Welcome to the VERANDA Sip & Read Book Club! Each month, we dive into a book and offer exclusive conversations with the author, along with a perfectly matched cocktail. This month's pick is Amanda Gorman's Call Us What We Carry, a visionary collection of poetry reflecting on our past and giving voice to our future. Get caught up on our past book club selections here.
How does one begin to describe the times we are living in? With so much grief and confusion, it could be tempting to simply describe them as dark times. But for 2017 National Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman, the answer lies in closer examination of the moment for what it is—the good, the bad, and the unknown—as illustrated in her newest collection, Call Us What We Carry.
The 23-year-old skyrocketed to fame a little over a year ago after she delivered an electric performance of her poem “The Hill We Climb” at the presidential inauguration, an honor shared with only five other poets before her. In her piece, the young poet optimistically invited us to move forward together, creating a sense of unity that she carries throughout her newest book. "The Hill We Climb" acts as the collection's closer, but the pages before hold just as much weight as they encapsulate the spirit of a young generation yearning to understand the world in which it lives.
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Gorman is not trying to persuade the reader to feel a certain way but rather honestly record a moment in history that affects the entire world. Her strength with this collection comes from how she leans into the uncertainty and allows her true emotions to bleed on to the page. There are moments of reflection when she looks to events and even works of the past to help her understand the present. There are moments of laughter when she pokes fun at our quarantine hobbies such as bread baking and Zoom parties. There are moments of frustration when she's not afraid to directly call out injustices in our country. "Riots are red / Violence is blue / We're sick of dying / How 'bout you?"
Gorman's youth manifests throughout—mostly to great success but sometimes to the detriment of the collection, with some poems relying on clichés or redundant imagery. That said, each work seamlessly plays off another to depict a journey of ebbs and flows, a journey that Gorman passionately suggests is not hers alone but belongs to all of us. "The truth is, / One globe, wonder-flawed. / Here's to the preservation / Of a light so terrific."
Sarah DiMarco is the Assistant Editor at VERANDA, covering all things art, design, and travel, and she also manages social media for the brand.
