The Hurting Kind

By Ada Limón

• Author is a highly acclaimed poet whose last collection of poems The Carrying won the National Book Critics Circle Award, was a finalist for the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award and was named an ALA Notable Book of 2018
• Author was appointed the new host of the daily poetry podcast The Slowdown, taking over from former U.S. Poet Laureate Tracy K Smith
• Author's previous collection Bright Dead Things was a finalist for the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the Kingsley Tufts Award
• Author's last collection The Carrying was widely reviewed by the New York Times, the Washington Post, O, the Oprah Magazine, the Guardian, and NPR, among other prominent publications, and was praised by bestselling authors Tracy K Smith and Roxane Gay
• Author's last collection The Carrying has sold almost 20K copies in hardcover and paperback
• We expect major blurbs and major press, with a two-page profile already seeded in Publishers Weekly and early coverage in the New Yorker, CNN, Lit Hub, and Books Are Magic
• The book's engagement with pain, family, the natural world, generational trauma, grief, and hope will invite a wide readership and provide opportunities for rich coverage
• Author worked as a bookseller at Readers' Books in Sonoma, CA, and is deeply engaged in the independent bookselling community
• Preorder coop available to indie accounts (order 5+, get $25)

• Language: English
• Publisher: Milkweed Editions
• Release date: May 10, 2022
• ISBN: 9781639550500

Ada Limón

Ada Limón is the twenty-fourth U.S. Poet Laureate as well as the author of The Hurting Kind and five other collections of poems. These include, most recently, The Carrying, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award and was named a finalist for the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award, and Bright Dead Things, which was named a finalist for the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the Kingsley Tufts Award. Limón is a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, and her work has appeared in the New Yorker, the New York Times, and American Poetry Review, among others. Born and raised in California, she now lives in Lexington, Kentucky.

Book preview

1.

SPRING

GIVE ME THIS

I thought it was the neighbor’s cat, back

to clean the clock of the fledgling robins low

in their nest stuck in the dense hedge by the house,

but what came was much stranger, a liquidity

moving, all muscle and bristle: a groundhog

slippery and waddle-thieving my tomatoes, still

green in the morning’s shade. I watched her

munch and stand on her haunches, taking such

pleasure in the watery bites. Why am I not allowed

delight? A stranger writes to request my thoughts

on suffering. Barbed wire pulled out of the mouth,

as if demanding that I kneel to the trap of coiled

spikes used in warfare and fencing. Instead,

I watch the groundhog more closely and a sound escapes

me, a small spasm of joy I did not imagine

when I woke. She is a funny creature and earnest,

and she is doing what she can to survive.

DROWNING CREEK

Past the strip malls and the power plants,

out of the holler, past Gun Bottom Road

and Brassfield and before Red Lick Creek,

there’s a stream called Drowning Creek where

I saw the prettiest bird I’d seen all year,

the belted kingfisher, crested in its Aegean

blue plumage, perched not on a high snag

but on a transmission wire, eyeing the creek

for crayfish, tadpoles, and minnows. We were

driving fast toward home and already our minds

were pulled taut like a high black wire latched

to a utility pole. I wanted to stop, stop the car

to take a closer look at the solitary, stocky water

bird with its blue crown and its blue chest

and its uncommonness. But already we were

a blur and miles beyond the flying fisher

by the time I had realized what I’d witnessed.

People were nothing to that bird, hovering over

the creek. I was nothing to that bird, which wasn’t

concerned with history’s bloody battles or why

this creek was called Drowning Creek, a name

I love though it gives me shivers, because

it sounds like an order, a place where one

goes to drown. The bird doesn’t call the creek

that name. The bird doesn’t call it anything.

I’m almost certain, though I am certain

of nothing. There is a solitude in this world

I cannot pierce. I would die for it.

SWEAR ON IT

Loosen the thin threads

spooling in the rafters

invisible nests in night’s

green offerings, divide

and then divide again.

American linden looming

over the streetlights, so

much taller is the tree,

so much taller is the tree.

SANCTUARY

Suppose it’s easy to slip

into another’s green skin,

bury yourself in leaves

and wait for a breaking,

a breaking open, a breaking

out. I have, before, been

tricked into believing

I could be both an I

and the world. The great eye

of the world is both gaze

and gloss. To be swallowed

by being seen. A dream.

To be made whole

by being not a witness,

but witnessed.

INVASIVE

What’s the thin break

inescapable, a sudden thud

on the porch, a phone

vibrating with panic on the night

stand? Bury the broken thinking

in the backyard with the herbs. One

last time, I attempt to snuff out

the fig buttercup, the lesser celandine,

invasive and spreading down

the drainage ditch I call a creek

for a minor pleasure. I can

do nothing. I take the soil in

my clean fingers and to say

I weep is untrue, weep is too

musical a word. I heave

into the soil. You cannot die.

I just came to this life

again, alive in my silent way.

Last night I dreamt I could

only save one person by saying

their name and the exact

time and date. I choose you.

I am trying to kill the fig buttercup

the way I’m supposed to according

to the government website,

but right now there’s a bee on it.

Yellow on yellow, two things

radiating life. I need them both

to go on living.

A GOOD STORY

Some days—dishes piled in the sink, books littering the coffee table—

are harder than others. Today,

Reviews for The Hurting Kind

[nttrang · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The book had a few poems that I thought were good.

[Nicole Embers · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I absolutely loved it. These poems in some way or another made me feel some type of emtion and I love that about good poetry.

[Lorna White · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Ada Limon as always, paints a beautiful raw, emotional world with words. She always makes me feel, and think, and remember something from my life experiences. Amazing, always so darkly and beautiful!! Thank you Ada❣️

[Maria Jose Castro Gomez · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Ada Limón is the poet I needed. The one that made me fall in love with poetry which is another way of saying life.

[davidabrams · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Every poem is perfect, not a word out of place. The best, the best, the best.