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. 

This is a great collection of poems from a very promising poet.  Personally I didn't enjoy the collection as much as I thought I would, because many were about Covid, and in some ways those poems felt a little cliche at times.  But my personal mood aside, the poems were not only well written but interesting in formatting choices as well.  I think the most jarring part was reading the poem from the inauguration and knowing in hindsight how much worse everything has since gotten.