Reviews

Call Us What We Carry: Poems by Amanda Gorman

dibiz116's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad slow-paced

4.0

hilaryannbrown's review against another edition

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5.0

A blessing.

nwordsmith's review against another edition

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challenging emotional inspiring fast-paced

5.0

Absolutely beautiful and breathtaking words and imagery. I loved the inventive word play. This book is one best savored a few poems at a time. I can tell I will revisit it to reread many many times. 

turophile's review against another edition

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challenging emotional hopeful inspiring reflective slow-paced

5.0

This book will make you want to read more poetry.  Truly outstanding.   It took me over a year to finish the book because each poem, each line makes you sit and thing.  Almost all of it is set during the pandemic, and is a meditation on what we faced.  Would this be as impactful to those who did not live through COVID? Probably would because she brings in so many timeless themes.  It may not hit the same to hit everyone, but the poems will hit you. So well done. 

clougreen's review against another edition

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challenging hopeful informative inspiring medium-paced

4.0

I am not one to normally enjoy or be moved by poetry, but I found myself feeling so much when reading Amanda's poems. The descriptive narrative and creative word play throughout invokes memories of emotions felt when it was written. Some poems felt much more impactful than others, but the ones that hit hit me hard.

bricope1017's review against another edition

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challenging emotional hopeful inspiring reflective medium-paced

3.5

karis_lit's review against another edition

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emotional slow-paced

4.0

thekaitlinreads's review against another edition

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2.0

1.5 stars rounded up
This was an incredibly rushed collection that lacked depth and nuance. The entire collection being about covid and previous viruses became incredibly repetitive, and somehow feels irrelevant now in 2023. Each poem being written in a collective "we" perspective feels hollow and impersonal, and certain poems contained a Seuss-esque rhyme scheme that seem immature for a Harvard graduated writer. Her poetry is not poorly written; it is innocuous and underwhelming.

bryndng's review against another edition

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hopeful reflective medium-paced

3.0

rballenger's review

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1.0

Type of read: Commuter Read.

What made me pick it up: One of my favorite books of all time is 'The Things They Carried' by Tim O'Brien. The title of 'Call Us What We Carry' caught me because it was so similar and I was hoping to add this one to a favorites list as well.

Overall rating: The first third of 'Call Us What We Carry' was beautiful and brilliant and really sucked you in. The second third of 'Call Us What We Carry' lost some of the lyricism and punch that I expected from Gorman. The last third of 'Call Us What We Carry' just made me angry because I felt like I was listening to someone's term paper about poems. I guess I just expected more and that made me incredibly disappointed.



Reader's Note: I enjoyed 'Call Us What We Carry' as an audiobook.