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GOBS Poetry Book Club: Amanda Gorman – Call Us What We Carry

  • Nottingham Central Library 1 Carrington Street NG1 7FH (map)

GOBS Collective invites you to chat and scribble your heart away at our Poetry Book Club, hosted in Nottingham Central Library and via Zoom.

GOBS Poetry Book Club provides a space for poets, writers, readers, performers, and artists to meet over a cuppa, and have a good chinwag over our poetry collection of the month. For the first half of the session we’ll talk about the book, and in the second half we’ll do some focussed writing exercises based on our favourite poems.

It’s preferable that you read the book before you come along, but if you don’t get chance and fancy heading down anyway, just pop along and there’s sure to be something for you to say, listen to, or write. No judgement.

May 2025’s Book:

Amanda Gorman – Call Us What We Carry

This luminous poetry collection by #1 New York Times bestselling author and presidential inaugural poet Amanda Gorman captures a shipwrecked moment in time and transforms it into a lyric of hope and healing. In Call Us What We Carry, Gorman explores history, language, identity, and erasure through an imaginative and intimate collage. Harnessing the collective grief of a global pandemic, this beautifully designed volume features poems in many inventive styles and structures and shines a light on a moment of reckoning. Now in paperback and featuring an interview with the author and a discussion guide, Call Us What We Carry reveals that Gorman has become our messenger from the past, our voice for the future.

Get a 15% discount on this book at Five Leaves by using the code GOBS

GOBS Poetry Book Club is also available to attend via Zoom.

Please note we have limited places available both in-person and online, so booking is essential.

GOBS Poetry Book Club is free to attend (donations welcome)

When: Saturday 24 May, 11am-1pm

Where: Nottingham Central Library (Meeting Room 2), 1 Carrington Street, Nottingham, England, NG1 7FH

Any enquiries can be directed to Bridie at info@gobscollective.org

At previous events, we've looked at:

Caleb Femi – Poor

Tolu Agbelusi – Locating Strongwoman

Caroline Bird – The Air Year

Ella Frears – I am the Mother Cat

Kae Tempest – Running Upon the Wires

Roger Robinson – A Portable Paradise

Malika Booker, Sharon Olds & Warsan Shire – Your Family, Your Body (Modern Poets Three)

Inua Ellams – The Actual

Cecilia Knapp – Peach Pig

Yomi Sode – Manorisms

Will Harris – Rendang

Anthony Anaxagorou – Heritage Aesthetics

Hannah Lowe – Chick

Warsan Shire – Blessed is the Daughter Raised by a Voice in her Head

Gboyega Odubanjo – Adam

Brian Bilston – Alexa, what is there to know about love?

Amy Acre – Mothersong

Book now

Later Event: June 2
GOBS Sunrise Sessions