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    Bright Dead Things: Poems
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    Bright Dead Things: Poems
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    Bright Dead Things: Poems
    Ebook112 pages58 minutes

    Bright Dead Things: Poems

    By Ada Limón

    4/5

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    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.”

    A book of bravado and introspection, of 21st century feminist swagger and harrowing terror and loss, this fourth collection considers how we build our identities out of place and human contacttracing in intimate detail the various ways the speaker’s sense of self both shifts and perseveres as she moves from New York City to rural Kentucky, loses a dear parent, ages past the capriciousness of youth, and falls in love. Limón has often been a poet who wears her heart on her sleeve, but in these extraordinary poems that heart becomes a huge beating genius machine” striving to embrace and understand the fullness of the present moment. I am beautiful. I am full of love. I am dying,” the poet writes. Building on the legacies of forebears such as Frank O’Hara, Sharon Olds, and Mark Doty, Limón’s work is consistently generous and accessiblethough every observed moment feels complexly thought, felt, and lived.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMilkweed Editions
    Release dateSep 15, 2015
    ISBN9781571319258
    Unavailable
    Bright Dead Things: Poems
    Author

    Ada Limón

    Ada Limón is the twenty-fourth U.S. Poet Laureate as well as the author of The Hurting Kind and five 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, and Bright Dead Things, which was named a finalist for the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the Kingsley Tufts Award. Limón is a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, and her work has appeared in the New Yorker, the New York Times, and American Poetry Review, among others. Born and raised in California, she now lives in Lexington, Kentucky.

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    Reviews for Bright Dead Things

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    • 3/5
      Some great gems in this collection! Worth checking more of Ada’s work.
    • 5/5
      "Every time I'm in an airport,I think I should drastically change my life....Then, I think of you, home with the dog, the field full of purple pop-ups - - we're small and flawed, but I want to bewho I am, going whereI'm going, all over again."I checked this out from the library after reading Ellen's review of it on her thread. She gave it five stars. and so did I. It's that good. It's exquisite, actually. Thoughtful and insightful and intelligent. I like the way that Ada Limón thinks about things. This collection is divided into four sections, and each section deals with life and choices and heartbreak and hope - it's like reading her internal dialogue with her heart. The fourth section, especially, spoke to me. I just cannot recommend this highly enough. Here's one of my favorites:Oh Please Let it be LightingWe were crossing the headwaters of the Susquehanna River in our new carwe didn't quite have the money forbut it was slick and silver and we named itafter the local strip club next to the car wash:The Spearmint Rhino, and this wasn't longafter your mother said she wasn't sureif one of your ancestors died in childbirthor was struck by lightning, there just wasn'tanyone left to set the story straight, and westarted to feel old. And it snowed. The iceand salt and mud on the car made it looklike how we felt on the inside. The dogwas asleep on my lap. We had seven more hoursbefore our bed in the bluegrass would greet uslike some southern cousin we forgot we had.Sometimes, you have to look aroundat the life you've made and sort of nod at it,like someone moving their head up and downto a tune they like. New York City seemed years away and all the radio stations had unfamiliarcall letters and talked about God, the onethat starts his name with a capital and wantsyou not to get so naked all the time.Sometimes, there seems to be a halfway point between where you've been and everywhereelse, and we were there. All the trees were dead,and the hills looked flat like in real bad landscapepaintings in some nowhere gallery off an interstatebut still, it looked kind of pretty. Not becauseof the snow, but because you somehow founda decent song on the dial and there you were,with your marvelous mouth, singing full-lunged,driving full-speed into the gloomy thunderhead,glittery and blazing and alive. And it didn't matterwhat was beyond us, or what came before us,or what town we lived in, or where the money came from,or what new night might leave us hungry and reeling,we were simply going forward, riotous and windswept,and all too willing to be struck by something shiningand mad, and so furiously hot it could kill us.
    • 5/5
      While not as moving to me as her previous book, Carrying, this was a fine collection of poetry. She will always draw my eye to her poetry. She has caught many other eyes as she was a finalist for both the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award. I read this soon after reading Splitting the Order, by one of my very favorite poets, Ted Kooser. It’s a competitive neighborhood for poetry? Ada Limón is a fascinating blend of muscular, musical, emotional, and honesty all wrap up in some powerful poetry that forces you to pay attention. She comes at you, but still writes gently at times. “I am beautiful. I am full of love. I am dying.” She seems to fear no place and will explore it all. In this collection, Limón covers a lot of ground, physically, as she moved from New York City to rural Kentucky, emotionally, as she loses a parent and also falls in love, and through time, as she sees herself aging. I find her work always interesting and curiously wide-ranging. It is always a treat to experience the way her mind honestly explores the world.
    • 5/5
      Love this so much. Her imagery is amazing and her metaphors are strong. She reveals so much of herself, of place, and of love.