America is 'fierce and free': Youngest-ever inauguration poet

Amanda Gorman, the youngest poet in U.S. history to mark the transition of presidential power, offered a hopeful vision for a deeply divided country on Wednesday with her poem "The Hill We Climb."

Gorman, 22, a Los Angeles resident, joined the ranks of previous inaugural poets Robert Frost, Maya Angelou and Elizabeth Alexander, with a powerful performance at the swearing-in of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.

"Being American is more than a pride we inherit. It's the past we step into and how we repair it," Gorman said, in a short poem that was greeted with a hail of critical acclaim on social media.

"We will not march back to what was. We move to what shall be, a country that is bruised, but whole. Benevolent, but bold. Fierce and free."

Speaking on the steps of the U.S. Capitol just two weeks after a violent mob laid siege to the seat of American government with Confederate flags, pipe bombs and a noose, Gorman said Americans could rise above the hatred.

"While democracy can be temporarily delayed, it can never be permanently defeated," Gorman said. "Let us leave behind a country better than the one we were left," Gorman said. "We will raise this wounded world into a wondrous one."