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A review by parker_beyers
The Hurting Kind by Ada Limón
4.0
This is a lovely collection of work. While her themes don't resonate with me as strongly, I can't deny that Limon is a powerhouse. I borrowed my copy from a dear friend. Seeing his notes and own lines sprinkled throughout made for a touching reading experience.
I always feel strange giving an overarching review to a poetry collection, rather than viewing each piece individually. Instead, here are some of my favorite lines:
"There is a solitude in this world I cannot pierce"
- "Drowning Creek"
"These unearned moments are a tribute to the dead"
- "Forsythia"
"Now, something’s breaking always on the skyline, falling over and against the ground, sometimes unnoticed, sometimes covered up like sorrow, sometimes buried without even a song.”
- "Not the Saddest Thing in the World"
"Could you refuse me if I asked you to point again at the horizon, to tell me something was worth waiting for?"
- "Stillwater Cove"
"Her desire is something like a blazing flower, a tree, shaking off, the torrent of rain, as if it is simply making music"
- "Banished Wonders"
"I want to honor a man who wants to hold a wild thing, only for a second, long enough to admire it, Foley, and then wants to watch it safely. Return to its life, bends to be sure the grass closes up behind it."
- "Cyrus & the Snakes"
"What good is accuracy admist the perpetual scattering that unspools the world?"
- "It’s the Season I Often Mistake"
"Mercy is not frozen in time, but flits about frantically, unsure where to land."
– "Runaway Child"
"There is a truth in that smooth indifference, a clean honesty about our otherness that feels not like the moral but the story."
- "Intimacy"
"What is lineage, if not a gold thread of pride and guilt?"
– "The Hurting Kind"
"If I had known, would I have still made mistake after mistake until I had only the trunk of me left, stripped and nearly bare of leaves?"
- "Against Nostalgia"
"Who doesn’t want to hold their individual God, to be redeemed by pleasing the only one you serve?"
– "Obedience"
I always feel strange giving an overarching review to a poetry collection, rather than viewing each piece individually. Instead, here are some of my favorite lines:
"There is a solitude in this world I cannot pierce"
- "Drowning Creek"
"These unearned moments are a tribute to the dead"
- "Forsythia"
"Now, something’s breaking always on the skyline, falling over and against the ground, sometimes unnoticed, sometimes covered up like sorrow, sometimes buried without even a song.”
- "Not the Saddest Thing in the World"
"Could you refuse me if I asked you to point again at the horizon, to tell me something was worth waiting for?"
- "Stillwater Cove"
"Her desire is something like a blazing flower, a tree, shaking off, the torrent of rain, as if it is simply making music"
- "Banished Wonders"
"I want to honor a man who wants to hold a wild thing, only for a second, long enough to admire it, Foley, and then wants to watch it safely. Return to its life, bends to be sure the grass closes up behind it."
- "Cyrus & the Snakes"
"What good is accuracy admist the perpetual scattering that unspools the world?"
- "It’s the Season I Often Mistake"
"Mercy is not frozen in time, but flits about frantically, unsure where to land."
– "Runaway Child"
"There is a truth in that smooth indifference, a clean honesty about our otherness that feels not like the moral but the story."
- "Intimacy"
"What is lineage, if not a gold thread of pride and guilt?"
– "The Hurting Kind"
"If I had known, would I have still made mistake after mistake until I had only the trunk of me left, stripped and nearly bare of leaves?"
- "Against Nostalgia"
"Who doesn’t want to hold their individual God, to be redeemed by pleasing the only one you serve?"
– "Obedience"