Perhaps the strongest example and most direct poem to address such a heavy topic is “What It Looks Like to Us and the Words We Use,” but the theme does show up intermittently throughout the entire book, often surfacing as faith in oneself, or in love, and not exclusively related to a deity or religion. Oftentimes, her poems explore the idea of faith. That loves itself so much it moves across In “Torn,” the speaker uses a dead snake, split in half, to comment on the beauty in death, the resilience of love, and to acknowledge how difficult loss is: The speaker shares her losses with others but sometimes retreats to something more solitary, perhaps best summed up in these lines from “The Great Blue Heron of Dunbar Road:”įor a long time, in a folding chair on the lawn How apt, then, to title the book Bright Dead Things, as the reader infers a sense of optimism reflected amidst so much grief. She writes of familial loss and shows us a variety of ways of mourning. There is an obvious love and affection for the land and world around her. Her sense of solitude is overpowering in these scenes focused on the rolling fields of her southern homes. We travel from city to state and meet some of Limón’s former homes, getting an idea of her own sense of belonging and how it differs between the bustling Brooklyn streets and the sun-soaked fields of Kentucky. The deeper we delve into the sections of this book the more complex our journey becomes. There is a sense of power and self-sufficiency on display in this poem, an inner female strength compared to a horse’s anatomy for a more visceral punch. It starts strong with the leading poem, “How to Triumph Like a Girl,” which is loaded with the kind of concrete imagery Limón specializes in-the kind that encapsulates an idea fully, tangibly, and makes it accessible to the reader.

This book is separated into four sections. The cover emphasizes the title, drawing the reader in with blurred textures and russet hues reminiscent of fire and open fields. The writing in this volume is as lyrical as work I have encountered previously by her, and as satisfying to both the ear and the heart. Bright Dead Things was a finalist for both the 2015 National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award, and was listed as one of the Top Ten Poetry Books of the Year by The New York Times. In addition to Bright Dead Things, she has also published Lucky Wreck, This Big Fake World, and Sharks in the Rivers. While this is the first book of Ada Limón’s poetry I’ve read, it is her fourth volume. The speaker touches on universal subjects in fresh ways as she tells us how she feels about a myriad of life events, inviting her audience to experience and examine these situations from her perspective. In Bright Dead Things, Ada Limón engages in a conversation with her audience, one-sided only in the sense that she cannot hear or know our replies. Some books of poetry address their readers from a distance.

Bright dead things review