When Amanda Gorman, a 22-year-old poet from Los Angeles, took to the stage on Wednesday, it was immediately clear why the new president had chosen her as his inaugural poet.
Gorman echoed, in dynamic and propulsive verse, the same themes that Biden has returned to again and again, and which he wove throughout his inaugural address: Unity, healing, grief and hope, the painful history of American experience and the redemptive power of American ideals.
Where Biden said, “We must end this uncivil war,” Gorman declared, “We lay down our arms so we can reach out our arms to one another.”
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