The Hill We Climb

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 2021

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Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Symbols & Motifs

Day/Night

The contrast between day and night that opens the poem represents the contrast between what America had just experienced under Trump and what Gorman believes it will now experience under President Biden. The lines “The loss we carry, / a sea we must wade” (Lines 3-4) amplify the burden placed on people by the past administration.

Gorman is writing not only at the end of the Trump administration, but also during the COVID-19 pandemic, a time of great loss, suffering, and death in the world that she imagines felt like a cold, lonely night for many people. During the inauguration, Gorman, dressed in a lively yellow coat and speaking with passionate energy, presented the inauguration of a new President as a new day of warmth and light.

The conclusion of the poem plays up this idea with powerful imagery, metaphor, and repetition:

When day comes we step out of the shade,

aflame and unafraid,

the new dawn blooms as we free it.

For there is always light,

if only we're brave enough to see it.

If only we're brave enough to be it (Lines 105-110).

The ending imagines people emerging from the darkness, ablaze with life and hope. But it is not nature that brings about the light; it is people. People are the torch bearers, the hope bringers, the progress makers. But people must be inspired and must believe in order to make things light.

The Hill

Preaching about Jesus Christ’s Sermon on the Mount, John Winthrop, a Puritan minister, in 1630 referred to the Massachusetts Bay Colony as a city shining upon a hill. Winthrop meant that the new colony would be a model for other people to see, and he wished for his fellow colonists to abide by Christian morality in their new endeavor in the new world.

The idea that America is a shining city upon a hill has passed through American history, and politicians of all political persuasions have used it to present America as a model for the rest of the world. Most famously, President Ronald Reagan used the image multiple times in his presidency, including in his farewell address to the nation, one of the most important presidential speeches in American history.

Gorman inverts the image. Instead of seeing America as the city upon the hill, she says Americans are still climbing: The city on the hill is a possible destination that has yet to be reached. This change in the image means that while America has the potential to be a light and model to the rest of the world, there is still work to do.

America

Of course, the poem is about America and what America stands for. Interestingly, Gorman only says America once, on line 52 when she says being American is about more than nationalistic pride.

Despite only saying the name of the country once, every image in the poem relates to America as a place, a symbol, and an idea. America can be both night and day. America can be the shining city on the hill, but it can also be the climb up the hill. It can rise and fall. These images tell readers that America is not a stagnant thing, and it has an equal chance to fail and succeed. America, then, is not a given. It is not something to take for granted, and it is not inevitable. It is an ever changing, fluid thing. It is what its people make of it. Gorman has hope that unity will progress America further up the hill, but she is clear that such progress will only happen if the people of America make it happen.