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

If I had known, back then, you were coming, when I first thought love could be the thing to save me after all–if I had known, would I have still glued myself to the back of his motorcycle while we flew across the starless bridge over the East River…If I had known, the truth is, I would have kneeled and said, Sooner, come to me sooner.

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

In my year of reading Ada Limón, I have accidentally been reading her backwards through time, and it is strange to now arrive at her big city period mentioned here and there in her later collections, when I associate her with Kentucky and big fields with horses and birds and dogs. There is a yearning for escape here, Ada in the city, Ada in an office with sales, Ada in a high rise apartment, and I with the power of hindsight am like, yes, girl, get out! This is not where you belong!

“you show more are part weather, part flower-leaf waving”
(from “How to Give Up”)

This is also a collection of water. So many rivers, so much high water. It was strange to read this in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Helene, while the South was still bracing for Milton to fall.

While I do prefer her later collections, it was fascinating to get glimpses of where she came from before, to see evidence of her growth as both a person and a poet. My favorite poem was “Ways to Ease Your Animal Mind.” show less