Amanda Gorman made her mark as the youngest inaugural poet in the country's history, winning over new fans with a powerful reading of her poem, "The Hill We Climb," at President Biden's inauguration Wednesday.
The 22-year-old from California, who became the first-ever National Youth Poet Laureate in 2017, told the New York Times that she was working on the poem when the Jan. 6 insurrection happened, as rioters incited by former president Donald Trump stormed the Capitol building. She stayed up late into the night to write about the images of violence she saw that day.
Gorman closed out the ceremony at the Capitol's West Front with "The Hill We Climb" and stunned the nation.
People were moved to tears by her words.
Read her poem in full here.