The Carrying: Poems

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WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD

FINALIST FOR THE PEN/JEAN STEIN BOOK AWARD

From U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limncomes The Carryingher 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 infertilityWhat if, instead of carrying / a child, I am supposed to carry griefand 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 Limn shows us, as ever, the persistence of hunger, love, and joy, the dizzying fullness of our too-short lives. Fine then, / Ill take it, she writes. Ill take it all.

InBright Dead Things, Limn showed us a heart giant with power, heavy with bloodthe huge beating genius machine / that thinks, no, it knows, / its going to come in first. In her follow-up collection, that heart is on full displayeven asThe Carryingcontinues further and deeper into the bloodstream, following the hard-won truth of what it means to live in an imperfect world.

Reviews

Praise for The Carrying

Winner of the 2018 National Book Critics Circle Award

ALA Notable Book of 2018

Finalist for the 2019 PEN/Jean Stein Book Award

Limn 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 . . . Limn 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 worlds limitless capacity to astonish.O, The Oprah Magazine

Limn 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 poets perspective. . . . Its 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 its both part of us and greater than usespecially when everything else in the world can seem like its falling apart.Buzzfeed

With each poem in her new collection, The Carrying, Limn 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 . . . [Limn] never hides behind words but reveals herself through themeven when the risk is overexposure. . . . This is as-the-crow-flies poetryit 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 Limn, 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 lifes realities permeates Limns collection, which makes the work feel piercingly of the moment.San Francisco Chronicle

Limns 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

[Limns] 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 [Limns] best. Even in poems about racism, misogyny, violence, and the darkness that often accompanies life, Limns resiliency shines through.Bitch

For a book metered by grief, theres a lot of love herethat shouldnt come as a surprise, considering Limns stylistic control and skill. . . . Limn 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 Limns poetry connects the personal and the universal.Garden & Gun

With the knowing directness of a letter, Limns poems speak to the marrow of our everyday condition . . . The Carrying is a vital collection for a noisy, brutal time. The power of Limns unflinching examination of grief and loss is only surpassed by her love of beauty and compassion.BOMB Magazine

[Limns] poems come closer than any poems have to Annie Dillards essays . . . Shes 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 . . . Its a spinning world that, increasingly, is turning to poetry like Limns to make sense ofor, at least, to assuage the grief ofit all.Bustle

What drives her poemswhat makes her new collection,The Carrying, so moving and masterfulis 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, its 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

Limons new poems inThe Carryingare like a winter gardensomber, 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 Limns 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 shes a poet as comfortable with questions as with answers.Guernica

[Limn] might be the mom of Latinx poetry, and I mean that in the best way possible. . . . Limn is talented in a way thats both intimidating and inspiring, and is definitely a strong pillar of contemporary poetry.Book Riot

Wisely observant . . . Limns poems personify the twinned-narrative of despair and tenacity that has become part of Americas current political and social reality. Indeed,The Carryingis a spark of courage in our dark and troubled times.PANK

Limns 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 horsesall of which are examined with gorgeous language and imagery that makes Limns 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

Limn is one of the countrys 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 Carryingbeautifully conveys the power of poetry in an age that needs it most.Shelf Awareness

Limn 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 lifes surprises.Publishers Weekly(starred review)

A stunning collection. . . . Limn writes movingly about finding the spectacular in the everyday. . . . A reverent, extraordinary take on the world. Dont miss this life-affirming collection.Library Journal(starred review)

A master of examining themes from unexpected angles, Limn 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 Limn 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 Limons wonderful new book,The Carrying, is full of goldfinches and strawberries and dandelions and hostas and, as she writes, all good things that comefrom the ground.Its also no wonder that its 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 willfeedyou.Ross Gay

In her powerful new collection, AdaLimnasks:What if, instead of carrying //a child, I am supposed to carry griefAnd later:isnt there still something singing To which I say: yes. In these poems, joy and longing and grief

Author Bio

Ada Limnis the twenty-fourth U.S. Poet Laureate as well as the author ofThe Hurting Kindandfive other collections of poems. These include, most recently,The Carrying, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award and was named a finalist for the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award, andBright Dead Things, which was named a finalist for the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the Kingsley Tufts Award. Limn is a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, and her work has appeared in theNew Yorker, theNew York Times,andAmerican Poetry Review, among others. She is the former host of American Public Medias weekday poetry podcastThe Slowdown. Born and raised in California, she now lives in Lexington, Kentucky.