FOR EDUCATORS
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To help bring Amanda Gorman and her work to life in your class, discuss the thematic connections and ideas that run through Gorman’s poetry and connect stories, ideas, people, events, and places. Encourage students to be the change they want to see in the world and to create their own works of art that inspire those around them.
Here are some themes to explore, activities, and additional resources to get started:
FORM
In Call Us What We Carry, many of the poems play with form in unconventional ways. When writing your own poetry, and reading poems written by others, take note of the way that form can be connected to function. If, for example, one wishes to write about America, what might be the emotional impact of writing that poem in the shape of an American flag? Some of the most historically recognized poets use deliberate form and function not only for the measurement of lines and stanzas but inside those lines as they craft rhyme and meter. Learn more about the details of poetic rhyme and meter from Mary Oliver in “Flare, Form, and Meter”.
BLACKOUT POETRY
Many of the poems in Call Us What We Carry are inspired by Blackout Poetry. Choose your favorite speech or essay related to the fight for justice. Ex. “Letter from Birmingham Jail” Black out all but the words you would like to use to craft a new poem. Keep in mind the examples of creative use of poetic forms throughout Gorman’s collection that may help inspire you to play with form and function in new ways.
MEMORY
The poem “Pre-Memory” states that “Storytelling is the way that unarticulated memory becomes art, becomes artifact, becomes fact, becomes felt again, becomes free.” Write a story or connect a series of images that are from your memory or are of a collective memory. Then, write a poem to go with each part of your story, or to go with each image. Remember to pay attention to all aspects of Freytag’s Plot Pyramid though you may sequence events out of chronological order to make your re-telling more interesting if you would like.
EMOTION
In your experience, is language or poetry a “life craft” and “life raft” if so, how? If not, what medium do you use to find comfort and safety in self-expression? Choose the medium that you like best and create a work that could be healing for another individual experiencing any of the following emotions: loneliness, rejection, fear, despair or any other emotion from the tone wheel. The goal of your piece should be to help move them toward community, acceptance, courage, hope, or any other emotion from the opposite side of the tone wheel.
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