Ada LimónRezensionen

So I went to Dallas this past weekend and got practically no reading done. It was still a good reading weekend though because while in Dallas we visited a bookstore that I really liked, The Wild Detectives. Sitting in what looks like a converted cottage in an artsy district, it was started up a few years ago by two guys from Spain and features a limited "curated" selection of high quality literature along with a bar serving up booze and coffee. Sounds awesome, right? It is. So while I hardly ever buy new books at cover price, I was definitely buying something here, I just didn't know what.

I wandered over to the poetry section, two shelves worth by the bar, and this Ada Limón volume got my attention. I'd heard good things of Limón but never had read her, until opening this book and reading the amazing poem smartly printed on the front flap, as well as being the first poem in the book proper, a poem about fillies at the race track, titled "How to Triumph Like A Girl", which goes in part,

But mainly, let's be honest, I like
that they're ladies. As if this big
dangerous animal is also a part of me,
that somewhere inside the delicate
skin of my body, there pumps
an 8-pound female horse heart,
giant with power, heavy with blood.
Don't you want to believe it?

It's an incredible, ebullient poem, and turns out it won the Pushcart Prize, though I didn't yet know that, so its power is no secret. I flipped forward a few pages and found something almost as good, a prose poem titled "Mowing", but the tone has changed from bravura to something more like vulnerability:

I imagine what it must be like to stay hidden, disappear in the dusky nothing and stay still in the night. It's not sadness, though it may sound like it. I'm thinking about people and trees and how I wish I could be silent more, be more tree than anything else, less clumsy and loud, less crow, more cool white pine, and how it's hard not to always want something else, not just to let the savage grass grow.

Right, that's my decision made. I bought it.

I spent today reading the whole thing and it's so good. The first two sections are narrative, in that the first focuses on her move from New York to Kentucky to be with her husband, and the second focuses on the death of her stepmother. The first has 17 poems, every one of them something I'd read again and again. There's the two already mentioned, a baseball poem showcasing domestic contentment, a poem of rebellion against that contentment ("Yesterday I was nice, but in truth I resented / the contentment of the field. Why must we practice / this surrender? What I mean is: there are days / I still want to kill the carrots because I can."), almost every poem bringing in nature as something that can save us ("A view / of some tree breathing and the mind's wheels / ease up on the pavement's tug. That tree, / that one willowy thing over there, / can save a life, you know?")

The second section of 15 poems speaks to living with a forced awareness of mortality, caring for a dying loved one and how to respond. In the prose poem "After You Toss Around the Ashes", Limón writes, "After it was done, I couldn't go back to my life. You understand, right? It wasn't the same. I couldn't tell if I loved myself more or less. It wasn't until later, when I moved in with him and stood outside on our patchy imperfect lawn, that I remembered what had been circling in me: I am beautiful. I am full of love. I am dying." We're all busy dying, but lines like "How good it is to love live things" (in "The Long Ride") and "there is so much life all over the place" (in "In the Country of Resurrection") show Limón embracing the measure of life we're all allowed.

The last two sections, another 30 poems, seem to lack the organizing narrative focus of the first two, but are more generally about how to live, and be, in this wild and blessed world. There's a lot of nature here, and a general optimism; she reads quite a bit like Mary Oliver or Wendell Berry. In "The Wild Divine" she writes of a neighbor's horse:

and I thought, this was what it was to be blessed -
to know a love that was beyond an owning, beyond
the body and its needs, but went straight from wild
thing to wild thing, approving of its wildness.

She writes other poems about birds and herons, whales and mud swallows, but other poems as well that are more internal, or about people she's loved in her past. These poems are generally presenting a speaker who is optimistic and determined in her ability to find contentment and sufficiency amid life's uncertainties. And in the final poem, "The Conditional", after asking the rhetorical question, "Say tomorrow doesn't come..." and imagining the end of the world, she concludes

Say, It doesn't matter. Say, That would be
enough. Say you'd still want this: us alive,
right here, feeling lucky.

Now, go, and be blessed.

Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful! “Calling Things What They Are” and “It’s the Season I Often Mistake” are two standouts for me, but the whole collection is impeccable and heart-wrenching.

I liked Limón’s “Bright Dead Things” more than this collection, but nevertheless she continues to impress and move me with her work! I’m in awe of how Limón manages to capture experiences in ways I’ve never thought about, and with a kind of eloquence that is uniquely hers alone.

An absolutely magical collection of poems full of yearning, liveliness, rage, and beauty. Ada Limón almost paints more than writes here: she offers up such clear pictures and moments and has them overflowing with emotion and story. I LOVED these pieces and will continue to read whatever Limón shares.

The speaker in Ada Limon’s poems seems at first glance to focus on the confessional, letting the reader see her sadness and her moments of epiphany. By the end, this reader realizes these seemingly personal poems touch on the universal, showing
us Blake-style, the universe in a grain of sand. The reader sees New York City, Kentucky and places out west through her eyes and in many of the poems the act of pulling up roots and setting them down in a new place shows reasons a speaker might be tempted to let fear win, to retreat from uncertainty or tragedies such as a catastrophic accident, infidelity or horses dying in a trailer fire. Experience often makes one question whether the effort is worth it. And then Limon shows, selflessly, a speaker trying imperfectly to move forward, an act of courage or defiance. The poems seem to be a loose stream of consciousness until one reads them again, and realizes the disparate images at the beginning tie together into a satisfying epiphany by the end. This is the well-structured work of a strong craftsman. That’s the testament of how strong this collection is, the fact the poems consistently reward multiple reads.

I initially picked this book of poems up because I saw that Ada Limón was the new Poet Laureate for the country. I hadn’t heard of her before and wanted to see what her poetry was like. Wow am I glad I did! Between this collection and the next one I read of hers, The Hurting Kind, she has become my new favorite contemporary poet. I adore the lyrical way she writes on both simplistic and more complicated subject matters. When someone can take an everyday sight and infuse it with such global meaning and emotion, I am done for.

I also appreciate the fact that these aren’t all just poems about being in love or breaking up or both. I see that a lot in contemporary poetry. These poems cover a wide range of experience in every day life and the full range of emotions that come with it. You bet I went and put all her other poetry on hold at the library.

I am so in love with Ada Limón’s poetry ❤️. To see more about my thoughts on her poetry, check out my review on the first book of poetry I read from Limón, Bright Dead Things.

Some of my favorites from The Hurting Kind are “Glimpse,” “Give Me This,” “Open Water,” “It’s the Season I Often Mistake,” and “Salvage.”

Yep.

Poetry is subjective, but taking ones time through this collection everyone can find something to connect with. As per usual Ada swings for the fences and it's gorgeous to watch the ball fade into the distance and instead of disappearing it becomes the setting sun on the horizon.

From the new poet laureate. I can't decide if she would be a fascinating lover, or if she would cut me, or both.

I struggled through many of the poems in this collection, not often finding the essential connection that makes poetry work for me, when it does. And then I struggled to understand why. This collection will definitely speak to many readers in a vital way. The poet's talent is evident. Her recurring themes of the need to nurture, the ambivalence of a woman toward her own body, the import of the natural world---these are all proven winners in the literary race for my favor. What often wallops me when I read a Really Good Poem is a new perspective on a familiar thing. And yet, Limon's perspective is usually what puts me off. I don't see things the way she does, and when pointed in her direction, I'd rather not shift. Hers is not an opposing view, it's just cock-eyed to my view. I sought in vain for the "magic" in her language. There were three, maybe four selections I read and read again, with pleasure and understanding---"Of Roots and Roamers", "The Visitor", "Sundown and All the Damage Done". Still, I don't expect to remember them long. Poetry is first, last and always deeply personal. Two of Limon's poems will stick with me because while incredibly personal to her, they are still comprehensible to me despite being outside my own experience: "The Real Reason" touched me; "The Contract Says..." made me angry for all the right reasons.

I do find it hard to create reviews for poetry, it is such a subjective form in regards to what you will like. Surfice to say that it is rare to find a volume that you like every poem in one way or another (Mark Doty’s work comes to mind for me), I loved this volume, and will be rereading it again soon. I say re-reading, but I read every poem 3 times anyway, which is my common practice with poetry.

These poems leave me utterly astounded. Jesus, the power in sometimes simply one or two lines to hit you like a ton weight.

Every poem is perfect, not a word out of place. The best, the best, the best.

While not as moving to me as her previous book, Carrying, this was a fine collection of poetry. She will always draw my eye to her poetry. She has caught many other eyes as she was a finalist for both the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award. I read this soon after reading Splitting the Order, by one of my very favorite poets, Ted Kooser. It’s a competitive neighborhood for poetry?

Ada Limón is a fascinating blend of muscular, musical, emotional, and honesty all wrap up in some powerful poetry that forces you to pay attention. She comes at you, but still writes gently at times. “I am beautiful. I am full of love. I am dying.” She seems to fear no place and will explore it all. In this collection, Limón covers a lot of ground, physically, as she moved from New York City to rural Kentucky, emotionally, as she loses a parent and also falls in love, and through time, as she sees herself aging. I find her work always interesting and curiously wide-ranging. It is always a treat to experience the way her mind honestly explores the world.½

Love this so much. Her imagery is amazing and her metaphors are strong. She reveals so much of herself, of place, and of love. The sections on Kentucky resonate with me a lot because she is also a transplant.

Rarely do I buy hardcover poetry, especially by unfamiliar poets, but I took a chance here because of the reviews and the few poems I read online. I was richly rewarded with this wonderful collection. The poems reflect so broad a range of sexual longing, grieving, loving, the importance of gardening and the natural world, and the power of family. Poetry is all about the words, and reading these poems aloud shows the beauty of her talent.

This book is so good, I can't even rate it. But I tried to review it here: https://wp.me/p4LPys-mZ.

Although there were many aspects of this collection that I could not relate to, there were certain sections and passages that had me stop and think. It took me a whole month to finish this very short book simply because it triggered so many emotions inside of me. So yeah, I really didn't care about the horses or the owls, but there were lines that ripped my heart in two. Ada Limon had me mulling over my entire existence and it was a bit anxiety ridden and sad. But I guess that's the point of art, to make you feel, and some of these poems managed to do just that. Here are some of my favorite lines:

"If you're alone, when love is all around, we all tip our lonely hats in one un-lonely sound." Page 11

"Some might say that their love was not a love, or was not the right kind of love, but rather a sort of holding on in order to escape another trapped fate Page 59

"I imagine the insides of myself sometimes – part female, part male, part terrible dragon." Page 64

"How do you love?
Like a fist. Like a knife." Page 69

" I was there, standing in the bar's bathroom mirror, saying my name like I was somebody." Page 73

" I used to think it was like a light bulb, life, dangling in the chest, asking to be switched on." Page 99

"Every time I'm in an airport,
I think I should drastically change my life....

Then, I think of you, home with the dog, the field full
of purple pop-ups - - we're small and
flawed, but I want to be
who I am, going where
I'm going, all over again."

I checked this out from the library after reading Ellen's review of it on her thread. She gave it five stars. and so did I. It's that good. It's exquisite, actually. Thoughtful and insightful and intelligent. I like the way that Ada Limón thinks about things. This collection is divided into four sections, and each section deals with life and choices and heartbreak and hope - it's like reading her internal dialogue with her heart. The fourth section, especially, spoke to me. I just cannot recommend this highly enough. Here's one of my favorites:

Oh Please Let it be Lighting

We were crossing the headwaters of
the Susquehanna River in our new car
we didn't quite have the money for
but it was slick and silver and we named it
after the local strip club next to the car wash:
The Spearmint Rhino, and this wasn't long
after your mother said she wasn't sure
if one of your ancestors died in childbirth
or was struck by lightning, there just wasn't
anyone left to set the story straight, and we
started to feel old. And it snowed. The ice
and salt and mud on the car made it look
like how we felt on the inside. The dog
was asleep on my lap. We had seven more hours
before our bed in the bluegrass would greet us
like some southern cousin we forgot we had.
Sometimes, you have to look around
at the life you've made and sort of nod at it,
like someone moving their head up and down
to a tune they like. New York City seemed years
away and all the radio stations had unfamiliar
call letters and talked about God, the one
that starts his name with a capital and wants
you not to get so naked all the time.
Sometimes, there seems to be a halfway point
between where you've been and everywhere
else, and we were there. All the trees were dead,
and the hills looked flat like in real bad landscape
paintings in some nowhere gallery off an interstate
but still, it looked kind of pretty. Not because
of the snow, but because you somehow found
a decent song on the dial and there you were,
with your marvelous mouth, singing full-lunged,
driving full-speed into the gloomy thunderhead,
glittery and blazing and alive. And it didn't matter
what was beyond us, or what came before us,
or what town we lived in, or where the money came from,
or what new night might leave us hungry and reeling,
we were simply going forward, riotous and windswept,
and all too willing to be struck by something shining
and mad, and so furiously hot it could kill us.

"Ada's new book has a smart clip of anger to some of the poems, edgy parameters of disappointment to others, lots of personal relationship narratives, conflicts and emotional realizations; decisions, choices, changes, hopes and sadness, a type of survival poetry searching the world, getting into a deeper knowledge of people, and as the searchlight strobes out from the lighthouse through the fog and mist to lost travelers and explorers, structure changes toward an inventive orthodoxy of the heart's stormy reign....bravo..."
-- Jimmy Santiago Baca

Liked some poems better than others, but still pretty good.

I listened to this on audio while working and while trying to fall asleep - possibly 5 times now. Each time I have a new favorite poem.