It’s told like this: Amanda Gorman performed at the inauguration and the rest is history.
The truth is, I almost refused to be the inaugural poet. Why?
I was terrified.
I was afraid to abandon my people, my poetry. But I was also terrified on a physical level. Covid was still raging and my age group couldn’t get vaccinated yet. Just a few weeks earlier, domestic terrorists attacked the US Capitol, exactly the steps I would take. I didn’t know then that I would be famous, but I did know that at the inauguration I would become very visible – which is very dangerous to be in America, especially if you are black and outspoken and have no Secret Service.
It didn’t help that I got DMs from friends who didn’t jokingly tell me to buy a bulletproof vest. My mom had us squat in our living room so she could practice protecting my body from bullets. A loved one warned me to “be ready to die” if I went to the Capitol, saying, “It just isn’t worth it.” I had insomnia and nightmares, barely ate or drank for days. Finally, I wrote to some close friends and family to tell them that I would most likely withdraw from the ceremony.
I got a few text messages praising the Lord. I was called pathologically insane. But I knew that only I could answer the question for myself: Used to be is this poem worth reading?
The night before I was to give the inaugural committee, my final decision felt like the longest of my life. My neighborhood was eerily quiet in that early morning darkness, though I strained my ears to make noise that distracted me from the choice ahead. It felt like my little world stood still. And then it dawned on me: maybe being brave enough doesn’t mean reducing my fear, but listening to it. I closed my eyes in bed and let myself express all the leviathans that scared me, both monstrous and minuscule. What struck me most was the worry that I would spend the rest of my life wondering what this poem could have accomplished. There was only one way to find out.
By the time the sun came up, I knew one thing for sure: I would be the inaugural poet in 2021. I can’t say that I was completely convinced of my choice, but I was completely for it.
I firmly believe that terror often tries to tell us about a force far greater than despair. In this way I do not regard fear as cowardice, but as a call forward, a call to fight for what is dear to us. And now, more than ever, we have every right to be afflicted, tormented, insulted. When you’re alive, you’re scared. If you’re not afraid, you’re not paying attention. The only thing we have to fear is to have no fear itself – having no sense of who and what we have lost, who and what we love.
On the morning of inauguration day, I did the getting ready movements on autopilot, mindless and mechanical, my hair and makeup as I anxiously practiced my poem. On my way to the Capitol, I recited the mantra I say before a performance: I am the daughter of black writers. We are descended from freedom fighters who broke their chains and changed the world. They call me.
Though I spent the next hour shivering in my chair with nerves and the relentless January cold, as I stepped to the stage to recite, I felt warm, as if the words waiting in my mouth were on fire. It seemed as if the world stood still. I looked out and spoke to it. I haven’t looked back.
On that January 20th, I found waiting outside of my fear of waiting all those who looked beyond their own fears to find space for hope in their lives, reflecting the impact of a poem on protests, hospitals, classrooms, conversations, living rooms, offices, art and moments of all kinds. . I may have worked on the words, but it was other people who put those words to work. What we have seen is not only the power of a poem. It is the power of the people.
But while the inauguration may have seemed like a ray of light, the past year has felt like a return to the same old gloom for many. Our nation continues to be plagued by disease, inequality and environmental crises. But though our fears are the same, we are not. If nothing else, this must be known: even if we have mourned, we have grown; even weary we have found that this hill we climb is one we must climb together. We are battered, but bolder; worn, but wiser. I’m not saying you should not tired or scared. In any case, the fact that we are tired means that we have changed by definition; we are brave enough to listen to and learn from our fear. This time it will be different, because this time Good be different. We already are.
And yes, I am still terrified every day. Yet fear can be love that does its best in the dark. So don’t be afraid of your fear. To own. Free it. This is not a liberation that I or anyone else can give you – it is a power that you must seek, learn, love, lead and locate for yourself.
Why? The truth is, hope is not a promise we give. It’s a promise we keep. So tell it, and we, like our words, will not rest.
And the rest is history.