Amanda Gorman the 22-year-old poet who stirred America at the inauguration of President Joe Biden last month again commanded the spotlight at one of the country’s biggest stages — the Super Bowl.

Gorman read an original poem on Sunday during the pregame festivities in Tampa Florida. The poem titled Chorus of the Captains was a tribute to three people for their contribution during the pandemic. These were: a nurse named Trimaine Davis along with manager Suzie Dorner and marine veteran James Martin.Gorman didn’t perform on the field but appeared in a taped video message that combined Gorman’s reading with images of Davis, Dorner and Martin.

“Let us walk with these warriors,
Charge on with these champions,
And carry forth the call of our captains.
We celebrate them by acting,
With courage and compassion,
By doing what is right and just.
For while we honour them today,
It is they who every day honour us.”

Gorman bringing poetry to the Super Bowl was an almost unthinkable collision of grace and glitz but, if the Super Bowl, an annual rite of excess was an unlikely platform for a poet. It showed just how much Gorman has seized the nation’s spotlight since the inauguration.

Gorman was previously the country’s first National Youth Poet Laureate and the youngest person to ever recite a poem at the US presidential inauguration. Her reading of The Hill We Climb at the Capitol immediately became a sensation.

In fact, an illustrated book of her poem quickly zoomed to the top of the bestseller list. Shortly after the inauguration, she signed with IMG Models — an agency that represents supermodels tennis star like Naomi Osaka and playwright Jeremy O Harris.

This week she was spotted on the cover of Time Magazine which also had an interview conducted by Michelle Obama. Gorman’s Super Bowl appearance had been planned before the inauguration. She seemed to grasp the unlikeliness of her pregame reading in the first of Super Bowl history and with potentially 100 million viewers on the CBS telecast, it made for one very well attended poetry recital.

Poetry at the Super Bowl is a feat for art and the country because it means we’re thinking imaginatively about human connection even when we feel siloed Gorman said Sunday on Twitter in honour three heroes who exemplify the best of this effort.  Here’s to them, to poetry and to a Super Bowl like no other.

Source: Indian Express