Many of us know Amanda Gorman as the woman who spoke words drenched in honey and hope at the presidential inauguration of 2021. Gorman is most known for her poem, The Hill We Climb, that she read to the United States as the National Youth Poet Laureate. However, this was not her debut work. In fact, in 2015 she published a book of prose called The One for Whom Food Is Not Enough. Both her first novel and Call Us What We Carry center around very similar ideas. Oppression, race, feminism and Marginalization are commonly explored themes with Gorman. Her work for the black community has been ground breaking in terms of illuminating the world on the constant struggles of an African American in the United States.

Once again, Amanda Gorman has astounded us with her poetry in her new novel Call Us What We Carry. Gorman’s prose is absolutely breathtaking, and her poetry is both digestible and wise in a way that I have never read before. I am of the opinion that this is a good book for those who don’t, or are just beginning to consume poetry. Call Us What We Carry is a reflection of life during quarantine, including brilliant and thoughtful analogies about oppression and black people’s struggles and wars throughout the years of the United State’s existence. The prose is both gorgeous, daunting and necessary. The reflections are scarily familiar to those we have faced, and by the time I had finished reading, it felt as though I had run a mile in heavy boots, exhausted, but exhilarated, bruised and breathing- Call Us What We Carry.