Celebrated poet Amanda Gorman took to Twitter on Tuesday and published a poem reflecting on the recent mass shooting at a Texas elementary school.
“Schools scared to death. The truth is, one education under desks, stooped low from bullets,” reads Gorman’s poem, in part.
“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,” she wrote.
According to NBC, Gorman — the first National Youth Poet Laureate in the U.S. — sent out a flurry of tweets in reaction to the shooting, saying that the U.S. is “one nation under guns.”
“What might we be if only we tried. What might we become if only we’d listen,” she asked her 1.6 million followers.
On Tuesday, 18-year-old Salvador Ramos walked into an elementary school and allegedly shot and killed 19 children and two teachers before being killed by law enforcement.
The shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, which is the third-deadliest school shooting in the U.S. behind the Virginia Tech shooting in 2007 and the Sandy Hook massacre in 2012, has renewed calls for gun reform, as reported by The Associated Press.
Gorman is working in partnership with Everytown.org, an organization aiming to prevent and end gun violence in America and advance gun-safety laws. A campaign promoted by both the organization and Gorman on Instagram has raised more than $800,000.
“Daily gun violence is not inevitable—it’s preventable. Two teachers and 19 second, third, and fourth graders should still be alive right now,” the organization said on Twitter.
Gorman gained national attention when she became the youngest poet to read her work at a presidential inauguration. She recited “The Hill We Climb” at the country’s capital in January 2021.
Gorman, wearing a yellow coat, spoke before President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, and former Presidents Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush.
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