After a star turn at Joe Biden’s inauguration turned Amanda Gorman into a viral sensation and headband influencer, the 22-year-old poet got the opportunity to bring her work to an even larger audience. As a part of the pregame ceremony for Super Bowl LV, Gorman read a poem that honored the heroes of the pandemic and discussed the country’s losses while underscored by dramatic music. Wearing a shimmery and embossed blue coat by Moschino, she referenced the pain and loss of the pandemic in a hopeful lilt full of internal rhyme.
“So while we honor them,” she said of frontline workers, “It is they, every day, who honor us.”
On January 27, the NFL announced that Gorman would read a poem as a tribute to a group of ordinary citizens who were selected as the game’s honorary captains. They selected three Americans who got attention for their good works during the pandemic: Suzie Dorner, a Tampa Bay ICU nurse; Trimaine Davis, a Los Angeles teacher who helped his students secure internet for remote learning; and James Martin, a Marine veteran who led a Wounded Warrior Project to use technology to decrease social isolation.
Gorman first came to prominence when she was selected for a one-year term as the first National Youth Poet Laureate in 2017. Decked in head-to-toe Prada at the inauguration podium on January 20, Gorman read a poem called the “The Hill We Climb,” which will be released as a book next month, with a preface by Oprah. On Twitter last month, Gorman said that her agreement to read at the Super Bowl actually predated her invitation to perform at the inauguration.
It’s just the beginning of a busy year for the young artist, who graduated from Harvard last spring. In September, she will release a collection of her poetry and a children’s book. A few days after the inauguration, the modeling agency IMG announced that it had signed Gorman, who has spoken about her interest in fashion in the past.
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