Amanda Gorman pens poem about Texas shooting, puts spotlight on gun violence

By Angeline Jane Bernabe

Amanda Gorman is putting a spotlight on gun violence after 19 children and 2 adults were killed in a shooting at a Texas elementary school.

The 24-year-old National Youth Poet Laureate and author of “The Hill We Climb" took to Twitter following Tuesday’s tragedy with a poem.

David Livingston/Getty Images, FILE

Amanda Gorman attends the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, April 23, 2022.

“Schools scared to death. The truth is, one education under desks, Stooped low from bullets;” she wrote. “That plunge when we ask Where our children Shall live & how & if”

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

— Amanda Gorman (@TheAmandaGorman) May 24, 2022

Gorman also posted a series of tweets on gun violence.

“It takes a monster to kill children,” she wrote. “But to watch monsters kill children again and again and do nothing isn’t just insanity -- it’s 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.

— Amanda Gorman (@TheAmandaGorman) May 24, 2022

The truth is, one nation under guns.

— Amanda Gorman (@TheAmandaGorman) May 24, 2022

What might we be if only we tried.
What might we become if only we’d listen.

— Amanda Gorman (@TheAmandaGorman) May 24, 2022

Tuesday’s shooting unfolded shortly after 11:30 a.m. local time, officials said. The suspect, who also died in the shooting, was identified as 18-year-old Salvador Ramos, a student at Uvalde High School. Officials said he allegedly shot and killed his grandmother before entering the school and opening fire.

Many Americans are still reeling from several shootings that have happened in the past month, including one at a Buffalo, New York, grocery store where 10 Black people were killed.

In response to the shooting, lawmakers, including President Joe Biden, addressed gun violence in the U.S. and pleaded that Congress “keep weapons of war off our streets.”

“As a nation we have to ask when in God’s name are we going to stand up to the gun lobby,” Biden said. “We have to act.”