In her short but already momentous career, the 22-year-old poet Amanda Gorman has accomplished a stunning series of firsts. At 19, she became the country’s first Youth Poet Laureate. Last month, when she recited her poem, “The Hill We Climb,” at President Biden’s inauguration, she became the youngest inaugural poet in American history. And on Sunday, she became the first poet ever to perform for the Super Bowl.
Before the game, Gorman delivered an original poem titled “Chorus of the Captains” in a taped segment. Gorman wrote the poem to celebrate three people who were chosen as honorary captains to take part in the coin toss: Trimaine Davis, a Los Angeles teacher who helped his students get laptops for remote schooling; Suzie Dorner, a nurse in a Tampa who works with Covid-19 patients in an intensive care unit, and James Martin, a U.