Ada Limón

After the loss of her stepmother to cancer, Ada Limón chose to quit her job with a major travel magazine in New York, move to the mountains of Kentucky, and disappear. Yet, in the wake of death and massive transition, she found unexpected love, both for a man and for a place, all the while uncovering the core unity between death and beauty that drives our world. I am beautiful. I am full of love. I am dying,” the author writes. It's this narrative of transformation and acceptance that suffuses these poems. Unflinching and unafraid, Limón takes her reader on a journey into the most complex and dynamic realms of existence and identity, all while tracing a clear narrative of renewal. Throughout, the poet lulls us into the security of her lines, only to cut into us where we least expect it. This is not New York and I am not important,” she writes midway through a poem about her new home. A poem opens with the revelation that Six horses died in a tractor-trailer fire. / There, that's the hard part. I wanted / to tell you straight away so we could / grieve together.”Bright Dead Things examines the chaos that is life, the dangerous thrill of living in a world you know you have to leave one day, and the search to find something that is ultimately disorderly, and marvelous, and ours.”

Poems

Bright Dead Things

From National Book Award finalist Ada Limón 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 Limón 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, Limón 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.

The Carrying

An astonishing collection about interconnectedness — between the human and nonhuman, ancestors and ourselves — from National Book Critics Circle Award winner and National Book Award finalist, Ada Limón.

"I have always been too sensitive, a weeper / from a long line of weepers," writes Limón. "I am the hurting kind." What does it mean to be the hurting kind? To be sensitive not only to the world's pain and joys, but to the meanings that bend in the scrim between the natural world and the human world? To divine the relationships between us all? To perceive ourselves in other beings — and to know that those beings are resolutely their own, that they "do not care to be seen as symbols"?

With Limón's remarkable ability to trace thought, The Hurting Kind explores those questions — incorporating others' stories and ways of knowing, making surprising turns, and always reaching a place of startling insight. These poems slip through the seasons, teeming with horses and kingfishers, and the gleaming eyes of fish. And they honor parents, stepparents, and grandparents: the sacrifices made, the separate lives lived, the tendernesses extended to a hurting child; the abundance, in retrospect, of having two families. Along the way, we glimpse loss. There are flashes of the pandemic, ghosts whose presence manifests in unexpected memories and the mysterious behavior of pets left behind.

But The Hurting Kind is filled, above all, with connection and the delight of being in the world. "Slippery and waddle thieving my tomatoes still green in the morning's shade," writes Limón of a groundhog in her garden, "she is doing what she can to survive."

The Hurting Kind

The speaker in this extraordinary collection finds herself multiply dislocated: from her childhood in California, from her family’s roots in Mexico, from a dying parent, from her prior self. The world is always in motion -- both toward and away from us--and it is also full of risk: from sharks unexpectedly lurking beneath estuarial rivers to the dangers of New York City, where, as Limón reminds us, even rats find themselves trapped by the garbage cans they’ve crawled into. In such a world, how should one proceed? ThroughoutSharks in the Rivers, Limón suggests that we must cleave to the world as it "keep[s] opening before us,” for, if we pay attention, we can be one with its complex, ephemeral, and beautiful strangeness. Loss is perpetual, and each person’s mouth "is the same / mouth as everyone’s, all trying to say the same thing.” For Limón, it’s the saying--individual and collective -- that transforms each of us into "a wound overcome by wonder,” that allows "the wind itself” to be our "own wild whisper.”

Sharks in the Rivers

Published in association with the Library of Congress and edited by the twenty-fourth Poet Laureate of the United States, a singular collection of poems reflecting on our relationship to the natural world by fifty of our most celebrated contemporary writers. For many years, "nature poetry" has evoked images of Romantic poets standing on mountain tops. But our poetic landscape has changed dramatically, and so has our planet. Edited and introduced by the twenty-fourth Poet Laureate of the United States, Ada Limón, this book challenges what we think we know about "nature poetry," illuminating the myriad ways our landscapes--both literal and literary--are changing. You Are Here features fifty previously unpublished poems from some of the nation's most accomplished poets, including Joy Harjo, Diane Seuss, Rigoberto González, Jericho Brown, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Paul Tran, and more. Each poem engages with its author's local landscape--be it the breathtaking variety of flora in a national park, or a lone tree flowering persistently by a bus stop--offering an intimate model of how we relate to the world around us and a beautifully diverse range of voices from across the United States. Joyful and provocative, wondrous and urgent, this singular collection of poems offers a lyrical reimagining of what "nature" and "poetry" are today, inviting readers to experience both anew.

Poetry in the Natural World

An astonishing collection about interconnectedness - between the human and nonhuman, ancestors and ourselves - from National Book Critics Circle Award winner and National Book Award finalist Ada Limón. 'I have always been too sensitive, a weeper / from a long line of weepers,' writes Limón. 'I am the hurting kind.' What does it mean to be the hurting kind? To be sensitive not only to the world's pain and joys, but to the meanings that bend in the scrim between the natural world and the human world? To divine the relationships between us all? To perceive ourselves in other beings - and to know that those beings are resolutely their own, that they 'do not / care to be seen as symbols'? With Limón's remarkable ability to trace thought, The Hurting Kind explores those questions - incorporating others' stories and ways of knowing, making surprising turns, and always reaching a place of startling insight. These poems slip through the seasons, teeming with horses and kingfishers and the gleaming eyes of fish. And they honour parents, stepparents, and grandparents: the sacrifices made, the separate lives lived, the tendernesses extended to a hurting child; the abundance, in retrospect, of having two families. Along the way, we glimpse loss. There are flashes of the pandemic, ghosts whose presence manifests in unexpected memories and the mysterious behaviour of pets left behind. But The Hurting Kind is filled, above all, with connection and the delight of being in the world. 'Slippery and waddle thieving my tomatoes still / green in the morning's shade,' writes Limón of a groundhog in her garden, 'she is doing what she can to survive.'

The new collection from the US Poet Laureate

An astonishing collection about interconnectedness—between the human and nonhuman, ancestors and ourselves—from National Book Critics Circle Award winner and National Book Award finalist Ada Limón. “I have always been too sensitive, a weeper / from a long line of weepers,” writes Limón. “I am the hurting kind.” What does it mean to be the hurting kind? To be sensitive not only to the world’s pain and joys, but to the meanings that bend in the scrim between the natural world and the human world? To divine the relationships between us all? To perceive ourselves in other beings—and to know that those beings are resolutely their own, that they “do not / care to be seen as symbols”? With Limón’s remarkable ability to trace thought, The Hurting Kind explores those questions—incorporating others’ stories and ways of knowing, making surprising turns, and always reaching a place of startling insight. These poems slip through the seasons, teeming with horses and kingfishers and the gleaming eyes of fish. And they honor parents, stepparents, and grandparents: the sacrifices made, the separate lives lived, the tendernesses extended to a hurting child; the abundance, in retrospect, of having two families. Along the way, we glimpse loss. There are flashes of the pandemic, ghosts whose presence manifests in unexpected memories and the mysterious behavior of pets left behind. But The Hurting Kind is filled, above all, with connection and the delight of being in the world. “Slippery and waddle thieving my tomatoes still / green in the morning’s shade,” writes Limón of a groundhog in her garden, “she is doing what she can to survive.”

A Story in Verse

This Big Fake World

lucky wreck

Bright Dead Things: Poems

The poems in Lucky Wreck trace the excitement of plans and the necessary swerving detours we must take when those plans fail. Looking to shipwrecks on the television, road trips ending in traffic accidents, and homes that become sites of infestation, Ada Limón finds threads of hope amid an array of small tragedies and significant setbacks. Open, honest, and grounded, the poems in this collection seek answers to familiar questions and teach us ways to cope with the pain of many losses with earnestness and humor. Through the wrecks, these poems continue to offer assurance. This darkness is not the scary one, it's the one before the sun comes up, the one you can still breathe in. Celebrating the fifteenth anniversary of Limón's award-winning debut, this edition includes a new introduction by the poet that reflects on the book and on how her writing practice has developed over time.

Lucky Wreck

What Sucks Us in Will Surely Swallow Us Whole

The New Collection from the US Poet Laureate

A Love Letter to Trees

Shelter

The winner of the 2005 Autumn House Press Poetry Prize, selected by Jean Valentine. Ada Limon's first full-length poetry book--startling and funny--Limon is a poet to keep your eye on.

“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 An essential collection spanning nearly twenty years of emphatic, fearlessly original poetry from one of America’s most celebrated living writers. Drawing from six previously published books—including widely acclaimed collections The Hurting Kind, The Carrying, and Bright Dead Things—as well as 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” (The 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.”

New and Selected Poems

Startlement

U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón has a keen eye for the natural world. This poem pulses with the joyful energy of a fox bounding through backyards, piecing together a living in his own way. Paired with lush illustrations by Gaby D'Alessandro, this picture book brings Limón's work to a new generation. Comes with its streak of red / flashing across the lawn, squirrel / bound and bouncing . . .

And, Too, the Fox

From U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón and Caldecott Honoree Peter Sís: a transcendent picture book featuring the poem that will travel into space aboard NASA’s Europa Clipper. A Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year A Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year A School Library Journal Best Book of the Year "A work of wonder for kids of all ages." —Los Angeles Times U.S. poet laureate, Ada Limón was invited by NASA to write a poem to be engraved on the Europa Clipper spacecraft. That poem, “In Praise of Mystery: A Poem for Europa" launched to Jupiter and its moons on October 14, 2024. Reimagined as In Praise of Mystery, Limón’s debut picture book, this luminous poem is illustrated by celebrated and internationally renowned artist Peter Sís. In Praise of Mystery celebrates humankind’s endless curiosity, asks us what it means to explore beyond our known world, and shows how the unknown can reflect us back to ourselves.

In Praise of Mystery

24th Poet Laureate of the United States Ada Limón inspires us to see poetry as much more than just words—as a powerful force for healing, a call to action, and a vibrant celebration of humanity’s many voices. Ada Limón—celebrated poet laureate and 2023 MacArthur fellow—takes us on an inspiring journey into a world where poetry is both a soothing balm for the soul and a spark for transformation. With her blend of accessible yet profound prose, Limón delivers a powerful message: poetry has the ability to heal, connect, and remind us of our shared humanity. Limón’s mission to make poetry approachable shines brightly in this slim but impactful book. Recognized as a 2024 Time magazine Woman of the Year for her commitment to bringing poetry into everyday lives, Limón passionately argues that poetry is essential to understanding ourselves—our tenderness, courage, imperfections, and our deep, unshakable worthiness of love. Drawing from her own experiences as the 24th US poet laureate, Limón shares how poetry connects us not only to each other but to the natural world. This theme is at the heart of her project You Are Here, which celebrates the beauty of our environment and our place in it. Her prose, like her poetry, feels like an open invitation—welcoming readers of all backgrounds to explore the richness of human experience through verse. Fans of Robin Wall Kimmerer, Matthew Zapruder, or Jesmyn Ward will find a kindred spirit in Against Breaking—which offers a refuge, a reminder of the resilience and beauty found within us and all around us. As Limón writes with heartfelt clarity, “If you need to remember what makes us human, tender, brave, flawed, and worthy of love, you need poetry.”

On the Power of Poetry

Against Breaking

'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.'

Ada Limón

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