3 stars
A nice collection of poetry. Includes topics of COVID-19, connection, history, racism, war, loneliness, politics, and grief.
I enjoyed the different styles used and the various forms the poems take, from erasure poems to a screenplay, found poetry to concrete poems. The formatting is visually interesting, utilizing different page colors, shapes, and orientations to add additional meaning to the poems.
Gorman pulls inspiration from a variety of sources including literature, songs, advertisements, and historical documents such as the AIDS Memorial Quilt, the diary of Corporal Roy Underwood Plummer when he served in WWI, and a 1922 study interviewing African Americans who left the Jim Crow South for Chicago.
I enjoyed the different sources, though at times some of the entries were confusing as additional notes on their origins were found at the end of the poem or in the notes section at the back of the book. An introduction at the start of such poems may have been more helpful to give context before reading. At other times, the notes at the end worked to change the reader’s understanding of the poem such as the one utilizing the interview answers.
The collection ends with Gorman’s inaugural poem, “The Hill We Climb”.
I really love the way Gorman plays with and rearranges words. There are some truly amazing lines in this collection. Overall, an interesting collection.