You're listening to Comedy Central. Now listen. Has A.J. and his Timboon and we're giving great, bad advice, never give a bad, great advice on our new show, we talk Back. Yeah, talking about a whole lot of sex. I love the sex and a bunch of money. We love the money and relationships. We're don't work on it. And it feels like Josh and listen to we talk back every Thursday on the radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your is.

Amanda Goldman, welcome to The Daily Social Distancing Show. Thank you so much for having me. I'm super excited. I'm the one who should be excited because, I mean, twenty twenty one kicked off with a bang. It's been a whirlwind for everybody. But I think for you, more than most people, it has been extra whirlwind, which is a word I trademarked.

You can use one day if you'd like to add one of your poems, you you went from not just being notable because you read a poem, the youngest ever inaugural poet, but also because of what the poem meant to people, because of the inspiration behind it, because of how people felt after they heard what you did. What has it been like for you just just in this little period since the inauguration? What has your world been like?

My world has been crazy. I mean, it's been turned upside down. I mean, when I was writing the poem, I knew it was a historic moment. I knew was an important moment, which is why I wanted to do just service. But I wasn't really paying attention to the ways in which my own personal life might change. So I went I did my job a poem. I walked off and just kind of expected everything to be the same.

And then I remember trying to open my Instagram just to look at other people's posts in all of my apps and just crashed because of all the followers that were just flocking to my channel. So it's been amazing and I'm still kind of absorbing it all like a sponge.

The poem The Hill We Climb wasn't just momentous because of the day it was performed on. I think what made it so special was that you incorporated up until that day the things that so many people were feeling about America. If you don't mind, walk me through why you felt it was important to write a poem for that moment and then even still be writing the poem on the actual day that you were delivering it.

Right, exactly. Well, for me, I mean, I was writing it and trying to find a way to encapsulate what had gone on over the past four years and even looking more expansively than that. And then, you know, we had the interaction at the capital. So for me, it was trying to say we've had this reminder of the ways in which democracy is both fragile and also enduring and how it is to defend it. And I think a lot of times in cultures, we think of the ways in which we can cleanse ourselves with water.

I think of the ways that we can cleanse herself with words, meaning that was an opportunity to kind of re sanctify. We purify and reclaim not just the capital building, but American democracy and what it stands for, a pretty high ask of myself. But that's what I did when I showed up and I rolled up my sleeves. And that was the aim of the poem, to use words to try to go back to the quintessence of what America can be.

I think you achieve that. I think you achieve that a thousand times over. And it showed in how people responded. I mean, consider it from this perspective and you may not, but this is how I saw it. I went on a day when Joe Biden's inaugurated. Kamala Harris is stepping into the role as VP. Lady Gaga is performing. Jennifer Lopez is performing you with a thing that people would look at. You would you were the trending thing.

I mean, it was like you competing with like Bernie Sanders is was basically it. That must be. Do you take a moment to go like, man, this is surreal.

That is so surreal, especially because my friends there are so funny and they come for blood. So they were texting me like, well, Joe Biden did a good job opening up for Amanda Gorman. You know who won that? I'm not you know, it's not a competition. It's not a fight over who wins the inauguration. They're like, but you did. And so I think for me, it was so daunting to be on a stage. You know, there's Michelle Obama to my right and Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and what have been so the figures that have been mythologized for me and to find myself not only being in that space, but owning it and claiming it was, I think, the highlight of my career.

I believe that you are slated to perform at the Super Bowl. That is correct, yes. I didn't understand. You understand the juxtaposition of this right now.

Write poetry at the Super Bowl. You understand the levels you've made it to where they would like this person is so good that we have to bring her to do poetry at the Super Bowl.

Right. Believe that went over my head because I knew about the Super Bowl and the inauguration around the same time. And it was like there was not space in my head for like I kept being like I got to right that inauguration poem. And my team was like, there's this little thing called the Super Bowl, which you should also keep in mind. And so, you know, it's very rare. And I want to say, you know, it's not an exciting possibility that a poet will be at something like the Super Bowl.

It's just nothing I have heard about before. And so the moments I strive for in my lifetime, which is to bring poetry into the spaces that we least expect it so that we can fully kind of grapple with the ways in which it can heal and kind of resurrect us.

Mr.. A little bit about poetry. I mean, it feels like poetry, like some art forms has it has its highs and then it has moments where it disappears. Why do you think we should never forget poetry? What is it about poetry that you feel society needs to hold on to?

Well, what I always say is poetry stands as a great reminder of the past that we stand on in the future that we stand for. I do not think it is any coincidence that when America seeks to kind of consecrate its ideals, it does so through poetry. I don't think it's sadness that we see a poem at the base of the Statue of Liberty as opposed to like a scientific formula or even a prosaic paragraph. Why is it that we call forth poetry in those moments or even point out to students, when you're at a Black Lives Matter march and you see banners that say they buried us but they didn't know we?

That's poetry at the racial justice movement. And so poetry, because it's inherently rebellious in its nature, I think it really becomes the language and the rhetoric of the people we get to kind of co-opt it and play on it. And what's more, we get to use those words to realize our thoughts and transform those thoughts and actions.

You have a journey ahead of you that I think nobody can predict, which is exciting. And you've had a journey that has been unpredictable. You you've you've talked about it growing up in a family with a single mom who was raising yourself and your twin sister and your brother as well, and and how you just fought to achieve. My question to you then is what are you aspiring to seeing that you've basically done it all? I mean, in the past few weeks?

That's a great question. I mean, I'm really taking that time to kind of sit back and think and be like, well, wow, that was it. Kind of what's next? And for me, I don't think it's about kind of beating my last thing or even competing against myself. I hear that a lot. And that's fine for other people. I'm not necessarily fighting against myself or competing or contesting against anything I've done, but I want to keep on the trajectory that I've started for myself.

I never want to kind of dally or diverge from that. And for me, that just means using my poetry to touch and heal and impact as many people as possible. And that can be at the inauguration and the Super Bowl. It can be in a living room. It's often in classrooms and other students. And so that's what's next for me on the more like resumé tick thing that I always have to mention when I'm on talk shows and like, I have three books coming out.

So there's also what I need to write. But, you know, I'm just chugging forward.

Well, I know everyone's going to be reading the books. Thank you so much, Amanda Goldman, and congratulations on all your success.

Thank you so much. The Daily Show with Criminal Ears Edition wants The Daily Show weeknights at 11:00, 10:00 Central on Comedy Central and the Comedy Central and watch full episodes and videos at The Daily Show Datong. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram and subscribe to The Daily Show on YouTube for exclusive content and more. I don't know about you, but my Instagram feed is filled with perfection, perfect seeming mothers with beautiful children in impeccable outfits with not a stain in sight, and all of them, they're all trying to sell it to me.

It's a multibillion dollar industry. What influencers are essentially doing is trying to pick out the pieces of themselves that they think will be most appealing and package it. Welcome to the new podcast Under the Influence. I'm your host, Jo Piazza. I'm a mom of two kids, but I'm also a journalist. I'm going to take you into the depths of the Internet, a place that preys on some new mothers while minting millionaires.

It's literally the most empowering thing ever. My business that I've built with my own two hands from the ground up. This story surprised me every single day. It's got everything successful women, money, shame, guilt, the Mormon Church.

It's like we don't have all this stuff before. Oh, yeah. I've heard in church about porn.

And of course, there are adorable babies.

How many kids do you have to see? The industry really favors the four to six.

Dive down the rabbit hole with me and let's find out how the commodification of motherhood is driving a lot of us to the edge of our sanity. You can listen to under the influence with Jo Piazza on the I Heart radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. This has been a Comedy Central podcast now.