Description

‘I marvel at Ada Limon’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, Limon’s poetry reveals new ways of paying attention. This powerful collection is a gift’ Amy Tan

‘Ada Limon is a bright light in a dark time’ Vanity Fair

‘Limon 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 Limon 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 Limon’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, Limon’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), Limon encourages us to meet our shared futures with open and hungry hearts, assuring ‘What we are becoming, we are / becoming together.’

Publisher Review

I marvel at Ada Limon’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, singer-songwriter and author of When You See My Mother, Ask Her to Dance Startlement is a book of rare treasures. With lyrical mastery and intimate storytelling, Limon’s poetry reveals new ways of paying attention. This powerful collection is a gift — Amy Tan, author of The Backyard Bird Chronicles Ada Limon is a bright light in a dark time * Vanity Fair * Limon is a poet of ecstatic revelation. Her poetry […] 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 * I can always rely on an Ada Limon poem to give me hope, but Limon’s poems don’t give us the kind of facile Hallmark hope; rather, her hope is hard-earned, even laced with grief or happiness. . . . Limon is a master at making a simple idea (that of hindsight, seeing the bright side of things) askew. ‘And so I have / two brains now,’ she writes. ‘Two entirely different brains.’ Limon gives us two brains in her poems too, revealing new ways to view the world — Victoria Chang * New York Times Magazine * [Ada Limon] is one of my all-time favorite writers, someone whose work I return to again and again for solace, inspiration, and truth * The Atlantic *