Ada Limón

My brain is not braining very well today, which is possibly tragic, because I was already concerned that I was not going to be able to capture in words the ABUNDANCE OF JOY I experienced in reading this collection. You know that feeling? When you read the very first poem and you are already in rapture? And you are like, I AM GOING TO LOVE THIS BOOK WITH MY WHOLE HEART AND SOUL?

I seriously don't know what is wrong with me that I have been sleeping on Ada Limón.

Luckily I took notes yesterday show more when my brain was actually operating at full speed. I TOOK SO MANY NOTES. SPILLING OVER THE PAGE NOTES. LIKE, DAMN ME, YOU ARE GOING TO HAVE TO RAISE YOUR BAR FOR WHAT YOU THINK IS NOTEWORTHY OR WE ARE GOING TO RUN OUT OF PAPER NOTES.

Okay. The first poem is "Give Me This," and I will give Ada Limón anything. She encounters a groundhog in her garden, "liquidity moving" AND MY WHOLE HEART FOR THOSE WHO LOVE GROUNDHOGS, EVEN WHEN THEY ARE IN YOUR GARDEN, EATING YOUR TOMATOES. I copied down the lines "Why am I not allowed delight?" And:

I watch the groundhog more closely and a sound escapes
me, a small spasm of joy I did not imagine
when I woke.

You see what I mean about the notes? One poem in and I have covered half a page with quoted lines and lots of tiny hearts.

I CANNOT TELL YOU ABOUT ALL THE POEMS I TOOK NOTES ON, but just five poems later we have "A Good Story"

I tell a friend, the body
Is so body. And she nods.

MY BODY IS ALSO SO BODY SOME DAYS.

I cannot. Instagram, I need more characters. I need a whole blog. I need to tell you about the yellow and the kingfisher and the tribute and the Resplendent and the mountain lion. The love of nature and of grandparents. The hard memories and the soft. The "No one ever questions a Mexican in an orange shirt." The heteromaniacal postcards.

My love. My joy. My hurting.

(I originally checked this out from the library but then I had to buy my own copy!) show less

I’ve struggled my way through a few poetry collections this past year in my attempt to “get” poetry. You Are Here: Poetry in the Natural World was a wonderful break from constantly being humbled by literature. There were several poems in this collection reflecting on our relationship with nature that resonated with me and made me excited to explore more poetry. (I wrote the names of the writers down that I wanted to read more of).

Two excerpts I cannot stop thinking about.

from To a show more Blossoming Saguaro from Eduardo C. Corral:
“You have more rights than the undocumented:
I need a permit to uproot you.”

from Unendangered Moths of the Mid-Twentieth Century by Brenda Hillman
“Algorithms have just been invented.
There are thoughts without thinking.” show less

It's been so long since I read a single author's book of poems. Sitting that long with one poet really let's themes and refrains shine through, in a way reading the same author within a collection cannot.

Ada Limon is trying to make peace with her life. To remind herself how much she wants it, has wanted it, has tried to build it. But it feels so fragile to her. Relationships are tenuous and easily undermined. Buildings and places are as dust on the wind.

"I'm not proud. The stove
can't boast show more of the meal."

"But I didn't die. I went right
Back the next day, but in a t-shirt
And didn't try to be pretty, just
Swam like something ordinary,
Something worthy of the sea." show less

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 show more 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. show less