
The Carrying
Poems
Ada Limn(Author)
Milkweed Editions (Publisher)
Published on 27. May 2021
Book
Paperback/Softback
120 pages
978-1-57131-513-7 (ISBN)
Description
WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD
FINALIST FOR THE PEN/JEAN STEIN BOOK AWARD
From U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limon comes The Carrying-her most powerful collection yet.
Vulnerable, tender, acute, these are serious poems, brave poems, exploring with honesty the ambiguous moment between the rapture of youth and the grace of acceptance. A daughter tends to aging parents. A woman struggles with infertility-"What if, instead of carrying / a child, I am supposed to carry grief?"-and a body seized by pain and vertigo as well as ecstasy. A nation convulses: "Every song of this country / has an unsung third stanza, something brutal." And still Limon shows us, as ever, the persistence of hunger, love, and joy, the dizzying fullness of our too-short lives. "Fine then, / I'll take it," she writes. "I'll take it all."
In Bright Dead Things, Limon showed us a heart "giant with power, heavy with blood"-"the huge beating genius machine / that thinks, no, it knows, / it's going to come in first." In her follow-up collection, that heart is on full display-even as The Carrying continues further and deeper into the bloodstream, following the hard-won truth of what it means to live in an imperfect world.
FINALIST FOR THE PEN/JEAN STEIN BOOK AWARD
From U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limon comes The Carrying-her most powerful collection yet.
Vulnerable, tender, acute, these are serious poems, brave poems, exploring with honesty the ambiguous moment between the rapture of youth and the grace of acceptance. A daughter tends to aging parents. A woman struggles with infertility-"What if, instead of carrying / a child, I am supposed to carry grief?"-and a body seized by pain and vertigo as well as ecstasy. A nation convulses: "Every song of this country / has an unsung third stanza, something brutal." And still Limon shows us, as ever, the persistence of hunger, love, and joy, the dizzying fullness of our too-short lives. "Fine then, / I'll take it," she writes. "I'll take it all."
In Bright Dead Things, Limon showed us a heart "giant with power, heavy with blood"-"the huge beating genius machine / that thinks, no, it knows, / it's going to come in first." In her follow-up collection, that heart is on full display-even as The Carrying continues further and deeper into the bloodstream, following the hard-won truth of what it means to live in an imperfect world.
Reviews / Votes
Praise for The CarryingWinner of the 2018 National Book Critics Circle Award
ALA Notable Book of 2018
Finalist for the 2019 PEN/Jean Stein Book Award
"Limon has a novelistic knack for scene, and the narrative lyrics in this remarkable collection, her fifth, could stand as compressed stories about anxiety and the body."-New York Times
"Exquisite . . . Limon is always a careful witness, accurately recording the moment, rather than trying to transcend it. Evocative dreams and pivotal memories help make this collection a powerful example of how to carry the things that define us without being broken by them."-Washington Post
"[In The Carrying] the National Book Award-nominated poet pens paeans to the world's limitless capacity to astonish."-O, The Oprah Magazine
"Limon is a poet of ecstatic revelation. Her poetry feels fast, full of details, often playful, and driven by conversational voice. This book represents a powerful deepening of the poet's perspective. . . . It's a book of deep wisdom and urgent vulnerability, driven by language that feels not only beautiful but permanent and powerfully wrought, like a mountain. It leads you to the beautiful bright mountaintop of language, then guides you gently down into the rocky valleys of a conscious human heart."-Tracy K. Smith, Guardian
"Masterful . . . A piercing look into the nature of pain and impermanence . . . It is a paean to nature itself, to the peace in knowing it's both part of us and greater than us-especially when everything else in the world can seem like it's falling apart."-Buzzfeed
"With each poem in her new collection, The Carrying, Limon counterbalances her most paralyzing fears with her ability to find small twinges of hope . . . Each poems is a widening lens of the world, an unburdening of the things we carry deep within ourselves."-Paris Review
"Merciful and beautiful . . . [Limon] never hides behind words but reveals herself through them-even when the risk is overexposure. . . . This is as-the-crow-flies poetry-it goes straight to the heart."-Guardian
"The Carrying is about the contradictory joys and burdens we all carry. . . . The societal connection between womanhood, motherhood and power is at the core of her work. . . . For Limon, carrying both the joys and sorrows of a child-free life is a testament to the human ability to exist with many things piled on our shoulders at once."-PBS Newshour
"Tender, illuminating . . . The anxiety of all of life's realities permeates Limon's collection, which makes the work feel piercingly of the moment."-San Francisco Chronicle
"Limon's pitch-perfect fifth collection, The Carrying, is full of poems to savor and share . . . She writes with remarkable directness about the painful experiences normally packaged in euphemism and, in doing so, invites the readers to enter the world where abundant joy exists alongside and simultaneous to loss."-Minneapolis Star Tribune
"[Limon's] new collection is her best yet, a much needed shot of if not hope, then perseverance amidst much uncertainty."-NPR
"The Carrying is one of [Limon's] best. Even in poems about racism, misogyny, violence, and the darkness that often accompanies life, Limon's resiliency shines through."-Bitch
"For a book metered by grief, there's a lot of love here-that shouldn't come as a surprise, considering Limon's stylistic control and skill. . . . Limon is very good at pacing her poems to leave us satisfied but also curious. . . . One of the best books of the year."-The Millions
"Lyrical, tender, and knowing . . . Ada Limon's poetry connects the personal and the universal."-Garden & Gun
"With the knowing directness of a letter, Limon's poems speak to the marrow of our everyday condition . . . The Carrying is a vital collection for a noisy, brutal time. The power of Limon's unflinching examination of grief and loss is only surpassed by her love of beauty and compassion."-BOMB Magazine
"[Limon's] poems come closer than any poems have to Annie Dillard's essays . . . She's that rarest of beasts, a poet who can take you by surprise."-New Criterion
"Deeply intimate . . . A poetry collection to help you make sense of the world right now . . . It's a spinning world that, increasingly, is turning to poetry like Limon's to make sense of-or, at least, to assuage the grief of-it all."-Bustle
"What drives her poems-what makes her new collection, The Carrying, so moving and masterful-is her dexterity with voice and diction and her giftedness with metaphor. It is her deep wellspring of surprising and evocative images and her syntactic superpowers. Most of all, it's her intellect and intelligence. The poems are keen reflections of a mind constantly at work, seeing and wondering and moving toward meaning but not always the meaning to which the poem and its reader thought they were headed."-Poets & Writers
"Limon's new poems in The Carrying are like a winter garden-somber, full of grief and patience, suddenly visible lines from here to there. To watch a poet in full possession of her power tending the earth with this kind of care feels like an inspiration that comes with a chastened edge: time, they remind, is all we have."-Literary Hub
"All of Limon's books have found a home on my bookshelf, each volume a heartfelt reckoning of what it is be alive. In her collections, I find a grace that demonstrates her versatility and wisdom as well as a 'surrendering.' She explains that the central question of her work is, 'How do we live in the world?' Yet she's a poet as comfortable with questions as with answers."-Guernica
"[Limon] might be the mom of Latinx poetry, and I mean that in the best way possible. . . . Limon is talented in a way that's both intimidating and inspiring, and is definitely a strong pillar of contemporary poetry."-Book Riot
"Wisely observant . . . Limon's poems personify the twinned-narrative of despair and tenacity that has become part of America's current political and social reality. Indeed, The Carrying is a spark of courage in our dark and troubled times."-PANK
"Limon's work is a reminder that you can write poetry about big ideas."-America
"Exquisite poems about love, fertility, desire, this natural world we move through, the political climate, so much more."-Roxane Gay, Goodreads
"Superb. . . . Although the subject matter is often mournful, the endurance of nature also comes to light. Even though an individual may perish, there is consistency in the life cycles of bumblebees, dandelions, and race horses-all of which are examined with gorgeous language and imagery that makes Limon's collection hard to put down, even in the moments that cause a deep, sorrowful ache."-Chicago Review of Books
"This is the kind of poetry that strikes that rare balance: deftly crafted and profound but also completely accessible. The collection is about creation, death and everything in between, with so much attention to the thrumming world that just by reading it you become more aware, more in tune with the life around you."-BookPage
"Limon is one of the country's finest poets. . . . Honest, lyrical observations on love, loneliness, life, death and all the mysteries in between. . . . She performs a near-miraculous feat in balancing razor-sharp imagery with deep ambivalence. . . . The Carrying beautifully conveys the power of poetry in an age that needs it most."-Shelf Awareness
"Limon teaches me that language can still surprise me. She shows me that the juxtaposition of words not previously joined can catch me off-guard, make me feel that shimmer of resonance, of curiosity."-Signature
"Gorgeous, thought-provoking . . . This fearless collection shows a poet that can appreciate life's surprises."-Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"A stunning collection. . . . Limon writes movingly about finding the spectacular in the everyday. . . . A reverent, extraordinary take on the world. Don't miss this life-affirming collection."-Library Journal (starred review)
"A master of examining themes from unexpected angles, Limon rotates her topics in kaleidoscopic turns. . . . Page after page, this proves to be a startling and tender, magnificent collection."-Booklist
"Extraordinary . . . You realize that you witnessed something mesmerizing."-Foreword Reviews
"In her dazzling, precise, transformative collection, The Carrying, Ada Limon offers us meditations on mortality, womanhood, the body, and that which grows in the earth, all the while slyly positing: How we should treat each other in this precarious life? Like humans, is her answer. Like humans."-Jami Attenberg, author of The Middlesteins
"It is no wonder that Ada Limon's wonderful new book, The Carrying, is full of goldfinches and strawberries and dandelions and hostas and, as she writes, 'all good things that come from the ground.' It's also no wonder that it's full of the life that death makes. And the living that dying is. For this book is a garden. And like a garden, it will nourish you. It will feed you."-Ross Gay
"In her powerful new collection, Ada Limon asks: 'What if, instead of carrying // a child, I am supposed to carry grief?' And later: 'isn't there still something singing?' To which I say: yes. In these poems, joy and longing and grief sing with a music that-regardless of what I am burdened or blessed to carry-makes me want to live passionately and fully in the difficult world. The Carrying is a gift."-Natasha Trethewey
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Minneapolis
United States
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Illustrations
Six black and white photographs by Sebastio Salgado
Dimensions
Height: 211 mm
Width: 136 mm
Thickness: 11 mm
Weight
174 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-57131-513-7 (9781571315137)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Ada Limon is the twenty-fourth U.S. Poet Laureate and the editor of the national bestselling anthology You Are Here: Poetry in the Natural World. She is the author of The Hurting Kind and five other collections of poems, including The Carrying, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award and finalist for the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award, and Bright Dead Things, a finalist for the National Book Award. Her children's book In Praise of Mystery will be published in October 2024. Limon has received both a Guggenheim and a MacArthur Fellowship, and her work has appeared in the New Yorker, the New York Times, and American Poetry Review. She now resides in California where she was born and raised.
Content
Contents
1.
A Name
Ancestors
How Most of the Dreams Go
The Leash
Almost Forty
Trying
On a Pink Moon
The Raincoat
The Vulture & the Body
American Pharaoh
Dandelion Insomnia
Dream of the Raven
The Visitor
Late Summer after a Panic Attack
Bust
Dead Stars
Dream of Destruction
Prey
2.
The Burying Beetle
How We Are Made
The Light the Living See
The Dead Boy
What I Want to Remember
Overpass
The Millionth Dream of Your Return
Bald Eagles in a Field
I'm Sure about Magic
Wonder Woman
The Real Reason
The Year of the Goldfinches
Notes on the Below
Sundown and All the Damage Done
On a Lamp Post Long Ago
Of Roots & Roamers
Killing Methods
Full Gallop
Dream of the Men
A New National Anthem
Cargo
The Contract Says: We'd Like the Conversation to Be Bilingual
It's Harder
3.
Against Belonging
Instructions on Not Giving Up
Would You Rather
Maybe I'll Be Another Kind of Mother
Carrying
What I Didn't Know Before
Mastering
The Last Thing
Love Poem with Apologies for My Appearance
Sway
Sacred Objects
Sometimes I Think My Body Leaves a Shape in the Air
Cannibal Woman
Wife
From the Ash Inside the Bone
Time Is on Fire
After the Fire
Losing
The Last Drop
After His Ex Died
Sparrow, What Did You Say?
Notes & Acknowledgments
1.
A Name
Ancestors
How Most of the Dreams Go
The Leash
Almost Forty
Trying
On a Pink Moon
The Raincoat
The Vulture & the Body
American Pharaoh
Dandelion Insomnia
Dream of the Raven
The Visitor
Late Summer after a Panic Attack
Bust
Dead Stars
Dream of Destruction
Prey
2.
The Burying Beetle
How We Are Made
The Light the Living See
The Dead Boy
What I Want to Remember
Overpass
The Millionth Dream of Your Return
Bald Eagles in a Field
I'm Sure about Magic
Wonder Woman
The Real Reason
The Year of the Goldfinches
Notes on the Below
Sundown and All the Damage Done
On a Lamp Post Long Ago
Of Roots & Roamers
Killing Methods
Full Gallop
Dream of the Men
A New National Anthem
Cargo
The Contract Says: We'd Like the Conversation to Be Bilingual
It's Harder
3.
Against Belonging
Instructions on Not Giving Up
Would You Rather
Maybe I'll Be Another Kind of Mother
Carrying
What I Didn't Know Before
Mastering
The Last Thing
Love Poem with Apologies for My Appearance
Sway
Sacred Objects
Sometimes I Think My Body Leaves a Shape in the Air
Cannibal Woman
Wife
From the Ash Inside the Bone
Time Is on Fire
After the Fire
Losing
The Last Drop
After His Ex Died
Sparrow, What Did You Say?
Notes & Acknowledgments