Name: Call Us What We Carry
Rating: 3.821428571428572 (14 reviews)
ISBN: 9780593557082

Amanda Gorman

The breakout poetry collection by #1 New York Times bestselling author and presidential inaugural poet Amanda Gorman Formerly titled The Hill We Climb and Other Poems, the luminous poetry collection by #1 New York Times bestselling author and presidential inaugural poet Amanda Gorman captures a shipwrecked moment in time and transforms it into a lyric of hope and healing. In Call Us What We Carry, Gorman explores history, language, identity, and erasure through an imaginative and intimate collage. Harnessing the collective grief of a global pandemic, these poems shine a light on a moment of reckoning and reveal that Gorman has become our messenger from the past, our voice for the future.

Poems

Call Us What We Carry

Anneliese Villanueva 

Madi Van Houten

Celine

We became paid professionals of pain, Specialists in suffering, Aces of the ache, Masters of the moan.

To try is to take a stab, To take a shot. We want to find who made us A slaughterhouse, A rhetoric that works in red. We teach children: Leave a mark on the world. What leads a man to shoot up Souls but the desire to mark

Anxiety is a living body. Poised beside us like a shadow. It is the last creature standing, The only beast who loves us Enough to stay.

Since the world is round., There is no way to walk away From cach other, for even then We are coming back together.

What we carry mcans we survive, It is what survives us.

It's not what was donc that will haunt us, But what was withheld, What was kept out & kept away. The hand clenched tightly With every black blow. We cannot fathom all these phantoms. But do not fear our ghosts. Learn from them.

Do not ask us who we are. The hardest part of griet Is giving it a name.

Strength is separate from survival. What endures isn't always what escap & what is withered can still withstand.

Glossy scabs, tight-raised skin, These can look silver in certain moonlights. In other words, Our scars are the brightest Parts of us.

Life is not what is promised. But what is sought. These bones, not what is found. But what weve fought. Our truth, not what we said, But what we thought. Our lesson, all we have taken & all we have brought.

* * Therc are some of us who, when experiencing a tragedy or comedy in our lives, alrcady think: How will this be told to another? Can it be told? How can we possibhy begin the story of what has happened to us?

There is nothing so agonizing, or so dangerous as memory unexpressed, unexplored, unexplained & unexploded. Grief is the grenade that always goes off.

In Spanish, the definite article the is used far more frequently. Its not bluc, it's the blue, el azul. The black, el negro. Not history, the history. As if there froth many pasts & we must be clear on which one we are forgiving, ifany.

Find it easier to live because I have to.

Never forget that to be alone Has always been a price tor some &aprivilege for others.

According to legend, There are two wolves inside us: One half that must be fought & one that must be fed. One that must fall & one that must never fail.

But the point of protest isnt winning: lts holding fast to the promise of frecdom, Even when fast victory is not promiscd.

The breakout poetry collection by #1 New York Times bestselling author and presidential inaugural poet Amanda Gorman Formerly titled The Hill We Climb and Other Poems, Amanda Gorman’s remarkable new collection reveals an energizing and unforgettable voice in American poetry. Call Us What We Carry is Gorman at her finest. Including “The Hill We Climb,” the stirring poem read at the inauguration of the 46th President of the United States, Joe Biden, and bursting with musical language and exploring themes of identity, grief, and memory, this lyric of hope and healing captures an important moment in our country’s consciousness while being utterly timeless.

Marcy Pursell 

I read this as part of my 2023 reading challenge for the category of a genre I don't usually read. Unfortunately, these poems didn't change my mind about the genre.

The breakout poetry collection by Sunday Times bestselling author and presidential inaugural poet Amanda Gorman 'This is more than protest. It's a promise.' Including 'The Hill We Climb,' the stirring poem read at the inauguration of the 46th President of the United States, Joe Biden, this luminous poetry collection by Amanda Gorman captures a shipwrecked moment in time and transforms it into a lyric of hope and healing. In Call Us What We Carry, Gorman explores history, language, identity, and erasure through an imaginative and intimate collage. Harnessing the collective grief of a global pandemic, these seventy poems shine a light on a moment of reckoning and reveal that Gorman has become our messenger from the past, our voice for the future. Praise for 'The Hill We Climb': 'I was profoundly moved... The power of your words blew me away' Michelle Obama, TIME 'I was thrilled' Hillary Clinton 'She spoke truth to power and embodied clear-eyed hope to a weary nation. She revealed us to ourselves' Lin-Manuel Miranda, TIME

From the presidential inaugural poet

Loved it but didn’t expect so much about the effect of the pandemic on us human -  our nature given social desire suppressed. Nowadays I feel sick thinking of hand sanitizer’s, masks, quarantine and everything related to the pandemic. Sure it’s important to catch up on how seriously damaging all the restrictions, all the dead & the ill were to our mental health. However this is just my opinion and besides that I love this piece of art from Amanda Gorman. It’s so passionate, wise & peaceful. It soothed me so much.

Rose Stanley

Beautiful. Gorgeous phrases, powerful images. Fugue, in particular, made me cry. Twice.

Only one disappointment for me here - found The Miracle of Morning to be slightly cringe (it read to me like those awful poems people send in to the letters' page of local newspapers, and it's obvious from the rest of the collection that Ms Gorman can do much, much better).

Renee Delcourt

This was my first time with Amanda Gorman's poetry and I was not disappointed at all. I really love how tangible everything was and how you can feel her emotion in every word she wrote. I highly recommend her audiobook since she recites her own poetry and it's done beautifully!

Call Us What We Carry Poems

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