Amanda Gorman Pays Tribute to Victims in Minneapolis

Amanda GormanChairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from Washington D.C, United States, CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons

America’s first Youth Poet Laureate and friend of MY HERO Amanda Gorman is no stranger to speaking out against injustice. Just two weeks after the infamous attack on the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021, by a group of white nationalists and Trump supporters, Gorman read an amended version of her poem The Hill We Climb at President Joe Biden’s Inauguration.

Following deaths of Renée Good and Alex Pretti at the hands of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers in Minneapolis within weeks of each other in January, Gorman paid tribute in the best way she can: with poetry.

Renée Nicole Good, a writer, poet, and loving mother of three, was only thirty-seven years old when she was fatally shot by ICE agent Jonathan Ross on January 7, 2026. Good’s mother, Donna Ganger said of her daughter following her death 

She was extremely compassionate. She's taken care of people all her life. She was loving, forgiving and affectionate. She was an amazing human being.[1]

Alex Jeffrey Pretti, also thirty-seven years old at the time of his killing, was an intensive care nurse at the United States Department of Veterans Affairs. He was shot after placing himself between ICE agents and a woman they had pushed to the ground.[2] Pretti’s sister Micayla said

[All he] ever wanted was to help someone – anyone. Alex always wanted to make a difference in this world, and it's devastating that he won't be here to witness the impact he was making. Through his work at the VA caring for the sickest patients, and passion to advance cancer research, he touched more lives than he probably ever realized.[3]

Hearing that Good was a poet in her own right, Gorman felt she owed it to her to write something in her honor. “Even if what happened was horrendous,” said Gorman in an interview with NPR, “I felt she was a shining example of what language can do.”[4]

In the same interview, Gorman told Summers

I think very rarely is my poetry trying to convince anyone. Actually, it's trying to meet people where they are. And I hope that anyone who reads the poem can take a moment to pause and think about where we are as a country if we are scrabbling and fighting over a cold-hearted murder and trying to politicize it to agendas for larger projects. And so whether you're on the right, whether you're on the left, whether you like my poetry, whether you don't, I'm trying to create language that could remind us of what is possible when we listen to our higher selves. And those higher selves have to mourn and feel the pain and the grief when one of us has been killed.[5]

Amanda Gorman's voice is one of peace and humanity, and she proves time and time again just how powerful words are in the fight for justice. 

Find the poems on Amanda's Instagram: www.instagram.com/amandascgorman

Learn more about Amanda Gorman here.

Learn more about the Gorman family here.

[1] Wertheimer, Tiffany. Who was Renee Nicole Good, the woman killed by ICE? [Online] Available https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c1jepdjy256o. 2026.

[2] Phillips, Jacob. Who was Alex Pretti, the intensive care nurse shot dead in Minneapolis? [Online] Available https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c62r4g590wqo. 2026.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Smith, Jordan-Marie, Jarenwattananon, Patrick, & Summers, Juana. Poet Amanda Gorman on her work, 'For Renee Nicole Good' [Online] Available https://www.npr.org/2026/01/12/nx-s1-5672495/poet-amanda-gorman-on-her-work-for-renee-nicole-good. 2026.

[5] Ibid.