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.In recent years, our poetic landscape has evolved in profound and exciting ways. So has our planet. Edited and introduced by the twenty-fourth Poet Laureate of the United States, Ada Limón, this...

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 natur...

NBCC Award Winner: "The narrative lyrics in this remarkable collection . . . could stand as compressed stories about anxiety and the body." — The New York TimesVulnerable, 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 ...

“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 TanAn 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 Kin...

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.

WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FOR POETRY 2019Ada Limón is a poet of ecstatic revelation . . . a book of deep wisdom and urgent vulnerability' Tracy K. Smith, Guardian'Vulnerable, tender, acute . . . The Carrying is a gift' Natasha Trethewey, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and former US Poet Laureate'Exquisite poems' Roxane GayFrom National B...

"An eye-opening and haunting journey into the opioid epidemic ravaging West Virginia—the constantly-chased highs . . . the devastating overdoses." — BustleSelected for the National Poetry Series by Ada Limón, I Know Your Kind is a haunting, blistering debut collection about the American opioid epidemic and poverty in rural Appalachia.In West Virginia, fatal overdoses on opioids have spiked to three times the national average. In these poems,...

Celebrating the fifteenth anniversary of Ada Limón’s award-winning debut poetry collection, this edition includes a new introduction by the poet that reflects on the book and how her writing practice has developed over time.From the new introduction by the author: "I expected to meet a stranger, someone naive and very different than what I remember, but Lucky Wreck is not a stranger at all. Lucky Wreck is me at the beginning, at a doorway. It is,...

The National Book Award finalist. " Limón's poems are like fires: charring the page, but leaving a smoke that remains past the close of the book." — The MillionsBright 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 introsp...

'Bright Dead Things buoyed me in this dismal year. I'm thankful for this collection, for its wisdom and generosity, for its insistence on holding tight to beauty even as we face disintegration and destruction.' Celeste Ng, author of Everything I Never Told YouA book of bravado and introspection, of feminist swagger and harrowing loss, Bright Dead Things considers how we build our identities out of place and human contact - tracing in inti...

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 n...

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 and it is also full of risk.In such a world, how should one proceed? Throughout Sharks 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, an...