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4.28 AVERAGE
4.28 AVERAGE
reflective
emotional
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
emotional
hopeful
reflective
slow-paced
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
reflective
medium-paced
dark
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
Divided into 4 parts, the seasons of the year, the collection spends a lot of time with nature and with the darker human experiences and emotions, but also has moments where the hopefulness of connection and love are highlighted.
My favorite poems were "A Good Story," "Not the Saddest Thing in the World," "Banished Wonders," "Calling Things What They Are," "I Have Wanted Clarity in Light of My Lack of Light," "The Hurting Kind," and "Privacy."
"A Good Story"
...I used to like the
darkest stories, the bleak
snippets someone would toss out about just
how bad it could get.
My stepfather told me a story about when
he lived on the streets as a kid,
how he'd, some nights, sleep under the grill
at a fast food restaurant until
both he and his buddy got fired. I used to
like that story for some reason,
something in me that believed in
overcoming. But right now all I want
is a story about human kindness...
"Not the Saddest Thing in the World"
I write the year, seems like a year you
should write, huge and round and awful.
....
...Now, something's
breaking always on the skyline, falling over
and over against the ground, sometimes
unnoticed, sometimes covered up like sorrow,
sometimes buried without even a song.
"Banished Wonders"
What is it to be seen in the right way? As
who you are? A flash of color,
a blur in the crowd,
something spectacular but
untouchable.
....
...Now we endure.
Endure time, this envenomed veil of
extremes--loss and grief and reckoning.
"Calling Things What They Are"
...I like to
call things as they are. Before, the only thing
I was interested in was love, how it grips
you, how it terrifies you, how it annihilates
and resuscitates you. I didn't know then that
it wasn't even love that I was interested in
but my own suffering...
...How funny that I
called it love and the whole time it was pain.
"I Have Wanted Clarity in Light of My Lack of Light"
Am I stronger or weaker than when the year
began, a lie
that joins two selves like a hinge.
....
Once, I loved fireworks so much...
....
Now, it is a sound that undoes me, too much
violence to the sky. .
In this way, I have become more dog.
More senses, shake, and nerve.
"Privacy"
...What news
are they brining of our world to the world
of the gods? It can't be good. More suffering
all around, more stinging nettles and toxic
blades shoved into the scarred parts of us.
....
...There was no message
given, no message I was asked to give, only
their great absence and my sad privacy
returning like the bracing, empty wind
on the black wet branches of the linden.
It is impossible to choose an excerpt from "The Hurting Kind," which is perhaps the most beautiful love poem I've ever read. A few other favorite lines.
from "Stranger Things in the Thicket"
...It's cold today so the sun's a lie.
It's all a lie, my closest confidant replies.
....
Sure, sure, it's so obvious that's who to root
for, the thing almost dead
that is, in fact, not
dead at all.
from "Stillwater Cove"
...Could you refuse me if I asked you
to point again at the horizon, to tell me
something was worth waiting for?
My favorite poems were "A Good Story," "Not the Saddest Thing in the World," "Banished Wonders," "Calling Things What They Are," "I Have Wanted Clarity in Light of My Lack of Light," "The Hurting Kind," and "Privacy."
"A Good Story"
...I used to like the
darkest stories, the bleak
snippets someone would toss out about just
how bad it could get.
My stepfather told me a story about when
he lived on the streets as a kid,
how he'd, some nights, sleep under the grill
at a fast food restaurant until
both he and his buddy got fired. I used to
like that story for some reason,
something in me that believed in
overcoming. But right now all I want
is a story about human kindness...
"Not the Saddest Thing in the World"
I write the year, seems like a year you
should write, huge and round and awful.
....
...Now, something's
breaking always on the skyline, falling over
and over against the ground, sometimes
unnoticed, sometimes covered up like sorrow,
sometimes buried without even a song.
"Banished Wonders"
What is it to be seen in the right way? As
who you are? A flash of color,
a blur in the crowd,
something spectacular but
untouchable.
....
...Now we endure.
Endure time, this envenomed veil of
extremes--loss and grief and reckoning.
"Calling Things What They Are"
...I like to
call things as they are. Before, the only thing
I was interested in was love, how it grips
you, how it terrifies you, how it annihilates
and resuscitates you. I didn't know then that
it wasn't even love that I was interested in
but my own suffering...
...How funny that I
called it love and the whole time it was pain.
"I Have Wanted Clarity in Light of My Lack of Light"
Am I stronger or weaker than when the year
began, a lie
that joins two selves like a hinge.
....
Once, I loved fireworks so much...
....
Now, it is a sound that undoes me, too much
violence to the sky. .
In this way, I have become more dog.
More senses, shake, and nerve.
"Privacy"
...What news
are they brining of our world to the world
of the gods? It can't be good. More suffering
all around, more stinging nettles and toxic
blades shoved into the scarred parts of us.
....
...There was no message
given, no message I was asked to give, only
their great absence and my sad privacy
returning like the bracing, empty wind
on the black wet branches of the linden.
It is impossible to choose an excerpt from "The Hurting Kind," which is perhaps the most beautiful love poem I've ever read. A few other favorite lines.
from "Stranger Things in the Thicket"
...It's cold today so the sun's a lie.
It's all a lie, my closest confidant replies.
....
Sure, sure, it's so obvious that's who to root
for, the thing almost dead
that is, in fact, not
dead at all.
from "Stillwater Cove"
...Could you refuse me if I asked you
to point again at the horizon, to tell me
something was worth waiting for?
from "If I Should Fail"
if I should fail know I
stared long into the fractures
and it seemed to me
a mighty system of gaps
one could slither into
and I was made whole
in that knowledge of
a sleek nothingness.
from "The End of Poetry"
and enough of the pointing to the world, weary
and desperate, enough of the brutal and the border
enough of can you see me, can you hear me, enough
I am human, enough I am alone and I am desperate
challenging
emotional
hopeful
reflective
fast-paced
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
fast-paced
I can’t believe I just discovered Ada Limón! I am left with this feeling of “where have you been all my life.”
I can’t remember the last time I had the breath literally taken away from me by reading the last line of a poem but now when someone asks I can say it was when I read the poem, “The End of Poetry,” that closes out this collection.
I can’t remember the last time I had the breath literally taken away from me by reading the last line of a poem but now when someone asks I can say it was when I read the poem, “The End of Poetry,” that closes out this collection.
Another really good collection. I really liked the poems: A Good Story, In the Shadow, It Be ins With the Trees, I Have Wanted Clarity in Light of My Lack of Light, Sports, Too Close.