This is exciting.

Our next guest, who was only 22 years old, performed her poem The Hill we climb at President Biden's inauguration.

It was breathtaking.

Have a look.

We, the successors of a country and a time were a skinny black girl descended from slaves and raised by a single mother.

Condone dream of becoming president on Lee to find herself reciting for one.

And I am so honored to say that she's here on this show.

Please welcome the incredible Amanda Gorman, everybody.

Amanda, I am so ridiculously happy to talk to you tonight on this show.

How are you?

I am amazing.

I'm 10 times better because I'm talking to you.

You're like my favorite human being.

Ever.

You are.

That is such a lovely thing for you to say.

Now, let's talk.

Thank you.

Let's talk about yesterday.

Well done.

Well done.

Seriously, Theo.

Grace, with which you spoke, I found incredibly profound.

And in a moment it felt like you captured so much of how so many people were feeling and you captured a nation's heart.

How are you processing this last 24 hours on the massive positive attention that is being bestowed on you.

I don't think I really can process it to kind of give you a metaphor for that.

My phone is like on fire, like it is so hot.

It just, like, gave up on itself like three hours ago.

And for you to understand that I was outside in the cold and my phone was that hot with the amount of support and just love that was coming for my words.

And that was just incredible.

You know, honestly, it's a personal honor for me to be, you know, the Nagle poet to be the youngest.

But I think it was something beyond that beyond myself.

A moment for the country in the world to really move forward and to be, you know, a small part and not like that's all anyone can ask for.

But I don't think you were a small part of it.

I thought I think you were for me.

You were the moment in it.

You were the pivotal moment.

Now I know that your mother is a teacher right here in Los Angeles.

She must be beyond proud of you.

I imagine every day but today particularly this is one of those days where I could like unabashedly be like So you know, I need a new iPhone like get it like you have to capitalize on these days with their mothers.

But, you know, I finished my poem and I came up to her and she was just sobbing and we were trying to keep it together.

I was like, We are in front of the world and next to J Lo, like, let's keep her act together.

But she's so proud.

I mean, so talk to me about the journey.

Thio.

How do you become a poet for the presidential inauguration who reached out to you?

And when?

When when did people reach out to you?

Hmm?

I'm very fortunate in that.

Dr Biden First Lady now saw a poem that I recited at the Library of Congress, in which I wore yellow and she just really loved my performance.

And so it turns out, I ended up being her first choice for an inaugural poet, and I basically get the zoom call at the end of December, and I knew I'd been on, like the long list and then the short list and the shorter list for a while and I was just keeping my fingers crossed.

I just felt, you know, I felt personally, I had a very small chance of getting the opportunity because I was like, I'm 22 you know, I've overcome a speech impediment like Who would want me on stage on day?

Then they zoom, called me, you know, offered me the opportunity, and I like, danced around in my socks like a crazy person on what's going through your heads when you step up and you're you're looking out over the empty National Mall canoe.

Can you remember that what you were feeling at that moment?

It's, you know, and this is something to say As a poet, it was, I think, one of those moments in my life that was beyond words, and that's saying something for me.

I'm looking out for me.

I'm the descendent of a slave who's also named Amanda.

So looking out and seeing, you know, the Lincoln Memorial looking out and seeing the Washington Monument seeing the flags laid in remembrance of those lost to Cove it.

It's a breathtaking moment, and on the other hand you have all like the human anxieties like I'm cold.

And I know Biden is right behind me.

How does my hair look?

Um, my nose is sniffling.

Um, don't trip, don't mess up.

And so you kind of have to let go of all of that and just let yourself be a vessel for the poem.

And you really were I wanna cut in and say something really quickly because I would be remiss if I don't mention this going up in L.

A.

Me and my sister used to always take the bus to the grove on weekends and would always pass by CBS and where your show was filming.

And we put our faces to the little like iron gate and be like James Corden is inside.

Maybe we should, like, sneak in and say hi.

And we never did because we didn't want to be those two black girls.

You got arrested signs likes weekend to give you a hug.

So this is a full circle moment.

Let me tell you are welcome any any time.

I promise you that.

I promise you that.

Now I know that you wrote the poem.

You wrote some of the poem two weeks ago while while the riots were happening, Uh, at the Capitol.

How did that day affect the poem and you finishing it?

And what was it like to be standing in the very spot where that was happening?

Reading the work that you wrote whilst you were watching that unfold on TV?

Hmm.

That's a great question when you know the interaction happened at the capital.

I have been writing the poem for a while and, like, fits and starts, and I saw the news, and I basically locked myself in my apartment for the next, Whatever many hours into the night to finish it, I'm not necessarily because I was surprised what had happened.

I think we've seen the science and the symptoms of this for a long time coming, but because I felt that underscored for me the importance of having such a poem at the inauguration of having that moment, it was something that I needed.

It was some country needed.

It was something that the world needed.

And so that's how I got toe work.

And so as I stood in this place, I was thinking, Here is basically a chapel that has been violated in the way in which we bring that sagacity, that type of sacredness back to the space is interactions, in our words and words is where I operate and where I could make magic happen.

So it was more so my calling of using my him to try to kind of re purify that space.

You're so impressive.

You're so impressive.

It's I don't think you understand what you just talking to you now?

The volume of hope that I feel you are giving Thio so many people I really, really mean that.

I mean, at the very least, you've made poetry cool to so many young people out there.

I mean, if you had what something you would like young people who perhaps I mean there's a very real chance that for a lot of young people watching your poem, today was the first time they've experienced poetry in that form.

What would you want?

Something you would want them to know about the art of poetry.

That's a phenomenal question for me.

It's to know that poetry and art in general means showing up with your best self whoever that may be and that in itself is beautiful, you know, hearing you talk about the grace in which I performed my poem as someone who's had work for years to overcome a speech impediment that means everything to me.

It means that I could still show up and carry this history and this background with me and still be more than worth it and more than enough.

And I hope that that's what other young people see from this today.

Whether you're a poet or not, an artist dancer, a late night host like the more that we can bring our authentic Selves with hope into the moment, the more that moment will show up for us now, later this year, you're releasing your first Children's book, which is called Change Sings on yesterday it went to number one on the Amazon book charts.

I can't wait to read it to my kids.

What is the message of the book?

You know, it's so you know, incredibly special for me is I wrote change things over a year ago.

I was kind of preempting.

I was like January 2021 is going to come and either kids are really gonna need, like, a pick me up or they're really going to need something that can help, kind of summarize the change that we just saw.

It could go anyway.

And so I wrote, changed things because I wanted Children to see themselves as riel change makers.

I didn't want there to be like another Children's book where they were like observers to the change that was happening or they were kind of powerless to kind of the socio political, environmental things that were going on.

I wanted them to see themselves at the forefront and as the voices of tomorrow, so that when little kids read it, they could say, Look, there is someone in this page who looks as young as me and he looks as new as me.

He was using their voice.

That's so wonderful.

Can I ask one more thing when when you finish, you finish the poem on the inaugurations done?

Where do you go?

Then?

Like, what's the stuff that we don't see on TV?

Do you go into a room and you're just hanging out with ex presidents and things like that?

Like what happens then?

Well, it's really strange because you're all just like at the platform, and you're like, Oh, you're not gonna talk about the fact that Barack Obama's right there like it might not about to go snap a photo with Michelle Obama.

So it's basically me being like, Well, I guess we're here, Lady Gaga and like making a beeline for her and just lay We were both crying and both weeping, and she was so sweet.

And so I think I can't speak to other inaugurations.

But despite the 6 ft distance in the mass, I want to say there was like, Ah, higher intimacy in this one where I had, like Barack Obama, just like standing next to me and be like You made us proud, you know, did a good job like it is characteristic voice.

It was great.

I didn't wanna leave and then Secret Service was like, No, really, like you got to go.

Can I tell you this?

E tell you something?

Can I tell you something?

And I really mean this.

I think I think it's I think it's I think you could do whatever you want.

I think you can choose whatever path in your life, and I think whatever you do, it's gonna be rich on meaningful, uh, for whoever is around you for people that you know and you don't know.

I genuinely feel like there's a very real world where there's a poet speaking at your inauguration day when you're the president of United States.

I'm not joking.

That's 100%.

You feel this rich?

100%.

Is that something you'd want to dio?

Oh, heck, yeah.

Planet on it.

Ladies and gentlemen, the incredible Amanda Gorman, Everybody.