Time - USA (2021-02-15)

78 Time February 15/February 22, 2021

justice. If you analyze Martin Luther
King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, it’s a
great document of rhetoric that’s also a
great document of poetry, of imagery, of
song. Never underestimate the power of
art as the language of the people.

Tell me about the poets who came
before you. Where do you draw
inspiration—and do you draw
inspiration from artists working in
other forms?
I love Black poets. I love that as a Black
girl, I get to participate in that legacy.
So that’s Yusef Komunyakaa, Sonia San-
chez, Tracy K. Smith, Phillis Wheatley.
And then I look to artists who aren’t just
poets. While I was writing the Inaugural
poem, I was reading a lot of Frederick
Douglass, a lot of Winston Churchill, a
lot of Abraham Lincoln. I was also lis-
tening to the composers who I feel are
great storytellers, but they don’t use
words so I try to fill in that rhetoric my-
self. A lot of Hans Zimmer, Dario Mari-
anelli, Michael Giacchino.

“The Hill We Climb” mentions your
being a descendant of slaves. What
role does poetry have to play in help-
ing you make sense of our history?
I wanted to give the American people
some access to myself. A lot of the inspi-
ration for that came from your speech at
the DNC in which you said, “I wake up
every morning in a house that was built
by slaves.” Poetry is the lens we use to
interrogate the history we stand on and
the future we stand for. It’s no coinci-
dence that at the base of the Statue of
Liberty, there is a poem. Our instinct
is to turn to poetry when we’re looking
to communicate a spirit that is larger
than ourselves. Whenever I’m writing,
I’m looking at the history of words. The
specific history of words in the Inaugu-
ral poem was: We have seen the ways in
which language has been violated and
used to dehumanize. How can I reclaim
English so we can see it as a source of
hope, purification and consciousness?

No matter how many speaking en-
gagements I do, big audiences always
trigger a little bit of impostor syn-
drome in me. Can you talk about how
you’ve learned to deal with that, not
just for the Inauguration but in recit-

ing work that is so close to your heart?

Speaking in public as a Black girl is al-

ready daunting enough, just coming

onstage with my dark skin and my hair

and my race—that in itself is inviting a

type of people that have not often been

welcomed or celebrated in the public

sphere. Beyond that, as someone with a

speech impediment, that impostor syn-

drome has always been exacerbated be-

cause there’s the concern, Is the content

of what I’m saying good enough? And

then the additional fear, Is the way I’m

saying it good enough?

You’ve spoken a lot about your

speech difficulty, something you

share in common with President

Biden and the legendary poet Maya

Angelou—who made such an impact

on me at a young age. What does it

mean to you to have overcome it?

President Biden has talked about hav-

ing a stutter. Maya Angelou was mute

for several years. I could not say cer-

tain sounds, like r, so I would be say-

ing things like poetwee or dolla. My last

name is Gorman, and I could not say

that really until three years ago. For a

long time, I looked at it as a weakness.

Now I really look at it as a strength be-

cause going through that process, it

made me a writer, for one, because

I had to find a form in which I could

communicate other than through my

mouth, and two, when I was brave

enough to try to take those words from

the page onto the stage, I brought with

me this understanding of the complex-

ity of sound, pronunciation, emphasis.

What was your experience of the

Inauguration itself? Were you able

to listen to the performances and

speeches, or were you just focused on

what you came to do?

I was living in two spheres of my mind.

There was the “Wow: Joe Biden’s speech

was amazing. Lady Gaga just killed it.”

But at the same time, 66% of my brain

was dedicated to questions: “How am I

going to get up to the podium without

tripping? My hands are cold. Am I going

to be able to flip these pages because my

fingers are going numb?”

Oh, I can relate to that. If I’m speak-

ing in a big venue, my nerves are less

about the words I’m about to say

than about those concrete things—

How many stairs are there? How even

is the ground? Sometimes the biggest

worries are about the littlest things.

Thankfully for all of us, you made it

through in one piece and then some.

And your poem hit such a nerve, es-

pecially after the chaos and violence

we’d experienced leading up to the

Inauguration. After so much division,

hearing your call for unity was some-

thing of a balm. Can you talk a bit

more about what unity means to you?

I’ve been meaning to clarify that. To me,

unity without a sense of justice, equality

and fairness is just toxic mob mental-

ity. Unity that actually moves us toward

the future means that we accept our

differences—we embrace them and we

lean into that diversity. It’s not linking

arms without questioning what we’re

linking arms for. It’s unity with purpose.

It seemed like the Inauguration

hadn’t even ended before folks were

calling you a symbol of hope. I know

a thing or two about having that kind

of pressure put on you, and it isn’t al-

ways easy. How are you handling it?

I remember in Becoming when you

were talking about becoming the part-

ner of someone running for public of-

fice, the pressure that was on you.

‘Poetry is the

lens we use

to interrogate

the history we

stand on and

the future we

stand for.’

The Black Renaissance INTERVIEW