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Amanda Gorman writes end-of-year poem, 'New Day's Lyric'

FILE - American poet Amanda Gorman reads her commissioned poem "The Hill We Climb" during the 59th Presidential Inauguration at the U.S. Capitol in Washington on Jan. 20, 2021. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, Pool, File) (Patrick Semansky, Copyright 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)

NEW YORK ā€“ Amanda Gorman is ending her extraordinary year on a hopeful note.

The 23-year-old poet, whose reading of her own ā€œThe Hill We Climbā€ at President Joe Biden's inauguration made her an international sensation, posted a new work and accompanying video Wednesday on Instagram to mark the end of 2021. ā€œNew Day's Lyricā€ is a five-stanza, 48-line resolution with themes of struggle and healing known to admirers of ā€œThe Hill We Climbā€ and of her bestselling collection ā€œCall Us What We Carry,ā€ which came out in early December:

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ā€œWhat 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 werenā€™t aware, weā€™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."

Poets rarely enjoy the kind of attention Gorman received in 2021, but in an email to The Associated Press she reflected less on her own success than on the state of the country. Gorman wrote that the ā€œchaos and instabilityā€ of the past year had made her reject the idea of going ā€œback to normalā€ and instead fight to ā€œmove beyond it.ā€ She mentioned Maya Angelou's poem ā€œHuman Familyā€ and added, ā€œTo be a family, a country, doesnā€™t necessitate that we be the same or agree on everything, only that we continue to try to see the best in each other and move forward into a shared future. Whether we like it or not, we are in this together.ā€

Gorman offered an alliterative response when asked what inspired ā€œNew Day's Lyric,ā€ telling the AP that she ā€œwanted to write a lyric to honor the hardships, hurt, hope and healing of 2021 while also harkening the potential of 2022.ā€

ā€œThis is such a unique New Yearā€™s Day, because even as we toast our glasses to the future, we still have our heads bowed for what has been lost," she wrote. "I think one of the most important things the new year reminds us is of that old adage: This too shall pass. You canā€™t relive the same day twice ā€” meaning every dawn is a new one, and every year an opportunity to step into the light.ā€

In her Instagram post, Gorman urged readers to donate money to the International Rescue Committee (https://www.rescue.org) to help those affected by the coronavirus pandemic. Instagram's parent company, Meta, has pledged $50,000.


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