U.S. poet Amanda Gorman welcomes 2022 with new poetry performance
American poet Amanda Gorman caps off the year with a new poetry performance, reflecting on its trials and tribulations yet exhibiting grit and grace nonetheless as we welcome 2022.
Gorman's "New Day's Lyric" video performance was posted on Instagram on Dec. 30 local time. In the 2:30 clip, she's wearing a one-shoulder long sleeve ivory white dress that accentuates her glass skin. Her already arresting presence is complemented by her rose red lipstick, minimal jewelry, and nude heels.
Performing in several areas of an empty theater, Gorman implores her audience from behind their mobile and computer screens to come together and maintain resolve in spite of 2021's challenges, primarily the ever-raging COVID-19 pandemic.
While Gorman acknowledges that "we weren't ready for this," she says that "we have been readied by it," and thus, "we steadily vow that no matter/How we are weighed down,/We must always pave a way forward."
"Mourning, we come to mend,/Withered, we come to weather,/Torn, we come to tend,/Battered, we come to better," Gorman recites.
In her trademark cadence and gesticulation, Gorman proceeds by saying that hope is "our door, our portal" and urges everybody to "reach toward what is next."
"What was cursed, we will cure./What was plagued, we will prove pure./Where we tend to argue, we will try to agree," she says.
Talking about "New Day's Lyric" in a follow-up post, Gorman said she's paying her words forward by raising funds for International Rescue Committee, "whose response to the coronavirus pandemic and humanitarian crises provide lifesaving programs to vulnerable communities worldwide."
"Instagram has already pledged $50,000!" she wrote. "Let’s take donations even higher."
Quoting her own work, she urged followers to "Come, look up with kindness yet, for wherever we come together, we will forever overcome," affixed with yellow heart and prayer emojis.
Gorman served as America's first-ever youth poet laureate, at 22 years old. She took center stage during the inauguration of President Joe Biden on Jan. 20 when she performed her "The Hill We Climb," a reflection into their country's sociopolitical landscape.
Here's Gorman's performance of "New Year's Lyric," followed by Instagram's full transcription of the poem:
New Day's Lyric
May this be the day
We come together.
Mourning, we come to mend,
Withered, we come to weather,
Torn, we come to tend,
Battered, we come to better.
Tethered by this year of yearning,
We are learning
That though we weren’t ready for this,
We have been readied by it.
We steadily vow that no matter
How we are weighed down,
We must always pave a way forward.
This hope is our door, our portal.
Even if we never get back to normal,
Someday we can venture beyond it,
To leave the known and take the first steps.
So let us not return to what was normal,
But reach toward what is next.
What 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 weren’t aware, we’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.
Come, look up with kindness yet,
For even solace can be sourced from sorrow.
We remember, not just for the sake of yesterday,
But to take on tomorrow.
We heed this old spirit,
In a new day’s lyric,
In our hearts, we hear it:
For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne.
Be bold, sang Time this year,
Be bold, sang Time,
For when you honor yesterday,
Tomorrow ye will find.
Know what we’ve fought
Need not be forgot nor for none.
It defines us, binds us as one,
Come over, join this day just begun.
For wherever we come together,
We will forever overcome.