UVALDE, Texas — Amanda Gorman is putting her pen into action in the face of tragedy.
In the moments following the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, which left 19 students and two teachers dead, Gorman took to Twitter to share a powerful message about our nation.
Gorman said, “Schools scared to death.
The truth is, one education under desks,
Stooped low from bullets;
That plunge when we ask
Where our children
Shall live
& how
& if."
Gorman followed up her poem with a series of tweets expressing her outrage at the shooting and for the lack of action in response to other school shootings. She called it "inhumanity."
“It takes a monster to kill children. But to watch monsters kill children again and again and do nothing isn’t just insanity—it’s inhumanity," Gorman said.
"The truth is, one nation under guns," Gorman added. "What might we be if only we tried. What might we become if only we’d listen."
In 2017, Gorman, was named the inaugural National Youth Poet Laureate. When she spoke at President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris' inauguration in January 2021, at the age of 22, she was the youngest inaugural poet in American history.
The young poet was among hundreds of well-known figures who are speaking out following the deadly shooting. Uvalde native and actor Matthew McConaughey called upon Americans, his fellow Texans and mothers and fathers, to "find a common ground."
In a statement, he said, in part, "As Americans, Texans, mothers and fathers, it's time we re-evaluate, and renegotiate our wants from our needs. We have to rearrange our values and find a common ground above this devastating American reality that has tragically become our children's issue."