Call Us What We Carry – Amanda Gorman
An interesting fact I learned while reading Emily St. John Mandel’s “Station Eleven” was that William Shakespeare wrote many of his most famous works while under the specter of the bubonic plague.
St. John Mandel used art to rebuild humanity in her dystopian novel, and it got me thinking about what our current pandemic will usher. If Amanda Gorman’s poetry collection is any indication, we are in for a renaissance of self-reflection and collective processing.
I’m probably not the only person that got misty-eyed watching Gorman deliver “The Hill We Climb” at Joe Biden’s inauguration — spoiler alert: it had me crying again as the bookend of this collection — but it is far from the only stellar poem that should pull people in.
Through six-sections, Gorman shows us that she is as much a child of history and pop culture as she is of words.
Name checking everyone from Rihanna, Dustin Lance Black, Ocean Vuong and Ray Parker, Jr., to weaving in references to the Essex whaleship, 1918 flu pandemic, the Red Summer and using historical records as the basis for her poems, it’s an eclectic mix of inspiration that shows her genius and multifaceted interests.
It also creates a fair amount of accessibility for readers that don’t usually steer themselves to poetry (raises hand). Her age (23) likely helps her write with a clarity and relatability that I have often found is lacking with poetry.
First and foremost, this felt like a pandemic collection, and she covers everything from doom scrolling, politicizing mask mandates, lost humanity and attacks on science. The hardcover edition plays with fonts and design that have you turn the book to the side or upside down to understand sentences, which is a perfect metaphor for the past two years.
I’m the first to admit that some of the nuance and hallmarks of poetry are lost on me. Therefore, not every section worked, but I was impressed and enraptured by this collection and would encourage everyone to add it to your shelves.
Among the highlights:
“At First” — told as a text conversation about processing the horrors around us in March 2020.
“Fugue” — featured this record-scratching line: “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.”
“The Shallows” — a guide to mourning life pre-March 2020. The stellar line: “Grieve. Then chose.”
“Essex I” — explores surviving trauma.
“In the Deep” — brings forward the pain of George Floyd’s murder (on top of everything else in 2020).
“Captive” — Gorman often explains the meaning of words, and here she marries that approach with the clinical definition of stereotypies — the repetitive, unmeaningful activities observed by animals in captivity but not in nature. Is that not 2020?
“The Truth in One Nation” — exploring the history of racial inequality in the United States.
“Anonymous” — about literally hiding behind a mask.
“The Hill We Climb” — probably the piece of poetry that has resonated more to me than any other since Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken.”
My advice is to take your time with the collection, reading about 20-pages at a time, so you can fully appreciate the immense talent reflected here. I cannot wait to see her career — and artistry — progress.
Rating (story): 4.5/5 stars
Rating (narration): N/A stars
Formats: Hardcover (personal library)
Dates read: December 7 - 19, 2021
Multi-tasking: N/A
