Bright Dead Things
2015, Milkweed Editions
ISBN: 978-1-57131-471-0 / Paperback / Pages: 128 / $16.00
Purchase: Milkweed Editions / Bookshop / Amazon / IndieBound
Finalist for the 2015 National Book Award
Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award
Named a Top-Ten Book of Poetry in 2015 by the New York Times
From the publisher: A book of bravado and introspection, of 21st century feminist swagger and harrowing terror and loss, this fourth collection considers how we build our identities out of place and human contact—tracing in intimate detail the various ways the speaker's sense of self both shifts and perseveres as she moves from New York City to rural Kentucky, loses a dear parent, ages past the capriciousness of youth, and falls in love.
Praise & Reviews
"The lyrical genius of these poems sing to us of the perennial theme of home and our primordial ache of belonging. Ada Limón captures all the nuances that these colossal words call to mind with the gorgeous voice of her diction, and the timbre of her images. Both soft and tender, enormous and resounding, her poetic gestures entrance and transfix." —Richard Blanco
"In the wonderful and wondering poems of her fourth collection, Ada Limón picks things up, puts them down, daydreams, sings, and casually, unpretentiously finds everything strange, all the while uttering truths that have a light, mysterious accuracy. This poetry is confident enough to let the world (Brooklyn, Kentucky, Montana, and elsewhere) and its words take center stage, again and again. And yet, Limón does far more than merely reflect the world: she continually transforms it, thereby revealing herself as an everyday symbolist and high level duende enabler. At the end of one poem she writes, "What the heart wants? The heart wants/ her horses back," and suddenly even this most urban reader feels wild and free." —Matthew Zapruder
"Ada Limón doesn't write as if she needs us. She writes as if she wants us. Her words reveal, coax, pull, see us. In Bright Dead Things we read desire, ache, what human beings rarely have the heart or audacity to speak of alone—without the help of a poet with the most generous of eyes." —Nikky Finney
"In Ada Limón's Bright Dead Things, there's a fierce jazz and sass ("this life is a fist / of fast wishes caught by nothing, / but the fishhook of tomorrow's tug.") and there's sadness—a grappling with death and loss that forces the imagination to a deep response. The radio in her new, rural home warns "stay safe and seek shelter" and yet the heart seeks love, risk, and strangeness—and finds it everywhere." —Gregory Orr
"If these are dark poems, there's also a poignant openness to them, and a refreshing earnestness in Limón's voice as she examines the upheavals of life. There's an especially close attention paid to the world in these poems—an attention born out of the wreckage of grief and change." — Tahoma Literary Review
"Generous of heart, intricate and accessible, the poems in this book are wondrous and deeply moving." — Karla Huston, starred review in Library Journal
"A poet whose verse exudes warmth and compassion, Limón is at the height of her creative powers, and Bright Dead Things is her most gorgeous book of poems." — Rigoberto González, Los Angeles Review of Books
"Using a litany of dark imagery, Limón's speaker maps where language fails..." — Publisher's Weekly
"Ada Limón's power is in speaking plainly, giving her ideas enough space to breathe, and ending poems with potent last lines." — Front Porch
"The clarity and directness of Limón's voice make for exhilarating reading." —Star Tribune
"This volume opens with the Pushcart Prize winner 'How To Triumph Like a Girl,' and the collection that unfolds demonstrates the same joy, bravado, and sheer push." —"Key Poets to Discover and Rediscover," Library Journal Reviews
"Good spirited and dynamic, the book is a look back at past loves, then progresses forward. These are emotionally based poems with buoyancy and integrity." — Grace Cavalieri, Washington Independent Review of Books
"Limón is able to show us past what we can control, and channel something of acceptance." — Brandon Amico, Los Angeles Review of Books
"The best compliment one can give a book of poems is that the book loves the reader. Bright Dead Things doesn't just love poetry; it loves the reader. My hunch is, Reader, you'll love it too." —Dean Rader, Huffington Post
"Limón reminds us to keep living and loving despite the things we cannot change." —Dana Johnson, New Pages
"Limón's calling card is her relaxed, winningly unpretentious voice." -- One of the Best Poetry Books of 2015, The New York Times
"In Bright Dead Things, Ada Limon cuts through the white noise of cliché and replaces it with vital music.", Pulitzer Prize Winner Gregory Pardlo in The Scofield
"Bright Dead Things captures an animal essence, creating a collection for which 'beauty' is less of a calculated word choice than it is a wild instinct." —Kevin Holton, Pleiades: Literature in Context
"Limón, in not fearing the part of her that wants to be unsettled, allows readers to let go of what binds them to their own confining spaces. Reading Bright Dead Things is a pleasure, not because the book in its weaving from discomfort to near-comfort is easy, but because by the end, we can believe that living any style or form of life is enough, no matter its final shape." —Lisa Higgs, Kenyon Review