AUTHOR ROSALIENE BACCHUS


Reaching minds and hearts through storytelling


  • Home
  • Bio
  • Novel The Twisted Circle
  • Behind the Scenes Twisted Circle
    • Making of Novel
    • Creating the Setting
    • The Characters
    • Selected Research Resources
  • Novel Under the Tamarind Tree
  • Behind the Scenes Tamarind Novel
    • Making of Novel
    • The Characters
    • Creating the Setting
    • Selected Research Resources
  • Blog
  • Short Stories
  • Poetry Corner
  • Featured Poets
    • 2023
    • 2022
    • 2021
    • Brazil
    • Caribbean
    • United States
  • Haiku Poems
    • On Being Human
    • On Climate Change
    • On Inequality
    • On Children
  • Contact

POEM "THE MIRACLE OF MORNING" BY AMERICAN NATIONAL YOUTH LAUREATE POET AMANDA GORMAN



AMANDA GORMAN, an African American poet and activist, is the youngest presidential inaugural poet in U.S. history. Born in 1998 in Los Angeles, California, she has an older brother and a twin sister. They were all raised by their single mother, a sixth grade English teacher at an inner-city public school. Born prematurely, the twins were diagnosed with a speech and auditory impediment.


Inspired by Nobel Prize Laureate Malala Yousafzai of Pakistan, Gorman served as a youth delegate for the United Nations in 2014. That same year, she became the first Youth Poet Laureate of Los Angeles. After years of working with WriteGirl, a Los Angeles based non-profit that assists teen girls to discover the power of their voice through writing, the young poet was seventeen years old when she published her first book of poems, The One for Whom Food is Not Enough (Urban World LA, 2015). She graduated from a private K-12 school in Santa Monica, California, in 2016.


Recipient of a Milken Family Foundation scholarship, Gorman enrolled into Harvard University in Massachusetts. She founded One Pen One Page, a non-profit organization that encourages youth advocacy, leadership development and offers poetry workshops for under-served youth.


In 2017, while Gorman was an undergraduate at Harvard University, Urban World, supporting youth poet laureates nationwide, named her the first-ever National Youth Poet Laureate. The same year that she earned her B.A. in sociology in 2020, the young poet received the Poets & Writers Barnes & Noble Writers for Writers Award for her contribution to the literary community.


Gorman’s performance of her poem “The Hill We Climb” at the 2021 Presidential Inauguration received critical acclaim and international attention. The special edition of her inaugural poem (Penguin Random House, March 2021) debuted at #1 on the bestseller lists of The New York Times, USA Today, and The Wall Street Journal.


Later that year, Penguin Random House also released her children’s picture book Change Sings: A Children’s Anthem (September 2021) and her breakout poetry collection Call Us What We Carry: Poems (December 2021).


Amanda Gorman lives in her hometown of Los Angeles.



Photo by Danny Williams.



THE MIRACLE OF MORNING BY AMANDA GORMAN



We thought we'd awaken to a world in mourning.
Heavy clouds crowding, a society storming.
But there's something different on this golden morning.
Something magical in the sunlight, wide & warming.

We see a dad with a stroller taking a jog.
Across the street, a bright-eyed girl chases her dog.
A grandma on a porch fingers her rosaries.
She grins as her young neighbor brings her groceries.

While we might feel small, separate & all alone,
Our people have never been more closely tethered.
The question isn't if we can weather this unknown,
But how we will weather this unknown together.

So, on this meaningful morn, we mourn & we mend.
Like light, we can't be broken, even when we bend.

As one, we will defeat both despair & disease.
We stand with healthcare heroes & all employees
With families, libraries, waiters, schools, artists
Businesses, restaurants & hospitals hit hardest.



THE MIRACLE OF MORNING continued



We ignite not in the light, but in lack thereof,
For it is in loss that we truly learn to love.
In this chaos, we will discover clarity.
In suffering, we must find solidarity.

For it's our grief that gives us our gratitude,
Shows us how to find hope, if we ever lose it.
So ensure that this ache wasn't endured in vain:
Do not ignore the pain. Give it purpose. Use it.

Read children's books, dance alone to DJ music.
Know that this distance will make our hearts grow fonder.
From these waves of woes our world will emerge stronger.


We'll observe how the burdens braved by humankind
Are also the moments that make us humans kind
Let each morning find us courageous, brought closer
Heeding the light before the fight is over.
When this ends, we'll smile sweetly, finally seeing
In testing times, we became the best of beings.

SOURCE: Call Us What We Carry: Poems, poetry collection by Amanda Gorman, Penguin Random House, New York, USA, 2021.