The Hill We Climb

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 2021

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Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Themes

Hope

Echoing the theme of Barack Obama’s first presidential run in 2008, Gorman’s poem casts the incoming presidency of Joe Biden as one of hope. Though the poem spends considerable time reflecting on what Gorman sees as the negative presidency of Donald Trump, the poem is always quick to contrast that negativity with a positive belief in the future of America. This happens in the poem’s first lines, as Gorman opens with an image of the coming day and the dawn. The imagery of the dawn sky and the rising sun represents renewal. It suggests the coming of life, warmth, and energy after the darkness and cold of the night. This coming of dawn runs throughout the poem, ultimately becoming the poem’s final image. That Gorman begins and ends with it suggests hope is the most pressing theme she wishes to communicate.

Still, Gorman’s theme of hope is measured. Often in political rhetoric, speakers rely on hope in a romanticized, unrealistic way, using it to draw their audience’s attention away from whatever problems afflict them. But here, Gorman combines her optimistic vision for the future with a realistic assessment of the past and present. The language she uses to describe America is not soaring, and she does not deify the country; instead, she paints a picture of an incomplete, imperfect union:

But that doesn’t mean we are

striving to form a union that is perfect.

We are striving to forge a union with purpose,

to compose a country committed to all cultures, colors, characters and

conditions of man (Lines 23-27).

In this passage, Gorman rejects the idealistic image of a perfect union and replaces it with a more concrete and purposeful idea: America is not a utopia touched by the hand of God; it has the potential to care for all of its citizens, but hasn’t reached this touchstone yet. Gorman uses alliteration to add emphasis to her words: matching sounds in the words perfect/purpose show these to be two sides of the same coin, while the alliterative string country/cultures/colors/characters/conditions links the US with its diverse population.

Unification

Using contrast to speak to the change in mood after Biden’s victory, Gorman presents a message of unity and togetherness:

And so we lift our gazes not to what stands between us,

but what stands before us.

We close the divide because we know, to put our future first,

we must first put our differences aside.

We lay down our arms

so we can reach out our arms

to one another.

We seek harm to none and harmony for all (Lines 28-35).

Gorman plays this contrast up with rhetorical tricks, like the pun of laying down arms and reaching out arms.

Contrasting language that promotes unification is present throughout the entire poem. Gorman relies on chiasmus, a rhetorical device of embedded parallel structures, to create matched contrasts through rhyme, alliteration, and other poetic techniques. For instance, the lines “victory won’t lie in the blade / but in the bridges we’ve made” (Lines 48-49) use rhyme and alliteration to juxtapose weapons (blades) with architectural connections (bridges); similarly, the later passage “force that would shatter our nation / rather than share it” (Lines 55-56) builds contrast through assonance with its comparison of destruction (shatter) and equity (share).

The poem reinforces its commitment to togetherness and rejection of divisiveness with its first-person plural speaker. Gorman does not present the poem from her own perspective; rather, her “we” is meant to include the perspective of all Americans, inviting the audience to share in her emotion instead of lecturing them. Gorman is relying on the fact that most Americans, regardless of political affiliation, want to see beyond partisan anger to find the things that truly unite them: hope, a commitment to equality, love, and liberty.

Progress

Gorman’s poem, while aware of the past, looks ahead. Every reference to the past is immediately contrasted with a line or an image to focus on the future. This begins early in the poem, when she says, “And so we lift our gazes not to what stands between us, / but what stands before us” (Lines 28-29). Though she must acknowledge the issues of the present, she believes it is more important to focus on what is to come because that is the only way to make things better. For her, “being American is more than a pride we inherit, / it’s the past we step into / and how we repair it” (Lines 52-54). This idea is key: Gorman is arguing that we should neither ignore the country’ s history, nor mythologize it into a golden age that never happened, nor simply accept it as an irrevocable status quo. Instead, she sees the past as a wealth of experience to draw on, or “step into,” so that we can use its wrongs and flaws to “repair” the country going forward.

Gorman also plays with the concept of time and how progress actually happens, pointing out, “For while we have our eyes on the future, / history has its eyes on us” (Lines 63-64). In our attempts to progress into the future, we must also be aware that future generations will look back at us to see the decisions we made. Progress is both a movement forward and a reflection on the past. To be aware of our effect on the future is to care for the future, and to care for the future is to care about progress. Again, this is in stark contrast to “Make America Great Again,” which by its very nature focuses on a return to a mythic idea of a previous ideal time that does not take real history into account. Gorman does not want to return to anything; she wants to move to something new.