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mepresley's review against another edition
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
4.5
Excerpts from my favorite poems in the collection:
"The Echo Sounder"
She comes with a list of things she cannot
see, she comes with a language restricted
by its own inability to name things
as she sees them. She believes that there are two
worlds and she lives in the one that is
separate from the other, the seed that comes
up outside the garden, the one door with no
handle, the shingle in the roof with the
weathervane, the arrow flying from the quiver,
the child who can balance on her palms
and is hated for it. ...
....
One week she thinks about offering,
how it is difficult to offer something of yourself.
She thinks it should be easy, how she
has an echo chamber in her chest. What
she sends out should reflect and return.
....
...She wants to go on
being an animal, not something that represents
something else, but the original object, the
thing before it is named, the fish before she
knew it was a fish, when it was just another
lost thing, individual and shadowy, working
its way toward its own end.
"The Ladybugs Grow Bolder Every Year"
Disappeared I was, or was longing to be so,
when all the options showed up exhausted
and arrogant in their soiled woolens and ash
stains from the bar. I had, once again, taken
refuge under the coffee table. My body against
the brittle floor, laying pain against pain, a good
match. And here they come again, trying to save
my life; the ladybugs of this town are insufferable.
"The Different Ways of Going"
This weather makes me wonder how many hands I've held.
I'll never see you again, but that's a note I tear up in my mind.
"13 Feral Cats"
Ah the art of making our strange disasters suddenly public.
....
I have set out like a ship among ships,
but do not hold my own escape against me,
it is too cold.
....
What does it mean to be your own New World?
I can barely stand
alone in the shower sometimes.
....
I want many hands, hands that have come and gone,
hands that no longer exist except in cutting short a life line.
I would like to say I just want one hand--
to name it my own.
But it's so dark in this doorway and so full of infinity.
....
he was a man, almost sorry for the walls
that held him for so many years.
He seemed to think the walls were unbelieving
in the thing which they had been asked to do.
....
If everyone in the office agrees, collectively,
not to talk about the moon,
could we "not-talk" it out of the sky?
....
I'm told, some spaces cannot be filled
but only altered or cut away.
....
One must mourn things daily
as a cause for continuing.
So, all the wasps died and I saved one bee.
But they were each real. You could touch them.
"The Echo Sounder"
She comes with a list of things she cannot
see, she comes with a language restricted
by its own inability to name things
as she sees them. She believes that there are two
worlds and she lives in the one that is
separate from the other, the seed that comes
up outside the garden, the one door with no
handle, the shingle in the roof with the
weathervane, the arrow flying from the quiver,
the child who can balance on her palms
and is hated for it. ...
....
One week she thinks about offering,
how it is difficult to offer something of yourself.
She thinks it should be easy, how she
has an echo chamber in her chest. What
she sends out should reflect and return.
....
...She wants to go on
being an animal, not something that represents
something else, but the original object, the
thing before it is named, the fish before she
knew it was a fish, when it was just another
lost thing, individual and shadowy, working
its way toward its own end.
"The Ladybugs Grow Bolder Every Year"
Disappeared I was, or was longing to be so,
when all the options showed up exhausted
and arrogant in their soiled woolens and ash
stains from the bar. I had, once again, taken
refuge under the coffee table. My body against
the brittle floor, laying pain against pain, a good
match. And here they come again, trying to save
my life; the ladybugs of this town are insufferable.
"The Different Ways of Going"
This weather makes me wonder how many hands I've held.
I'll never see you again, but that's a note I tear up in my mind.
"13 Feral Cats"
Ah the art of making our strange disasters suddenly public.
....
I have set out like a ship among ships,
but do not hold my own escape against me,
it is too cold.
....
What does it mean to be your own New World?
I can barely stand
alone in the shower sometimes.
....
I want many hands, hands that have come and gone,
hands that no longer exist except in cutting short a life line.
I would like to say I just want one hand--
to name it my own.
But it's so dark in this doorway and so full of infinity.
....
he was a man, almost sorry for the walls
that held him for so many years.
He seemed to think the walls were unbelieving
in the thing which they had been asked to do.
....
If everyone in the office agrees, collectively,
not to talk about the moon,
could we "not-talk" it out of the sky?
....
I'm told, some spaces cannot be filled
but only altered or cut away.
....
One must mourn things daily
as a cause for continuing.
So, all the wasps died and I saved one bee.
But they were each real. You could touch them.
forgereads17's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
informative
lighthearted
reflective
relaxing
sad
fast-paced
4.0
cryscross's review
2.0
nice to read her debut, even though it falls quite flat compared to her others
tealeafbooks's review against another edition
4.0
Inspired by Christina, I'll list some favorites (though this isn't an anthology). Listing is a great idea and will help me remember my thoughts later. :)
*The Echo Sounder
*The Worth of a Thing That Is Not a Thing But a Number
*The Lost Glove
**The Unbearbale
*All Kinds of Shipwrecks (This poem contains the collection's title.)
*Little Commitment
**Thirteen Feral Cats
As you might guess, two asterisks mean I liked them even more.
*The Echo Sounder
*The Worth of a Thing That Is Not a Thing But a Number
*The Lost Glove
**The Unbearbale
*All Kinds of Shipwrecks (This poem contains the collection's title.)
*Little Commitment
**Thirteen Feral Cats
As you might guess, two asterisks mean I liked them even more.
visitlothal's review
emotional
reflective
5.0
Beautiful and utterly immersive. The way she evokes certain images and feelings and sounds reaches into my soul and my childhood and my present.
ubepandesol's review against another edition
In the introduction Ada Limon admitted that there are certain poems in this collection with the grit and resilience that she needs now, years and years after she wrote them (fifteen years since they were first published), and how that's one of the things she loves about poetry, and I'm just paraphrasing off of memory here but I think she said throughout all the lives she's lived since writing the poems in this collection, she still recognizes the woman who wrote them as she processed a multitude of other different things. I like how this way poetry captures a version of you that may or may not exist anymore, or at least a version of you that was going through something different. And then you go back years and years later to find that you are still the same person but you process things a different way. Evidence I suppose of how there are many things you can only make sense of once they're either spoken aloud or written down, as is the case in writing poetry.
In particular, I liked some lines in her poem Little Morning that show some vulnerability: One week she thinks about offering, / how it is difficult to offer something of yourself. / She thinks it should be easy, how she / has an echo chamber in her chest. What / she sends out should reflect and return. It shows a youthful kind of idealism--not exactly naivete, and Limon also refuses to label it as such--and this is expected of a poem that starts with the words "I want," which also repeat throughout the poem, as if the feeling of desire itself brings you closer to that which you desire.
This is what I read for the first day of The Sealey Challenge 2023 (Not sure if I'll be able to keep up throughout the month, but I'm hoping I will).
In particular, I liked some lines in her poem Little Morning that show some vulnerability: One week she thinks about offering, / how it is difficult to offer something of yourself. / She thinks it should be easy, how she / has an echo chamber in her chest. What / she sends out should reflect and return. It shows a youthful kind of idealism--not exactly naivete, and Limon also refuses to label it as such--and this is expected of a poem that starts with the words "I want," which also repeat throughout the poem, as if the feeling of desire itself brings you closer to that which you desire.
This is what I read for the first day of The Sealey Challenge 2023 (Not sure if I'll be able to keep up throughout the month, but I'm hoping I will).