"The Hill We Climb"

On January 20, none of us could look away from monitoring the news. "It's a new day," said Joe Biden, newly inaugurated president of the United States of America, and we tuned in to his address calling for unity. We loved the deeply meaningful purples donned by the first female US vice-president, Kamala Harries, as well as by former first ladies Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama.

But I was most entranced by the presence and poetry of 22-year-old poet, Amanda Gorman, the US's first ever National Youth Poet Laureate. Multiple times and ways did I read her poem, "The Hill We Climb," both specific to the event and yet broad enough to capture so many truths. One particular truth stood out to me as a writer: the power of words and the painful process of teasing out meanings.

Ms. Gorman begins her performance thus:

When day comes, we ask ourselves where can we find light in this never-ending shade

By its context, I knew that she is talking about the times: politics, race relations, the ongoing pandemic, injustice, division, inequality.

To me, however, it resonates more as a description of the journey writers go through when writing. My words are used most often to tell Habitat for Humanity's story and that of the development sector, other writers use their words for commercial ventures, still others to chisel novels, haikus or lyrics. But all writers--in our struggle to find the spark of inspiration, the right words, the precise inflection--go through similar bouts of confoundment, doubt, and frustration.

A few lines later, Ms. Gorman discovers--

We’ve learned that quiet isn’t always peace,

and the norms and notions of what “just” is isn’t always justice.

And yet, the dawn is ours before we knew it.

Hunched over our notebooks, or white boards, or laptops, we writers sit in silence--still--while our minds race and ponder in the process of creation. And indeed, that quiet is never peaceful. It is chaos, from which we pull and mold order and beauty. When we finally succeed, it can feel like light seeping in until we see our creation in its imperfections. We heave a sigh of relief, shake our head, crack our knuckles, now prepared to hew our first draft to its finest version.

At last, the poem ends--

The new dawn blooms as we free it.

For there is always light,

if only we’re brave enough to see it.

If only we’re brave enough to be it.

This is the hill we writers climb. A jumble of letters, an avalanche of words, a hard journey to find meaning. This is the hill we climb, over and over.

Read the full text of Amanda Gorman's "The Hill We Climb."