People
NEW YORK — In one of the inaugurations's most talked about moments, poet
Amanda Gorman summoned images dire and triumphant Wednesday as she called out to the world “even as we grieved, we grew.”The 22-year-old Gorman referenced everything from Biblical scripture and “Hamilton,” and at times echoed the oratory of John F. Kennedy and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. With urgency and assertion she began by asking “Where can we find light/In this never-ending shade?” and used her own poetry and life story as an answer. The poem's very title, “The Hill We Climb,” suggested both labor and transcendence.
“We did not feel prepared to be the heirsOf such a terrifying hour.But within it we've found the powerTo author a new chapter,To offer hope and laughter to ourselves.”It was an extraordinary task for Gorman, the youngest by far of the poets who have read at presidential inaugurations since Kennedy invited Robert Frost in 1961, with other predecessors including Maya Angelou and Elizabeth Alexander. Mindful of the past, she wore earrings and a caged bird ring — a tribute to Angelou's classic memoir “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” — given to her by Orpah Winfrey, a close friend of the late writer.“I have never been prouder to see another young woman rise! Brava Brava, @TheAmandaGorman! Maya Angelou is cheering—and so am I,” Winfrey tweeted. Gorman was also praised by “Hamilton” playwright Lin-Manuel Miranda, who tweeted “YES @TheAmandaGorman!!!” Gorman, soon responded: “Thx @Lin—Manuel! Did you catch the 2 @HamiltonMusical references in the inaugural poem? I couldn't help myself!”Gorman, a native and resident of Los Angeles and the country's first National Youth Poet Laureate, Gorman told The Associated Press last week that she planned to combine a message of hope for President Joseph Biden's inaugural without ignoring “the evidence of discord and division.” She had completed a little more than half of “The Hill We Climb” before Jan. 6 and the siege of the U.S. Capitol by supporters of then-President Donald Trump,“That day gave me a second wave of energy to finish the poem,” Gorman told the AP.———
LONDON — A lawyer for the publisher of the Daily Mail newspaper said Wednesday that the <b>Duchess of Sussex</b> had no reasonable expectation of privacy for a letter she sent to her estranged father after her marriage to Prince Harry.Arguing against the duchess' privacy-infringement claim in a London court, attorney Antony White said “it's to be inferred that the letter was written and sent by the claimant with a view to it being disclosed to third parties and read by the public.”He said ex-employees of Meghan and Harry would be able to shed light on the creation of the letter when the case comes to trial.The former Meghan Markle, 39, is suing publisher Associated Newspapers for invasion of privacy and copyright infringement over five 2019 articles in the Mail on Sunday and on the MailOnline website, which published portions of a handwritten letter to her father, Thomas Markle, after her wedding to Harry, a grandson of Queen Elizabeth II.
