Penguin Random House announced this morning that the upcoming collection of poetry by Amanda Gorman is now titled Call Us What We Carry. The collection had been appearing on Amazon and other online retailers under the placeholder name The Hill We Climb and Other Poems, named after Gorman’s breakout poem, which she read at the inauguration of President Joe Biden. A $15.99 commemorative edition of the inaugural poem alone, according to NPD BookScan, has sold more than 462,000 hardcover copies.
PRH’s Viking Books imprint will publish Call Us What We Carry, which will include “The Hill We Climb” and new works, on December 7. In a prepared statement, Gorman said: “I wrote Call Us What We Carry as a lyric of hope and healing. I wanted to pen a reckoning with the communal grief wrought by the pandemic. It’s been the hardest thing I’ve ever written, but I knew it had to be. For me, this book is a receptacle, a time capsule both made by and for its era. What is poetry if not a mirror for our present and a message for our future?”
Gorman’s first picture book, Change Sings: A Children’s Anthem, will be published by Viking Books for Young Readers on September 21.
