Amanda Gorman was indeed the "supernova" of the Inauguration. As her verse unfolded, like a roadmap for our nation, I was sent back to a place in Montana. Where a young Nakoda woman, in my English classroom, would create the most effortless, compelling, and beautiful word art.

Poetry, essays, and short stories. I had thought - no, I was convinced - she was destined to the University of Montana's Creative Writing Program, like the inimitable James Welch of Fort Belknap and Blackfeet Reservations, or to Harvard. (She was also excellent in math.)

But,

life intervened, as it can - and, as we, frankly, as a society, have unduly allowed it. She would not move beyond her sophomore year of high school.

Vast talent, even genius. In Amanda Gorman, certainly. But in every corner of our nation, including, if not especially,

Montana. That that prodigious talent too seldom breaks through should be both our lament and our greatest hope. Our hope, because we simply need, through good policy, to extend opportunity everywhere.

Just as Amanda Gorman's poem suggests: "To compose a country committed to

all cultures, colors, characters and conditions of man." https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/19/books/amanda-gorman-inauguration-hill-we-climb.html?referringSource=articleShare