These poems reflect on all the things we carry within us, be it loss, grief, hope, healing, history, the future.
This breakout 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, this beautifully designed volume features poems in many inventive styles and structures and shines a light on a moment of reckoning. Call Us What We Carry reveals that Gorman has become our messenger from the past, our voice for the future. Buy Now ▶
“Subtle…subversive…Call Us What We Carry [is] an act of courage.” —The New York Times Book Review
“Poet Amanda Gorman reached a new level of celebrity after she performed at the 2021 presidential inauguration, but her work and the impetus behind her words remain the same…With Call Us What We Carry, Amanda Gorman addresses the great divisions in the U.S. across race and class—and hope.”—People
“Amanda Gorman is a seer, a seeker, a speaker of our most difficult and astonishing truths. Reading these poems, I feel at once haunted, heartened, and formidably ministered to.”—Tracy K. Smith
“A book of poetry so alive you want to hold it and protect it, to read it all at once, and then immediately read it again.”—Malala Yousafzai
? “An inspired anthem for the next generation—a remarkable poetry debut.” —Kirkus Reviews