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I’m not a poetry person, but this collection has some definite winners.

Here are the poems/lines that really stood out to me (in order of their appearance):
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Ship’s Manifest
“To be accountable we must render an account:
Not what was said, but what was meant.��

Fugue
“This is edgeless doubt:
Every cough seemed catastrophe,
Every proximate person a potential peril.
We mapped each sneeze & sniffle,
Certain the virus we had run away from
Was now running through us.
We slept the days down.
We wept the year away,
Frayed & afraid.��

School’s Out
“There is power in being robbed
& still choosing to dance.��

There’s No Power Like Home
“We were sick of home,
Home sick.
That mask around our ear
Hung itself into the year.��

The Shallows
“Shall this leave us bitter?
Or better?
Grieve.
Then choose.��

& So
“Since the world is round,
There is no way to walk away
From each other, for even then
We are coming back together.��

Good Grief
(I love this whole poem)

Essex I
“We were told never to use I when writing,
because eliminating this voice makes arguments legitimate.��
(Side note: I recommend reading In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex, which is tied to the subject of this poem)

Another Nautical
“There truly is a unity
That requires no “they��
For us to be threatened by.��

In the Deep
(Again, loved this entire poem)

Hephaestus
“Pay attention.
Concern is the debt
We always owed each other.��

Cordage, or Atonement
“Our gods owe men omens.
Answers, we mean.��

Lucent
“Glossy scabs, tight-raised skin,
These can look silver in certain moonlights.
In other words,
Our scars are the brightest
Parts of us.��

Life
(Again, loved this entire poem)

Alarum
(Again, loved this entire poem)

Vale of the Shadow of Death
“It’s said that ignorance is bliss. Ignorance is this: a vine that sneaks up a tree, killing not by poison, but by blocking out its light.��

_ _ _ _ _ [Gated]
(Again, loved this entire poem)

Fury & Faith
(Again, loved this entire poem)

The Truth in One Nation
(Again, loved this entire poem)

The Hill We Climb
(The inauguration poem she’s known for)
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There were of course parts of this collection that I did not care for:
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�� All of the erasure poems, I just didn’t “get�� these. Especially ‘Report on Migration of Roes�� which just seemed like nonsense to me until you get to her explanation of her poem after you read the whole thing, which should have been put before the poem and not after it. But even with reading that explanation, I still thought it was weird.
�� All of the Corporal Plummer diary entries combined with Gorman’s own prose. Her additions to his didn’t add anything for me.
�� Monomyth - this recap of Dec 2019 to July 2021 was not something I wanted.
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