Amanda Gorman pens poem in wake of Texas school shooting: "The truth is, one education under desks"
Another mass shooting at another school in the U.S. claimed more lives of children on Tuesday. In the wake of the shooting at Robb Elementary School in Texas, which has left at least 19 children and two teachers dead, Amanda Gorman tweeted out a poem that iterates the grim reality of gun violence in America.
"Schools scared to death," her poem reads. "The truth is, one education under desks, stooped low from bullets; That plunge when we ask Where our children Shall live & how & if."
The 24-year-old National Youth Poet Laureate continued to tweet about Tuesday's mass shooting, saying, "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."
"The truth is, one nation under guns."
Schools scared to death.
— Amanda Gorman (@TheAmandaGorman) May 24, 2022
The truth is, one education under desks,
Stooped low from bullets;
That plunge when we ask
Where our children
Shall live
& how
& if
Tuesday's shooting in Uvalde is one of the deadliest school shootings in American history and evoked memories of the rampage at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut, a decade ago.
The shooting broke out just after 11:30 a.m. local time, with officials saying the shooter targeted "whoever was in his way."
State and federal officials were quick to condemn the deadly attack. In an address to the nation on Tuesday night, President Biden issued a similar statement to that of Gorman and many others, calling for stricter gun laws.
"Another massacre. Uvalde, Texas. An elementary school. Beautiful, innocent second-, third- and fourth-graders," the president said. "...As a nation we have to ask, when in God's name are we going to stand up to the gun lobby? When in God's name will we do what we all know in our gut needs to be done?"