Tright here’s a person lingering across the nook, singing, and Amanda Gorman is a smidge distracted. Simply minutes in the past, she stepped off the stage on the Democratic Nationwide Conference after performing her poem “This Sacred Scene,” and now she’s tucked herself into the quietest spot she will discover within the stadium: the Chicago Bulls’ showers. “I’m so sorry,” the 26-year-old poet says, her lengthy robe rustling by means of the telephone as she and her minder hurry to shush whoever’s on the market making noise. There’s a pause, after which, “Oh, my God!” A second later: “We love you—we love you.” It was John Legend, passing by means of on his means backstage.

Gorman and Legend had been simply two of the large names lined as much as rouse the gang on the DNC on Aug. 21—Invoice Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, and Oprah additionally took the stage on the United Heart, urging voters to assist Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz of their marketing campaign. Gorman, who grew to become the nation’s youngest inaugural poet when she carried out “The Hill We Climb” at President Joe Biden’s swearing-in in January 2021, initially had a distinct candidate, and a distinct tone, in thoughts as she started to consider a possible recitation on the DNC. It was solely a couple of week in the past that she bought the official invitation to take part and started writing “This Sacred Scene” for this second.

The vitality has been excessive at this 12 months’s DNC, and Gorman’s recitation added to the temper. “Invite her at your personal peril,” one in all ABC’s anchors mentioned as Gorman took the stage. “She definitely stole the present in 2021.” Wearing a stately, icy blue robe, Gorman delivered a poem reframing the American dream: “Solely now, approaching this uncommon air / Are we conscious that maybe the American dream / Isn’t a dream in any respect, however as a substitute, a dare.”

After the efficiency, John Legend dispatched, Gorman spoke to TIME about her personal presidential ambitions, who she thinks ought to recite at a possible Harris-Tim Walz Inauguration, and the way she’s desirous about hope throughout this election season. She additionally shared particulars on her subsequent guide, unique to TIME.

You seemed so assured and so poised as you recited tonight. How do you are feeling you’ve modified prior to now three-plus years in relation to your confidence, your presence, and your capability to carry a room?

I needed to do a little bit of progress to be able to present up on the DNC in the best way that I did. On the Inauguration, there’d solely been a number of hundred folks there. They had been all behind me. There was nobody on the Nationwide Mall due to COVID and the rebel. So it was really an extremely intimate solution to take part in politics as a poet. Once I bought the invite for the DNC, I used to be honored, however I used to be additionally very nervous about what it could be like in such a distinct setting—to be inside, to be in a stadium, to have so many individuals watching not simply digitally however this time in individual. I had to return to my fundamentals and my fundamentals as a poet to make it possible for the poem was pretty much as good because it may very well be, to make each line sharp, and to really feel actually assured and comfy in expressing that and holding that house.

Learn Extra: ‘Unity With Objective.’ Amanda Gorman and Michelle Obama Talk about Artwork, Id and Optimism

Inform me about your expertise proper as you stepped onstage—what’s your vitality like in these moments?

It is form of like, let’s do that. I’ve a really fake-it-till-you-make-it private vitality that I am going by, since you step out and the very first thing that I felt was like, Oh my God, this room is big. I noticed it throughout rehearsals, however it had been comparatively empty. Once I walked out on stage, I used to be so blown away by the optimistic response of the viewers. I did not understand that so many individuals would know who I used to be or bear in mind, so I simply soaked that in as a result of it felt so heartwarming.

I’ve to inform you, I simply noticed a tweet that mentioned, “I am unable to wait to vote for Amanda Gorman for President at some point.”

That is superb. That is so candy. Yeah, I will be again. I am right here for Kamala and Walz this time, and, you understand—10 extra years, I will be again. 

What would it not imply to you to see a Black lady elected president?

Oh, my God, I am unable to even describe it. I’m positive it is going to be a full physique expertise. It will be the best desires of my ancestors realized. If I may see that occur, I do not assume I may need for anything.

Do you see your self reciting if Harris and Walz win?

That’s completely as much as them. In the event that they had been to ask, I’d give it some thought, however I truthfully assume I’d love for Pleasure Harjo to recite. She’s a tremendous poet, has served as U.S. Poet Laureate, and does unimaginable analysis and poetry about Native Individuals and that historicity. She actually deserves the spot, and the spot necessitates her.

Hope is a theme of the Democratic Celebration this season. It is also a time period that may typically really feel like a buzzword. What do you make of hope as a theme? Does that phrase really feel proper to you, for the place you might be?

I’d completely use hope. For me, hope is not one thing I possess—it is one thing I observe. It’s important to get up each day and work it like a muscle, and never on this La La Land, pretend, superficial hope means the place every thing is okay and every thing will work out, not the form of hope that does not take note of grief, loss, damage, and longing. Essentially the most highly effective and sustainable hope we now have is hope that’s invested within the totality of our human expertise, and that features the ache and the ability—solely then are you able to marshal it for worldwide change.

You’ve made your endorsement clear—are you feeling eager for the end result of the election? Do you imagine Harris shall be President?

Completely. I imagine she will and can win. A part of the mantra that the marketing campaign and loads of supporters have been utilizing is “After we struggle, we win.” And I imagine in that wholeheartedly, not only for Kamala however for changemakers usually. No matter how the Presidential election seems, we all know that when girls run that has huge impacts in our group. I feel again to Hillary Clinton—lots of people have characterised that as a failure, however whenever you have a look at the variety of girls politicians who entered public service, that was astronomically excessive after that. So I’ve religion that Kamala will win, and even when I am terribly mistaken, which typically occurs, simply within the struggle and simply in working she can have received so many victories for us in illustration and in hope. And that is why you run—not simply to turn into a head of a authorities, but additionally to encourage hope and dreaming within the subsequent era.

Let’s speak about your subsequent guide: Ladies on the Rise, which is a youngsters’s guide coming in January primarily based on an tailored model of your 2021 poem “We Rise.” The theme is clearly very apropos, so why this poem on this second?

I am so enthusiastic about this guide as a result of it actually leans right into a poem that I wrote a number of years in the past once I was a little bit of a youthful lady, and I used to be desirous about the significance of elevating feminine voices and listening to them, but additionally in a means that is gender inclusive, as a result of there’s so some ways to be and determine as a girl. So once I was desirous about my subsequent youngsters’s guide, I actually was like, in none of my youngsters’s books has my femininity proven up in a vibrant means. Loveis Clever contributes a lot when it comes to the artwork and having this actually expansive, visible definition of womanhood. I did not understand Kamala was going to be working once I wrote that guide, however I could not have chosen a extra excellent time to indulge within the fantasy of getting it out on this planet.

Is there one line from the guide that you just need to name out and encourage folks to carry of their minds throughout this season?

We’re Lady,

Glowing and rising, 

Figuring out the place the wind is

blowing.

We’re the place change goes.

I like this line as a result of it encapsulates how ladies are all the time on the forefront of progress. 

You’re very intentional together with your vogue and the colours you put on, and I’d love to listen to the story behind your robe tonight on the DNC. Why did you select it?

The gown is Solace London, in child blue. I actually like the colour, not simply because it is much like the colour of the Democratic Celebration, however once I’m in remedy and I am attempting to examine issues I need from my life—new joys, new peace—we name it my blue sky to mimic the feeling of laying in grass and searching on the sky and the clouds and daydreaming. So I actually needed to put on my blue-sky coloration to remind myself to dream and hope huge.

And now I have to know: Did you get to go see Oprah tonight?

I did get to see Oprah, which was so superb as a result of we have related loads—she’s finished interviews with me, she purchased my jewellery for the Inauguration, she’s so supportive and has been like a guardian angel on my shoulder—however we have by no means been in the identical room collectively. I used to be texting her so excited, like, Oh my god, I am unable to wait. To see her in individual tonight was so great. She gave me a giant hug, and I used to be like, Oh, that is the stuff that Black woman magic is product of.

Learn the total textual content of Amanda Gorman’s DNC poem, “This Sacred Scene” right here:

We collect at this hallowed place
As a result of we imagine within the American dream.
We face a race that exams if this nation
We cherish shall perish from the earth,
And if our earth shall perish from this nation.
It falls to us to make it possible for we don’t fall,
For a folks that can’t stand collectively can’t stand in any respect.
We’re one household,
No matter faith, class or coloration;
For what defines a patriot
Isn’t simply our love of liberty,
However our love for each other–
Loud in our nation’s name.
As a result of whereas all of us love freedom,
It’s love that frees us all.
Empathy emancipates,
Making us better than hate or vainness.
That’s the American promise, highly effective and pure:
Divided, we can’t endure,
However united, we are able to endeavor to humanize our democracy,
And endear democracy to humanity.
Make no mistake, cohering is the toughest activity historical past ever wrote.
But tomorrow isn’t written by the percentages of hardship,

However by the audacity of our hope; by the vitality of our vote.
Solely now, approaching this uncommon air,
Are we conscious that maybe the American dream
Isn’t a dream in any respect, however, as a substitute, a dare: To dream collectively.
Like one million roots tethered,
Branching up humbly,
Making one tree,
That is our nation:
From many, one;
From battles received,
Our freedom’s rung;
Our kingdom come
Has simply begun.
We redeem this sacred scene, prepared for our journey from it.
Collectively, we should start this early republic
And obtain an unearthly summit.
Allow us to not simply imagine within the American Dream.
Allow us to be worthy of it.