Book Review: Call Us What We Carry

Call Us What We Carry, by Amanda Gorman

Amanda Gorman, if you haven’t heard of her, was the inaugural poet for President Joe Biden’s administration.  She is also the youngest inaugural poet in history; she was in her early twenties when she read her poem, “The Hill We Climb,” at Biden’s inauguration in 2021.  I received this book as a gift from my niece a couple of years ago, and just recently pulled it off the shelf as a pick for our book club.

Gorman is a remarkable poet.  She graduated from Harvard just as the pandemic was beginning, and her experience in the pandemic is evident in her writing.  She also weaves in the parallels of the 1918 flu pandemic.  Her grasp of language and vocabulary is impressive, and she uses creative placement of words to get her points across.

Overall, I enjoyed the book.  I appreciated several of the poems and their metaphors between the sea and ships with life.  I did feel it was too heavily focused on the pandemic, but I suppose that comes from Gorman being so young and having less life experience to draw from.

Her inaugural poem, “The Hill We Climb,” mostly painted a picture of hope and the need for the community of Americans to set aside their differences and stop the divisiveness that is so prevalent in our society today.  It would be nice if politicians would actually pay attention and take that to heart.

3 stars.

 

Book Review: Bodega

Bodega, by Su Hwang

Bodega is a collection of poetry, a bit different than my usual read. It was the book club choice of my library’s monthly book club.

Su Hwang is a Korean immigrant, having been born in Seoul and then moving to the United States as a child.  Her poetry reflects her immigrant background, and much of Bodega touches upon her lived experience as a Korean American living in the United States.  She explores the cultural differences, the experience of being brown among white peers, and being the daughter of owners of a small corner store.  

Her poetic style is modern, with very little in the way of rhymes, or traditional styles of paragraphs or syllables.  You will not find haiku, sonnets, or iambic pentameter among these pages.  What you will find is lyrical narrative, creative use of words from other languages, and everyday life expressed in her poems.

I had to dig deeper to like this book.  A quick read will not do it if you are not a regular lover of poetry.  Slow down, absorb and really reflect on the words.  Read these poems outloud.  Play around with the cadence.  That’s what I did, and I gained an appreciation for her poetry. 

3 stars.