The Carrying

Starred review from June 18, 2018
“I will/ never get over making everything/ such a big deal,” declares Limón (Bright Dead Things) in her gorgeous, thought-provoking fifth collection, in which small moments convey “the strange idea of continuous living.” Materialist rather than metaphysical, these poems are deeply concerned with interconnectedness: “my/ body is not just my body.” Flora and fauna suffuse these poems, and the green-ness is almost overwhelming, but Limón duly confronts life’s difficulties. “It’s taken/ a while for me to admit, I’m in a raging battle/ with my body,” she writes, facing bouts of vertigo and struggling to conceive a child: “perhaps the only thing I can make// is love and art.” She also tackles such social ills as misogyny, racism, and war. In “A New National Anthem,” she writes, “the truth is, every song of this country/ has an unsung third stanza, something brutal/ snaking underneath.” Limón’s typically tight narrative lyrics feature simple, striking images, (“Women gathered in paisley scarves with rusty iced tea”), and her unsettling dream poems avoid becoming exercises in surrealism. Four “letter-poems” to poet Natalie Diaz also demonstrate versatility, shifting into looser meditations that sprawl across the page. “I live my life half afraid, and half shouting/ at the trains when they thunder by,” Limón claims, but this fearless collection shows a poet that can appreciate life’s surprises.

Starred review from July 1, 2018

National Book Award finalist Limón (Bright Dead Things) here weaves nature, family, and grief into a stunning collection. Several poems recount the loss of the speaker's first husband from a drug overdose, but although pains are often described--whether caused by grief, infertility, or a crooked spine--Limón's poems sing with the joy of life: "I wish to be untethered and tethered all at once, my skin/ singes the sheets and there's a tremor in the marrow." The poet mourns not only for people lost but also for irreplaceable things such as languages: "In the time it takes to say I love you, or move in with someone, / ...all the intricate words/ of a language become extinct." Many poems begin or turn on the unexpected, as in "The Vulture & the Body": "What if, instead of carrying// a child, I am supposed to carry grief?" Occasionally, there are too many unessential details, and although most of Limón's similes are strikingly good, she sometimes settles for the easy: "I saw seven cardinals brash and bold/ as sin in a leafless tree." Nevertheless, in accessible language, Limón writes movingly about finding the spectacular in the everyday VERDICT Limón's vision is realistic, at times bleak, yet these poems often brim with optimism, revealing a reverent, extraordinary take on the world. Don't miss this life-affirming collection.--Doris Lynch, Monroe Cty. P.L., Bloomington, IN

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 1, 2018
Lim�n is the author of four previous books of poetry, including the widely acclaimed Bright Dead Things (2015). Her latest centers around questions of child rearing and aging bodies, of speakers frustrated by futile attempts at conception, and of life's tiny jubilations along the way. A master of examining themes from unexpected angles, Lim�n rotates her topics in kaleidoscopic turns, revealing the inner thoughts of a speaker who tends to a backyard garden ( I can't stop / putting plants in the ground. There's a hunger in me, // a need to watch something grow ). Elsewhere, the speaker envies the asexual reproduction of dandelions, a trickster flower that simply replicates itself ( bam, another me, / bam, another me ). Even in Bust, one of the book's most complex and dynamic poems, Lim�n blends seemingly disparate images of women's anatomy into a causal, almost nonchalant parlance that entices the reader into its realm. Also notable is a series of letters composed in tandem with poet Natalie Diaz. Page after page, this proves to be a startling and tender, magnificent collection.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)