to what was normal,
But reach toward what is next.
What was cursed, we will cure.
What was plagued, we will prove pure.
Where we tend to argue, we will try to agree,
Those fortunes we forswore, now the future we foresee,
Where we weren’t aware, we’re now awake;
Those moments we missed
Are now these moments we make,
The moments we meet,
And our hearts, once all together beaten,
Now all together beat.
Come, look up with kindness yet,
For even solace can be sourced from tomorrow.
We remember, not just for the sake of yesterday,
But to take on tomorrow.
We heed this old spirit, In a new day’s lyric,
In our hearts, we hear it:
For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne.
Be bold, sang Time this year
Be bold, sang time
For when you honor yesterday,
Tomorrow ye will find.
Know what we’ve fought
Need not be forgot nor for none.
It defines us, binds us as one,
Come over, join this day just begun.
For wherever we come together,
We will forever overcome.
Sources: Amanda Gorman on Instagram / AP