Amanda Gorman reads at Montgomery College

Update, Jan. 28: Montgomery College has announced that the event will be postponed to a later date. Those who have registered will remain registered for the event and will receive an email when the new date is confirmed.

Amanda Gorman, the youngest poet to ever read at a presidential inauguration, left CNN’s Anderson Cooper speechless. “Wow, you’re awesome,” he told her during a recent interview. “I’m so transfixed.” Much of America feels the same. Gorman, 22, earned universal praise and became an instant star after reading her poem, “The Hill We Climb,” at Joe Biden’s inauguration yesterday. Her message of hope and healing brilliantly captured the historic moment, and it was one shaped by the horror she saw and read about during the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol insurrection. The events that day didn’t surprise Gorman. She had seen the signs and symptoms of the disinformation and lies that ultimately led to Donald Trump’s supporters violently storming the Capitol in an attempt to overturn his defeat in the 2020 presidential election. But the attack on democracy only strengthened Gorman’s resolve, and it helped her discover the words she wanted to share. “While democracy can be periodically delayed,” she writes, “It can never be permanently defeated.” On Tuesday, Feb. 2, Montgomery College will host Gorman, who became the first Youth Poet Laureate of the U.S. in 2017, for a public Zoom session presented by the Robert L. Giron Global Humanities Institute Lecture Series and the Paul Peck Humanities Institute. The event begins at 12:30 p.m. on Feb. 2. Registration is available at montgomerycollege.edu. Free.