Startlement

Praise for Ada Limón: “Limón is a poet of ecstatic revelation. Her poetry feels fast, full of details, often playful, and driven by conversational voice.”—Tracy K. Smith, Guardian “Limón is one of the country’s finest poets. [. . .] She performs a near-miraculous feat in balancing razor-sharp imagery with deep ambivalence.”—Shelf Awareness  “[Limón] 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  “Limón’s poems are like fires: charring the page, but leaving a smoke that remains past the close of the book.”—The Millions  “Limón doesn’t write as if she needs us. She writes as if she wants us. Her words reveal, coax, pull, see us. [. . .] [She is] a poet with the most generous of eyes.”—Nikky Finney  “Lyrical, tender, and knowing [. . .]. Limón’s poetry connects the personal and the universal.”—Garden & Gun “With the knowing directness of a letter, Limón’s poems speak to the marrow of our everyday condition [. . .]. The power of Limón’s unflinching examination of grief and loss is only surpassed by her love of beauty and compassion.”—BOMB Magazine “Both soft and tender, enormous and resounding, [Limón’s] poetic gestures entrance and transfix.”—Richard Blanco “[Limón’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 “All of Limón’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 “Wisely observant [. . .]. Limón’s poems personify the twinned-narrative of despair and tenacity that has become part of America’s current political and social reality. [. . .] A spark of courage in our dark and troubled times.”—PANK