Very ambitious and loud, as good poetry often is. But even great poets should not have been publishing pieces about the pandemic in such proximity to it. Just read this on DT’s 3rd day in office…

while i am not typically a poetry reader, i did enjoy reading this collection. yes, much of it went over my head. but the parts that didn’t were cool! although, this book did show me that it might still be too soon for me to comfortably read about the pandemic. i really enjoyed gorman’s erasure poems where she created poetry by removing words from excerpts of historical writing, as well as the shapes gorman made out of her poetry and the section where her poems gradually went from being printed on black paper to grey paper to white paper (that was cool!). overall a good read but i processed very little of its intellectual meaning lol

I don’t read a great deal of poetry, but Gorman’s talent is astonishing.  I love her voice, her facility with language, her ability to use our history, current events, and her identity as a young black woman to craft poems that speak to the heart.  These poems were written during the pandemic, and the crisis infuses most of the poems.  The volume also includes the poem she recited at Biden’s inauguration in 2020, to great acclaim.  I know I will return to these poems again and again, and she will likely become an auto-buy author for me.  From my favorite poem “The Miracle of Morning”:  
….”While we might feel small, separate and all alone, 
Our people have never been more closely tethered.
The question isn’t IF we can weather this unknown, 
But HOW we will weather this unknown together.

So on this meaningful morn, we mourn & we mend.
Like light, we can’t be broken, even when we bend.”

Admittedly, I'm not really one for poetry, but this book didn't really land for me. It often felt like the author was trying to say something really profound, and I wasn't quite getting it. But by far my biggest complaint is the form factor. There were some really poor decisions made that made some of the poems really difficult to read, and others just didn't really feel like they worked well in a book of poetry; they were more suited to something like an art installation.