Jackie: Poetry for Change – reflections and recommendations

‘I can hear change humming

In its loudest, proudest song.

I don’t fear change coming,

And so I sing along.’

It was such an exciting moment when Amanda Gorman, the 22-year-old poet (and first US national youth laureate) took to the stage to recite her Presidential Inaugural Poem, ‘The Hill We Climb’, at President Joe Biden’s inauguration. The performance was inspirational and the power of her words, which she had written over the course of a few weeks before the ceremony, will resonate for a long time to come. Three of Gorman’s books will be published this year by Viking: the poem itself, in a standalone version; a volume of her poems (including ‘The Hill We Climb’), aimed especially at teenage and young adult readers; and a new picture book for children, from which the lines above are taken, Change Sings: A Children’s Anthem. After such an astonishing debut, these books are definitely going to be worth pre-ordering.

Another momentous poetry event, the awarding of the T.S. Eliot Prize 2020, has just taken place and the prize-winner is Bhanu Kapil, with a collection of poems called How to Wash a Heart, about the experience of being an immigrant guest in another’s home. The other shortlisted poets included Natalie Diaz with Postcolonial Love, a powerful set of poems about Native American culture and environmental destruction, Daisy Lafarge’s Life Without Air, Ella Frears’ Shine Darling and Wayne Holloway-Smith’s Love Minus Love. All ten of the finalists gave captivating readings and I am looking forward to exploring these works further. As the chair of the judges, Lavinia Greenlaw said, they were chosen for their ability to speak to us ‘at the level of essential human experience’ because poetry is ‘the most resilient, potent, capacious and universal art we have’.