Call Us What We Carry

Call Us What We Carry

From the presidential inaugural poet

Summary

The breakout poetry collection by Sunday Times bestselling author and presidential inaugural poet Amanda Gorman

‘Poetry so alive you want to hold it and protect it’ Malala Yousafzai


The luminous poetry collection 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.

‘A new collection full of hope and healing from the young American poet who electrified the world’ Guardian

‘Reading these poems, I feel at once haunted, heartened and formidably ministered to’ Tracy K. Smith

‘The liberating force of the stories these poems tell about our resilience and survival showcases a powerful griot for our times’ Oprah Daily

Reviews

  • Haunting... A soaring sense of history and solidarity pervades Gorman's debut collection... Call Us What We Carry is wide awake to the complex strata of human history and restlessly original in its poetic form... This is poetry rippling with communal recognition and empathy
    Kit Fan, Guardian

About the author

Amanda Gorman

Amanda Gorman is the youngest presidential inaugural poet in US history. She is a committed advocate for the environment, racial equality, and gender justice.

In 2017, Urban Word named her the first-ever National Youth Poet Laureate. Gorman's performance of her poem "The Hill We Climb" at the 2021 Presidential Inauguration received critical acclaim and international attention. The special edition of her inaugural poem debuted at #1 on the New York Times bestseller list and was a Sunday Times Bestseller in the United Kingdom. She is also the author of the children's picture book Change Sings.

After graduating cum laude from Harvard University, she now lives in her hometown of Los Angeles.
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