‘I marvel at Ada Limón’s ability to weave on the page her playfulness and wisdom. Her lyricism dances. This is the poetry of a tender and compassionate human’ Joan Baez
‘Startlement is a book of rare treasures. With lyrical mastery and intimate storytelling, Limón’s poetry reveals new ways of paying attention. This powerful collection is a gift’ Amy Tan
‘Ada Limón is a bright light in a dark time’ Vanity Fair
‘Limón is a poet of ecstatic revelation’ Tracy K. Smith, Guardian
Drawing from six previously published books – including widely acclaimed collections The Hurting Kind, The Carrying, and Bright Dead Things – as well as introducing vibrant new work, Startlement exalts the mysterious. With a tender curiosity, Ada Limón wades into potent unknowns – the strangeness of our brief human lives, the ever-changing nature of the universe – and emerges each time with new revelations about our place in the world.
Both a lush overview of her work and a powerful narrative of a poet’s life, this curation embodies Limón’s capacity for ‘deep attention,’ her ‘power to open us up to the wonder and awe that the world still inspires’ (New York Times). From the chaos of youthful desire, to the waxing of love and loss, to the precarity of our environment, to the stars and beyond, Limón’s poetry bears witness to the arc of all we know with patient lyricism and humble wonder.
‘A poet of ecstatic revelation’ (Tracy K. Smith), Limón encourages us to meet our shared futures with open and hungry hearts, assuring ‘What we are becoming, we are / becoming together.’
‘Startlement is a book of rare treasures. With lyrical mastery and intimate storytelling, Limón’s poetry reveals new ways of paying attention. This powerful collection is a gift’ Amy Tan
‘Ada Limón is a bright light in a dark time’ Vanity Fair
‘Limón is a poet of ecstatic revelation’ Tracy K. Smith, Guardian
Drawing from six previously published books – including widely acclaimed collections The Hurting Kind, The Carrying, and Bright Dead Things – as well as introducing vibrant new work, Startlement exalts the mysterious. With a tender curiosity, Ada Limón wades into potent unknowns – the strangeness of our brief human lives, the ever-changing nature of the universe – and emerges each time with new revelations about our place in the world.
Both a lush overview of her work and a powerful narrative of a poet’s life, this curation embodies Limón’s capacity for ‘deep attention,’ her ‘power to open us up to the wonder and awe that the world still inspires’ (New York Times). From the chaos of youthful desire, to the waxing of love and loss, to the precarity of our environment, to the stars and beyond, Limón’s poetry bears witness to the arc of all we know with patient lyricism and humble wonder.
‘A poet of ecstatic revelation’ (Tracy K. Smith), Limón encourages us to meet our shared futures with open and hungry hearts, assuring ‘What we are becoming, we are / becoming together.’
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Reviews
[Ada Limón] is one of my all-time favorite writers, someone whose work I return to again and again for solace, inspiration, and truth
Limón is a poet of ecstatic revelation. Her poetry [...] leads you to the beautiful bright mountaintop of language, then guides you gently down into the rocky valleys of a conscious human heart
Limón writes poems of haunting that also operate as poems of joy. That this is not a paradox may be what's most exemplary about her work
Ada Limón is a bright light in a dark time
A very fine poet. . . Limón's characteristic voice is casual, even chatty . . . and warmly personal. . . It's garrulous, funny and heart-on-sleeve even when being a little wicked
Startlement is a book of rare treasures. With lyrical mastery and intimate storytelling, Limón's poetry reveals new ways of paying attention. This powerful collection is a gift
Ada is one of those people who can recognize all the ways we inflict pain on one another, not to mention our planet, without getting consumed by it. She writes in that space between grief and joy
I marvel at Ada Limón's ability to weave on the page her playfulness and wisdom. Her lyricism dances. This is the poetry of a tender and compassionate human
A fine testament to the life's work of a poet for our times
I can always rely on an Ada Limón poem to give me hope, but Limón's poems don't give us the kind of facile Hallmark hope; rather, her hope is hard-earned, even laced with grief or happiness. . . . Limón is a master at making a simple idea (that of hindsight, seeing the bright side of things) askew. 'And so I have / two brains now,' she writes. 'Two entirely different brains.' Limón gives us two brains in her poems too, revealing new ways to view the world
In a retrospective spanning two decades, former U.S. poet laureate Limón captures the mind and soul with exquisite linguistic mastery and vision that will compel readers to earmark every other sentence. Limón raises the standards for elegy, needling the heart with surgical, diaphanous, and cathartic reverie
A poet whose verse exudes warmth and compassion, Ada Limón is at the height of her creative powers - Los Angeles Review of Books