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Sharks in the Rivers
From Ada Limón, an extraordinary collection—at once urbane and earthy—that navigates the thoroughfares and tributaries of human nature.
The speaker in Sharks in the Rivers finds herself multiply dislocated: from her childhood in California, from her family’s roots in Mexico, from a dying parent, from her prior self. The world is always in motion—both toward and away from us—and it is also full of risk: from sharks unexpectedly lurking beneath estuarial rivers to the dangers of New York City, where, as Limón reminds us, even rats can find themselves trapped by the garbage cans they’ve crawled into. In such a world, how should one proceed?
Throughout these poems, Limón suggests that we must cleave to the world as it “keep[s] opening before us,” for, if we pay attention, we can be one with its complex, ephemeral, and beautiful strangeness. Loss is perpetual, and each person’s mouth “is the same / mouth as everyone’s, all trying to say the same thing.” For Limón, it’s the saying—individual and collective—that transforms each of us into “a wound overcome by wonder,” that allows “the wind itself” to be our “own wild whisper.”
The speaker in Sharks in the Rivers finds herself multiply dislocated: from her childhood in California, from her family’s roots in Mexico, from a dying parent, from her prior self. The world is always in motion—both toward and away from us—and it is also full of risk: from sharks unexpectedly lurking beneath estuarial rivers to the dangers of New York City, where, as Limón reminds us, even rats can find themselves trapped by the garbage cans they’ve crawled into. In such a world, how should one proceed?
Throughout these poems, Limón suggests that we must cleave to the world as it “keep[s] opening before us,” for, if we pay attention, we can be one with its complex, ephemeral, and beautiful strangeness. Loss is perpetual, and each person’s mouth “is the same / mouth as everyone’s, all trying to say the same thing.” For Limón, it’s the saying—individual and collective—that transforms each of us into “a wound overcome by wonder,” that allows “the wind itself” to be our “own wild whisper.”
96 pages, Paperback
First published July 1, 2010
About the author
Ada Limon
25 books1,858 followersAda Limón is the author of three books of poetry, Lucky Wreck, This Big Fake World, and Sharks in the Rivers. She received her Master of Fine Arts in Poetry from New York University. Limón has received fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts, the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center, and was one of the judges for the 2013 National Book Award in Poetry. She works as a creative writing instructor and a freelance writer while splitting her time between Lexington, Kentucky and Sonoma, California (with a great deal of New York in between). Her new book of poems, Bright Dead Things is forthcoming from Milkweed Editions in 2015.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 204 reviews
May 10, 2022
I don't count Ada Limón among my favorite poets, but I do count her among my most intriguing ones. Intrigue comes from many corners, I know, but in this case, I'm intrigued by how she does it. Technique, or sometimes lack thereof. Works for good reason, or sometimes works for reasons unknown. It's not lightning in a bottle, this poetry, but it is a lightning bug.
In this case, the book is 12 years old, making it a perfect preview for her latest book, The Hurting Kind: Poems, coming out this week, which I ordered. Me and plenty of others, which may sound normal for a book but people, this is poetry, a mostly-shunned genre even among inveterate readers.
Anyway, 2010 book vs. 2022. I like to connect the dots in the name of development as writer and poet. Not A to B connections, either. More like A to L. Ada's well along and made big progress by now, so if you're earlier on the road of poetry like me, you especially like to follow the Pilgrim's Progress of Intriguing Poets -- poets who've made it.
And boy, howdy, she's made it. Right down to the buzz in many, many media outlets this week, including a New York Times feature, wherein she declares that she now (wait for it) "makes a living" at poetry.
I should be laughing now because, children, NOBODY (Emily Dickinson's friend) makes a living at poetry. But who knows, maybe times have changed and thus nostrums as well.
Anyway, to the shark at hand. This book doesn't jump the shark (remember that expression's 30 minutes of fame?), but it sure isn't the sort of thing that leads to a living, either. It does have, however, a poem that was accepted by The New Yorker. It goes without saying (but I'm going to, anyway) that if the unicorn called "making a living at poetry" is going to be captured, you're going to have to go through The New Yorker somehow.
Here's that poem:
Crush
Maybe my limbs are made
mostly for decoration --
the way I feel about
persimmons. You can't
really eat them. Or you
wouldn't want to. If you grab
the soft skin with your fist
it somehow feels funny,
like you've been here
before, and uncomfortable
too, like you'd rather
squish it between your teeth
impatiently, before spitting
the soft parts back up
to linger on the tongue
like burnt sugar or guilt.
For starters, it was all
an accident; you cut
the right branch
and a sort of light
woke up underneath,
and the inedible fruit
grew dark and needy.
Think crucial hanging.
Think crayon orange.
There is one low, leaning
heart-shaped globe left
and dearest, can you
tell, I am trying
to love you less.
So, 3 stars here, though it's got some flashes of the future, for sure. As for me, back to work. Some of us have to make a living, after all.
In this case, the book is 12 years old, making it a perfect preview for her latest book, The Hurting Kind: Poems, coming out this week, which I ordered. Me and plenty of others, which may sound normal for a book but people, this is poetry, a mostly-shunned genre even among inveterate readers.
Anyway, 2010 book vs. 2022. I like to connect the dots in the name of development as writer and poet. Not A to B connections, either. More like A to L. Ada's well along and made big progress by now, so if you're earlier on the road of poetry like me, you especially like to follow the Pilgrim's Progress of Intriguing Poets -- poets who've made it.
And boy, howdy, she's made it. Right down to the buzz in many, many media outlets this week, including a New York Times feature, wherein she declares that she now (wait for it) "makes a living" at poetry.
I should be laughing now because, children, NOBODY (Emily Dickinson's friend) makes a living at poetry. But who knows, maybe times have changed and thus nostrums as well.
Anyway, to the shark at hand. This book doesn't jump the shark (remember that expression's 30 minutes of fame?), but it sure isn't the sort of thing that leads to a living, either. It does have, however, a poem that was accepted by The New Yorker. It goes without saying (but I'm going to, anyway) that if the unicorn called "making a living at poetry" is going to be captured, you're going to have to go through The New Yorker somehow.
Here's that poem:
Crush
Maybe my limbs are made
mostly for decoration --
the way I feel about
persimmons. You can't
really eat them. Or you
wouldn't want to. If you grab
the soft skin with your fist
it somehow feels funny,
like you've been here
before, and uncomfortable
too, like you'd rather
squish it between your teeth
impatiently, before spitting
the soft parts back up
to linger on the tongue
like burnt sugar or guilt.
For starters, it was all
an accident; you cut
the right branch
and a sort of light
woke up underneath,
and the inedible fruit
grew dark and needy.
Think crucial hanging.
Think crayon orange.
There is one low, leaning
heart-shaped globe left
and dearest, can you
tell, I am trying
to love you less.
So, 3 stars here, though it's got some flashes of the future, for sure. As for me, back to work. Some of us have to make a living, after all.
November 13, 2018
I've heard such stellar reviews of Limon's work, so I was expecting a bit more than what I found in Sharks in the Rivers. Not bad, but not arresting and profound either.
This is an early work, so I am going to trust that things will get better with time.
This is an early work, so I am going to trust that things will get better with time.
April 10, 2015
...harks bite fewer people each year than
New Yorkers do, according to Health Department records.
Then she sends me on my way. Into the City of Sharks.
Through another doorway, I walk to the East River saying,
Sharks are people too.
Sharks are people too.
Sharks are people too.
I write all the things I need on the bottom
of my tennis shoes. I say, Let's walk together.
The sun behind me is like a fire.
Tiny flames in the river's ripples.
I say something to God, but he's not a living thing,
so I say it to the river, I say,
I want to walk through this doorway
But without all those ghosts on the edge,
I want them to stay here.
I want them to go on without me.
I want them to burn in the water.
New Yorkers do, according to Health Department records.
Then she sends me on my way. Into the City of Sharks.
Through another doorway, I walk to the East River saying,
Sharks are people too.
Sharks are people too.
Sharks are people too.
I write all the things I need on the bottom
of my tennis shoes. I say, Let's walk together.
The sun behind me is like a fire.
Tiny flames in the river's ripples.
I say something to God, but he's not a living thing,
so I say it to the river, I say,
I want to walk through this doorway
But without all those ghosts on the edge,
I want them to stay here.
I want them to go on without me.
I want them to burn in the water.
March 17, 2021
4,5
És Ada Limón la meva poeta (viva) preferida? Arribats a aquest punt, jo m'atreviria a dir que sí!
No li poso un cinc perquè les parts d'aquest llibre són una mica desiguals. La primera és, conceptualment i formal, magistral. Per quedar-s'hi a viure, vaja. La part del mig decau una mica. Però ho remonta al final.
Quina poeta. Quin món més fantàstic i quin llenguatge per compartir-lo.
***
Li he acabat posant un 5.
És Ada Limón la meva poeta (viva) preferida? Arribats a aquest punt, jo m'atreviria a dir que sí!
No li poso un cinc perquè les parts d'aquest llibre són una mica desiguals. La primera és, conceptualment i formal, magistral. Per quedar-s'hi a viure, vaja. La part del mig decau una mica. Però ho remonta al final.
Quina poeta. Quin món més fantàstic i quin llenguatge per compartir-lo.
***
Li he acabat posant un 5.
August 18, 2011
Recently, I stumbled across the work of Ada Limón online. After reading her poem "Sharks in the Rivers", her book of poetry under the same title was on its way to my mailbox. It has proved itself to be the best find this year thus far and it's going to be a hard one to top.
Poem after poem is soaked with imagery and sounds of flora and fauna, rolling hills and riverbanks. Even her pieces constructed in the realm of a bustling, rushing city return to the comfort and at-home peace of California countrysides. Streets turn to rivers and her entire being takes flight, refusing to let the steel and concrete of a metropolis dam up that which flows so freely from her. She is a native soul in a contemporary world.
Her style of writing is refreshing. In tune with the natural world, but able to draw parallels between nature and a world seemingly detached from it. The joy of sex and womanhood is swallowing a live bird. Worries can be carried away by grains of sand on the shoulders of ants, unless your burdens are too heavy to bear. Her work is a trickling, peaceful spring at points and a rushing torrent of feeling and life running down pavement at others.
At no point do her words seemed forced or pretentious (like so many contemporaries today). They grow from the pages as naturally as prairie grass and take root in the readers mind. Ada's world immerses you and makes you feel both her joys and sorrows, doubts and hopes. You become attached, like she's grabbed your hand and said, "Come, I'll show you," before stepping out the door and into her world. It's honest and true writing found here.
This is the first collection of Ada's poems I've had the pleasure of reading and is her third book so far, being preceded by Lucky Wreck and This Big Fake World. Currently, she is working on a novel, which I'm sure I'll be waiting in anticipation for after reading the rest of her published work.
*************
Originally posted on my blog manic-frustration.blogspot.com Feb. 13th, 2011
http://manic-frustration.blogspot.com...
Poem after poem is soaked with imagery and sounds of flora and fauna, rolling hills and riverbanks. Even her pieces constructed in the realm of a bustling, rushing city return to the comfort and at-home peace of California countrysides. Streets turn to rivers and her entire being takes flight, refusing to let the steel and concrete of a metropolis dam up that which flows so freely from her. She is a native soul in a contemporary world.
Her style of writing is refreshing. In tune with the natural world, but able to draw parallels between nature and a world seemingly detached from it. The joy of sex and womanhood is swallowing a live bird. Worries can be carried away by grains of sand on the shoulders of ants, unless your burdens are too heavy to bear. Her work is a trickling, peaceful spring at points and a rushing torrent of feeling and life running down pavement at others.
At no point do her words seemed forced or pretentious (like so many contemporaries today). They grow from the pages as naturally as prairie grass and take root in the readers mind. Ada's world immerses you and makes you feel both her joys and sorrows, doubts and hopes. You become attached, like she's grabbed your hand and said, "Come, I'll show you," before stepping out the door and into her world. It's honest and true writing found here.
This is the first collection of Ada's poems I've had the pleasure of reading and is her third book so far, being preceded by Lucky Wreck and This Big Fake World. Currently, she is working on a novel, which I'm sure I'll be waiting in anticipation for after reading the rest of her published work.
*************
Originally posted on my blog manic-frustration.blogspot.com Feb. 13th, 2011
http://manic-frustration.blogspot.com...
February 5, 2024
this was the weakest limon collection i've read, but that still means it's incredible, the bar is so high. these just didn't hit as much as her other ones have! love the connection to nature in this collection.
June 13, 2021
hm definitely preferred bright dead things. most of the poems were lost on me.
this phrase was probably the only thing that resonated:
"sumptuous mountain, midnight milkweed /come to the valley of neon and no-crying. / I've got this big city in me. / pretty on fire, pretty high-wired."
this phrase was probably the only thing that resonated:
"sumptuous mountain, midnight milkweed /come to the valley of neon and no-crying. / I've got this big city in me. / pretty on fire, pretty high-wired."
December 29, 2018
3.5 stars. A few gems, but I didn’t love this as much as her other collections. This was not her first, but it felt immature as compared to the others, perhaps a bit unfocused?
November 26, 2023
“You say you love the world, so love the world “
June 10, 2020
I'm a huge Limón fan, and I was thrilled to read another collection. Here are some of my favorite moments:
When did the world begin to push us so quickly?
Insanity feels closer to home
than here sometimes,
I had a dream I was surrounded by butterflies—
until they stung me over and over.
I’m going to crash
on your communal couch of unwanted.
Dear Today,
I have said too much, yet give me this—
I want to be a physical doll, just for now,
a stupid, splendid thing,
tumbled into the touchable day.
I’m drunk on the bully world again—
Come Danger, come Danger, come Wink, come Lies.
World, turn all you want to,
faster even. I’ve come to like the way the breeze feels
as it rips me limb from limb.
When did the world begin to push us so quickly?
Insanity feels closer to home
than here sometimes,
I had a dream I was surrounded by butterflies—
until they stung me over and over.
I’m going to crash
on your communal couch of unwanted.
Dear Today,
I have said too much, yet give me this—
I want to be a physical doll, just for now,
a stupid, splendid thing,
tumbled into the touchable day.
I’m drunk on the bully world again—
Come Danger, come Danger, come Wink, come Lies.
World, turn all you want to,
faster even. I’ve come to like the way the breeze feels
as it rips me limb from limb.
August 28, 2017
Ada Limon is quickly becoming one of my favorite poets. While I did not connect with this collection the way I did with Bright Dead Things, there were several poems that left me gasping by the end.
December 25, 2019
“and dearest, can you
tell, I am trying
to love you less”
she’s done it again 🥺
tell, I am trying
to love you less”
she’s done it again 🥺
August 22, 2022
So enchanting and introspective! I wasn’t expecting to enjoy it as much as I did; Limón is able to encompass so much zeitgeist in limited verse, I’m very impressed!
June 4, 2024
“Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden appointed Ada Limón as the 24th Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress on July 12, 2022 and reappointed her for a historic two-year second term on April 24, 2023. Limón’s second term will begin in September 2023 and conclude in April 2025."
In this collection of poems there are several themes that Limón’s poetry encompasses. Among them are recurring metaphors of water and aquatic life. There are long poems, one with multiple stanzas, and there are short poems, and for the most part, each of them requires multiple readings. Every rereading brings richness and appreciation for the poet's thoughts, emotions and imagination.
The title of the book comes from an eponymous poem that uses sharks as a metaphor for a young girl’s fears of the unknown, and validates what many of us already know. People are in more danger from other people than they are from other forms of life. A friend shares:
“a recent National Geographic article that says,
Sharks bite fewer people each year than
New Yorkers do, according to Health Department records."
“Homesick” harkens back to the young Limón being “banned to the backyard for running in the house” so that “I and a particular tree became fast friends in the green sequined summer.”
“Drowning in Paradise�� picks up the shark/aquatic theme in a different way, quite possibly because this is the voice of a woman who has gotten beyond her early fears and beckons to aquatic life: “Come here shark. Come here barracuda. Love the sweet artifacts of this body. Carry me in the world-class rattle of a wave.”
“The Weather Reported” refers to a time in the past, a relationship with someone the poet depended on for love and identity, but now: “Santiago, I am my own weather … my own river … a better bird for flying.”
Reviewed by Sheryn Morris, Librarian, Literature & Fiction
In this collection of poems there are several themes that Limón’s poetry encompasses. Among them are recurring metaphors of water and aquatic life. There are long poems, one with multiple stanzas, and there are short poems, and for the most part, each of them requires multiple readings. Every rereading brings richness and appreciation for the poet's thoughts, emotions and imagination.
The title of the book comes from an eponymous poem that uses sharks as a metaphor for a young girl’s fears of the unknown, and validates what many of us already know. People are in more danger from other people than they are from other forms of life. A friend shares:
“a recent National Geographic article that says,
Sharks bite fewer people each year than
New Yorkers do, according to Health Department records."
“Homesick” harkens back to the young Limón being “banned to the backyard for running in the house” so that “I and a particular tree became fast friends in the green sequined summer.”
“Drowning in Paradise�� picks up the shark/aquatic theme in a different way, quite possibly because this is the voice of a woman who has gotten beyond her early fears and beckons to aquatic life: “Come here shark. Come here barracuda. Love the sweet artifacts of this body. Carry me in the world-class rattle of a wave.”
“The Weather Reported” refers to a time in the past, a relationship with someone the poet depended on for love and identity, but now: “Santiago, I am my own weather … my own river … a better bird for flying.”
Reviewed by Sheryn Morris, Librarian, Literature & Fiction
May 20, 2023
I mean... Not gonna lie. It's been a long time since I've enjoyed a book of poems less (at least Lang Leav is laughable) but my rating system is broken turns out and I cannot in good faith give anyone less than 2 stars unless they seem like a real asshole, which Ada Limon does not. Why did I think this was going to be good???? Why are poetry ratings fucking insane on GoodReads? 1.5
February 16, 2019
DNF @ ~50%. It started out great but around part 2, it got quite bland, and I found myself zoning out frequently.
October 15, 2022
This fevered mess of world
is well-done. Lean in and nuzzle
its exceptional need to be yours. From WAYS TO EASE YOUR ANIMAL MIND
World, turn all you want to,
faster even. I’ve come to like the way the breeze feels
as it rips me limb from limb. From WORLD VERSUS GIRL
I couldn’t believe that it took me so long to discover this poet and I am hooting and hollering in joy that she is the new, she is the first Mexican American, she is our Poet Laureate. Our meaning all of us. Our meaning all who love this country. I watched her inaugural address and she read a poem she initially said would be the poem that would prevent her from every being the Poet Laureate, and her mix of humor and hurt and comments on our times is landing so deeply in me. Limón can save us, I do believe. If we listen.
SHARKS IN THE RIVERS
I cannot tell anymore when a door opens or closes,
I can only hear the frame saying, Walk through.
…
I say something to God, but he’s not a living thing,
so I say it to the river, I say,
I want to walk through this doorway
but without all those ghosts on the edge,
I want them to stay here.
I want them to go on without me.
I want them to burn in the water.
THE WIDENING ROAD
All winter the road has been paved in rain,
holding its form as if made of its own direction.
We have a lot of these days. Or not.
A woman in a car staring out, her hands going numb.
When did the world begin to push us so quickly?
A blue jay flies low over her into the madrones.
She can still see it—its bright movements rocking a branch—
surely delighted that it matches the sky.
The honest clouds.
A tenderness grows like a fluttering in her hand.
She wants to hold it in her arms but not pin it down,
the way the tree holds the jay generously
in its willful branches. The spring is blowing
through her, pulling the dead debris free from her limbs.
She cannot decide what she desires, but today it is enough
that she desires and desires. That she is a body
in the world, wanting, the wind itself becoming
her own wild whisper.
HIGH WATER
We become our own land sometimes,
no important nation, the hand on our door,
the ship mast come up over the flat ocean of dishwater.
Say there is nothing to it; my rock is your rock, my empty name
is your empty name, but mine reminds me more of me.
If we begin to count our blessings we could cull up the very stones
and bones in the pavement, but we’d never count the dust.
…
DIAGNOSIS: EVEN THE STILLAGUAMISH RIVER CANNOT STOP TIME
…Your hands are wet; time moves too fast. Things were easier
earlier, when the Snow Goose was open for business and the
sun lay its original light all up and down the Stillaguamish River.
Everything, now, is an interrogation. Why this bird? Why this
interruption, soaked to the bone? The river is still there—
steady and cunning with current. It does not answer,
but it loves the conversation; it is both the cat and the bird.
It is at once your body dissolved in this rain and your
beautiful wet hands trying to hold onto water.
RESCUE ANIMALS
Round the mountain and we’ve entered
a no-man’s-land of earthward and fallen.
Barn owls wake the sky and set the world
bursting, white-faced and beating. Your
cold hands carry the flashlight, and mine
the key, always the key, for safekeeping.
I’m telling you about the animals: the egret,
the goat my mother rescued, the orphan
goose, the blind quarter horse, the bullfrogs,
and you’re watching where we’re stepping
so carefully, so seriously. I’m pointing out some
stone I love and I know I sound ridiculous,
my voice like too-loud chimes in a windstorm.
Your head is bowed and all your life
you’ve wanted to know some place like this
existed and, for a moment, your lost face
belongs in the barn, rushed in from the city’s
traffic-hounded concrete…
I think I’ve been standing in the barn door
for days, or perhaps for one long year,
filling the still-full food bowl and leaving the stall
piled with blankets, but tonight I want you
never to return. Tonight, I miss only those
stones I owned, that long cold walk in the dark
when no one’s watching, when no one needs
to force my footstep further—or even
hold me back from falling.
BODY OF RIVERS
The river comes to the body bold,
dreaming of black hues and a gestured
cluster of colored fish. This is the way
the world runs through us, its instruments of moon-
water and hangnails of hope. River, river,
listen, I understand the urgency. I am
floodwater running; I am dirt ditch rising.
A constant glutton for the outpouring pond,
I am trying desperately to return to gone.
OVERJOYED
…This life is hard.
And let me be the first to admit, when I
come across some jewel of pleasure, I too want
to squeeze that thing until even its seedy heart
evaporates like ethanol, want to throw my
bird-bones into the brush-fire until,
half-blind, all I can hear is the sound
of wings in the relentlessly delighted air.
TERRITORY
Every one of us has a sparrow
Underneath her tongue.
Bouncing back and burrowing.
On the crest of a spared mountain,
we can barely say, Sleep well,
to the full night of open obsidian and owls.
We long gone tree-leaners
raised on poison oak and poppies
make our way to the creek bed.
We come to lie down again,
our flightless selves in the river rocks,
to bear witness.
What impossible longing.
Black oak and manzanita looming
in the nest of this natural home.
Cowbird and grackle, black phoebe.
Every one of us with a bear inside
(a scorpion, a rattlesnake).
Our danger is calmed
by our watermelon sun,
by instinct.
(Acknowledge the dirt
beneath us, expect nothing.)
…
But just a little tree dust on the mountain
And the chest finds its bird again,
Laughing loud on its juniper and wisteria.
And listen, even we non-fighters
Know what a precious territory is
When we see it. Soon, we’ll say,
Tongue-sparrows, flinting
Like well-carved arrows,
Fly into the yellow foxtail
And rye we were raised on.
Alluvial soil, this claim we call
Or own, take us back in.
HOMESICK
In the Glen Ellen night, banned to the backyard
for running in the house, I and a particular tree
became fast friends in the green sequined summer.
I situated myself inside it, where I watched
the yellow of our kitchen window—my
soundproof family. I liked the shadows cast
in gobo-leaf prints on my bare limbs. I imagined
myself growing green sprouts and maroon bark
that shot into the dirt. Today in this terrible
cement city, I will do this bidding, but I tell you:
I am there, across from Sonoma Creek, still hidden
in the tree, where I cannot be unbelieved.
FIFTEEN BALLS OF FEATHERS
6. The very first time I really loved sex
was the very first time I was happy to be a girl.
I found out there were two hearts in a human body.
I stared down at my smooth stomach, its separate pounding
crawling out my belly button like a bulldozer.
(What a pleasure—this dual dwelling
of mysterious punctuated pulses!)
Lying on a cream-colored bedspread overlooking the plaza,
I felt I had swallowed a live bird whole.
…
My heart’s just fine,
gravity is there, though,
keeping me on the lure of lowdown.
My invisible birds are still intact,
I can open myself up and show you,
they have muscled deep
into an actual nest of suspended song.
11.
…One legend says that hummingbirds were sent up
to find what was beyond the blue sky.
(Can you imagine? Such a small thing going so far?)
Turned out there was nothing beyond the blue sky.
Which made the sky bluer and more holy than it had been before.
13.
At the base of a bird’s feather there is something called an after-feather.
The part that looks more like human hair in its wiry bristle.
It sounds like afterthought or afterlife. It’s the part right after the calamus
and the inferior umbilicus that goes into the bird’s body.
I want one. What happens after-feather? After.
…
I tell her I’m sorry, and she says, This is just the way my life is going to be.
At the deli, the woman is so nice to me for no reason
that I start to cry.
There are times when I suppose we’re supposed to rail against our lot,
other times, the moon and sun are siblings.
15.
In every story the hummingbird is able to pass between both worlds—
it’s the messenger, the winged balancer.
The migration of so many miles beyond our earthly reach
and still they come to us.
Carving out this pocket of air we are allotted,
these small susurrations of wings from the other world,
the afterworld,
can keep me up at night, but pleasantly.
BIRD BOUND FOR A GOOD WORLD
…
And here we are, diligent birds,
trying to make a small life out of paper and string.
Seed-hoarder, stream-nester,
warm-blooded, beak-lover, bird-speaker—
go to the water, bird,
love the blue world, bird,
money means nothing, bird,
clothes mean nothing, bird,
keep going into the world, bird,
startle the sad spring air with the whirring of your wings.
DROWNING IN PARADISE
The low-hanging hibiscus coos out
its swollen-mouth flower song
to the rare bee holding its tongue
and I’m drunk on the bully world again—
a fueled up fluster coming on.
Look, even two oceans can collide
here in the bellies of white islands.
Splurge and risk in the conch-dark
night—I’m going to walk into the water’s
frothy rim. Come here shark. Come
here barracuda. Love the sweet artifacts
of this body. Carry me in the world-class
rattle of a wave. I want the big bite, one
restless, tooth-filled mouth to take me down.
STING
Plundering deep in the moon’s ring
and you enter here, unmeaning,
say, We’ve got a long time ahead of us,
a minnow’s life in the current. I’m making
a list of all the things in my mouth. Bees,
and bee stings, hope. Brother, the cord
to this world is a frayed rope and it beats
our poor bodies like drum skins
and I’m running the city water now
in a sink safe from harm, and across
the surface of most states there’s
a phone ringing and a somebody’s lost
something, a somebody’s lost a
somebody, and a somebody’s come
home, and I’m unmoved in the kitchen
pulling wings out of my teeth, praying
for loads more wishes and a body
out there waiting for this somebody
in the kitchen waiting to be done stung.
BIG STAR
Because there is so little time,
she sets her watch back, for more of everything.
Unbounded hunger for the tug of the living tree,
have mercy for this moment between fences.
She does not know how to stay unfolded
for too long in this absolute pounding. She says,
Big star, big star, bold in its opening,
bowled over in its oneness, she says, This is the same
hand I use for fetching what I fear, and now
I am pointing to you.
is well-done. Lean in and nuzzle
its exceptional need to be yours. From WAYS TO EASE YOUR ANIMAL MIND
World, turn all you want to,
faster even. I’ve come to like the way the breeze feels
as it rips me limb from limb. From WORLD VERSUS GIRL
I couldn’t believe that it took me so long to discover this poet and I am hooting and hollering in joy that she is the new, she is the first Mexican American, she is our Poet Laureate. Our meaning all of us. Our meaning all who love this country. I watched her inaugural address and she read a poem she initially said would be the poem that would prevent her from every being the Poet Laureate, and her mix of humor and hurt and comments on our times is landing so deeply in me. Limón can save us, I do believe. If we listen.
SHARKS IN THE RIVERS
I cannot tell anymore when a door opens or closes,
I can only hear the frame saying, Walk through.
…
I say something to God, but he’s not a living thing,
so I say it to the river, I say,
I want to walk through this doorway
but without all those ghosts on the edge,
I want them to stay here.
I want them to go on without me.
I want them to burn in the water.
THE WIDENING ROAD
All winter the road has been paved in rain,
holding its form as if made of its own direction.
We have a lot of these days. Or not.
A woman in a car staring out, her hands going numb.
When did the world begin to push us so quickly?
A blue jay flies low over her into the madrones.
She can still see it—its bright movements rocking a branch—
surely delighted that it matches the sky.
The honest clouds.
A tenderness grows like a fluttering in her hand.
She wants to hold it in her arms but not pin it down,
the way the tree holds the jay generously
in its willful branches. The spring is blowing
through her, pulling the dead debris free from her limbs.
She cannot decide what she desires, but today it is enough
that she desires and desires. That she is a body
in the world, wanting, the wind itself becoming
her own wild whisper.
HIGH WATER
We become our own land sometimes,
no important nation, the hand on our door,
the ship mast come up over the flat ocean of dishwater.
Say there is nothing to it; my rock is your rock, my empty name
is your empty name, but mine reminds me more of me.
If we begin to count our blessings we could cull up the very stones
and bones in the pavement, but we’d never count the dust.
…
DIAGNOSIS: EVEN THE STILLAGUAMISH RIVER CANNOT STOP TIME
…Your hands are wet; time moves too fast. Things were easier
earlier, when the Snow Goose was open for business and the
sun lay its original light all up and down the Stillaguamish River.
Everything, now, is an interrogation. Why this bird? Why this
interruption, soaked to the bone? The river is still there—
steady and cunning with current. It does not answer,
but it loves the conversation; it is both the cat and the bird.
It is at once your body dissolved in this rain and your
beautiful wet hands trying to hold onto water.
RESCUE ANIMALS
Round the mountain and we’ve entered
a no-man’s-land of earthward and fallen.
Barn owls wake the sky and set the world
bursting, white-faced and beating. Your
cold hands carry the flashlight, and mine
the key, always the key, for safekeeping.
I’m telling you about the animals: the egret,
the goat my mother rescued, the orphan
goose, the blind quarter horse, the bullfrogs,
and you’re watching where we’re stepping
so carefully, so seriously. I’m pointing out some
stone I love and I know I sound ridiculous,
my voice like too-loud chimes in a windstorm.
Your head is bowed and all your life
you’ve wanted to know some place like this
existed and, for a moment, your lost face
belongs in the barn, rushed in from the city’s
traffic-hounded concrete…
I think I’ve been standing in the barn door
for days, or perhaps for one long year,
filling the still-full food bowl and leaving the stall
piled with blankets, but tonight I want you
never to return. Tonight, I miss only those
stones I owned, that long cold walk in the dark
when no one’s watching, when no one needs
to force my footstep further—or even
hold me back from falling.
BODY OF RIVERS
The river comes to the body bold,
dreaming of black hues and a gestured
cluster of colored fish. This is the way
the world runs through us, its instruments of moon-
water and hangnails of hope. River, river,
listen, I understand the urgency. I am
floodwater running; I am dirt ditch rising.
A constant glutton for the outpouring pond,
I am trying desperately to return to gone.
OVERJOYED
…This life is hard.
And let me be the first to admit, when I
come across some jewel of pleasure, I too want
to squeeze that thing until even its seedy heart
evaporates like ethanol, want to throw my
bird-bones into the brush-fire until,
half-blind, all I can hear is the sound
of wings in the relentlessly delighted air.
TERRITORY
Every one of us has a sparrow
Underneath her tongue.
Bouncing back and burrowing.
On the crest of a spared mountain,
we can barely say, Sleep well,
to the full night of open obsidian and owls.
We long gone tree-leaners
raised on poison oak and poppies
make our way to the creek bed.
We come to lie down again,
our flightless selves in the river rocks,
to bear witness.
What impossible longing.
Black oak and manzanita looming
in the nest of this natural home.
Cowbird and grackle, black phoebe.
Every one of us with a bear inside
(a scorpion, a rattlesnake).
Our danger is calmed
by our watermelon sun,
by instinct.
(Acknowledge the dirt
beneath us, expect nothing.)
…
But just a little tree dust on the mountain
And the chest finds its bird again,
Laughing loud on its juniper and wisteria.
And listen, even we non-fighters
Know what a precious territory is
When we see it. Soon, we’ll say,
Tongue-sparrows, flinting
Like well-carved arrows,
Fly into the yellow foxtail
And rye we were raised on.
Alluvial soil, this claim we call
Or own, take us back in.
HOMESICK
In the Glen Ellen night, banned to the backyard
for running in the house, I and a particular tree
became fast friends in the green sequined summer.
I situated myself inside it, where I watched
the yellow of our kitchen window—my
soundproof family. I liked the shadows cast
in gobo-leaf prints on my bare limbs. I imagined
myself growing green sprouts and maroon bark
that shot into the dirt. Today in this terrible
cement city, I will do this bidding, but I tell you:
I am there, across from Sonoma Creek, still hidden
in the tree, where I cannot be unbelieved.
FIFTEEN BALLS OF FEATHERS
6. The very first time I really loved sex
was the very first time I was happy to be a girl.
I found out there were two hearts in a human body.
I stared down at my smooth stomach, its separate pounding
crawling out my belly button like a bulldozer.
(What a pleasure—this dual dwelling
of mysterious punctuated pulses!)
Lying on a cream-colored bedspread overlooking the plaza,
I felt I had swallowed a live bird whole.
…
My heart’s just fine,
gravity is there, though,
keeping me on the lure of lowdown.
My invisible birds are still intact,
I can open myself up and show you,
they have muscled deep
into an actual nest of suspended song.
11.
…One legend says that hummingbirds were sent up
to find what was beyond the blue sky.
(Can you imagine? Such a small thing going so far?)
Turned out there was nothing beyond the blue sky.
Which made the sky bluer and more holy than it had been before.
13.
At the base of a bird’s feather there is something called an after-feather.
The part that looks more like human hair in its wiry bristle.
It sounds like afterthought or afterlife. It’s the part right after the calamus
and the inferior umbilicus that goes into the bird’s body.
I want one. What happens after-feather? After.
…
I tell her I’m sorry, and she says, This is just the way my life is going to be.
At the deli, the woman is so nice to me for no reason
that I start to cry.
There are times when I suppose we’re supposed to rail against our lot,
other times, the moon and sun are siblings.
15.
In every story the hummingbird is able to pass between both worlds—
it’s the messenger, the winged balancer.
The migration of so many miles beyond our earthly reach
and still they come to us.
Carving out this pocket of air we are allotted,
these small susurrations of wings from the other world,
the afterworld,
can keep me up at night, but pleasantly.
BIRD BOUND FOR A GOOD WORLD
…
And here we are, diligent birds,
trying to make a small life out of paper and string.
Seed-hoarder, stream-nester,
warm-blooded, beak-lover, bird-speaker—
go to the water, bird,
love the blue world, bird,
money means nothing, bird,
clothes mean nothing, bird,
keep going into the world, bird,
startle the sad spring air with the whirring of your wings.
DROWNING IN PARADISE
The low-hanging hibiscus coos out
its swollen-mouth flower song
to the rare bee holding its tongue
and I’m drunk on the bully world again—
a fueled up fluster coming on.
Look, even two oceans can collide
here in the bellies of white islands.
Splurge and risk in the conch-dark
night—I’m going to walk into the water’s
frothy rim. Come here shark. Come
here barracuda. Love the sweet artifacts
of this body. Carry me in the world-class
rattle of a wave. I want the big bite, one
restless, tooth-filled mouth to take me down.
STING
Plundering deep in the moon’s ring
and you enter here, unmeaning,
say, We’ve got a long time ahead of us,
a minnow’s life in the current. I’m making
a list of all the things in my mouth. Bees,
and bee stings, hope. Brother, the cord
to this world is a frayed rope and it beats
our poor bodies like drum skins
and I’m running the city water now
in a sink safe from harm, and across
the surface of most states there’s
a phone ringing and a somebody’s lost
something, a somebody’s lost a
somebody, and a somebody’s come
home, and I’m unmoved in the kitchen
pulling wings out of my teeth, praying
for loads more wishes and a body
out there waiting for this somebody
in the kitchen waiting to be done stung.
BIG STAR
Because there is so little time,
she sets her watch back, for more of everything.
Unbounded hunger for the tug of the living tree,
have mercy for this moment between fences.
She does not know how to stay unfolded
for too long in this absolute pounding. She says,
Big star, big star, bold in its opening,
bowled over in its oneness, she says, This is the same
hand I use for fetching what I fear, and now
I am pointing to you.
October 14, 2018
3.5 stars
I love Ada Limon, because of course I do, but this book didn't "speak" to me the way her two more recent books did. The long poem "Fifteen Balls of Feathers," making up the third part of this book, felt powerful. Most of the others did not reach me in the same way.
Some poems, I feel like I almost connect, but I'm not really sure. (Note that Goodreads doesn't properly translate the formatting, all of the indents disappear.)
But mostly, this is full of poems that are more symbolic than intimate, and I didn't quite get it.
I love Ada Limon, because of course I do, but this book didn't "speak" to me the way her two more recent books did. The long poem "Fifteen Balls of Feathers," making up the third part of this book, felt powerful. Most of the others did not reach me in the same way.
Some poems, I feel like I almost connect, but I'm not really sure. (Note that Goodreads doesn't properly translate the formatting, all of the indents disappear.)
Sharks in the Rivers II
If I moved to Santa Cruz, I could ride the roller coaster
all the time. And learn to surf. Except for the sharks.
I admit I am hopeless.
Sharks are fish, just fish with a rubbery cartilage
and a mind for troublemaking – stirring things up.
It’s not the fish that I fear, but the jaw.
Or, it’s not the jaw, it’s the teeth.
It’s not the teeth, but the multiple rows of teeth,
the conveyor belt of teeth growing like weeds
anchored in their shark skin.
And we think our rivers are protected,
but what of the bull shark?
Breeding in the brackish waters of a river’s mouth,
seemingly solitary, seemingly up to model
fish-like behavior.
(His tempting strength, his fluid dynamics.)
Some say a shark never sleeps, so how can I?
How can I let them into my waterless room
only to stay wide awake?
They hear me, I can tell, from miles away.
(Sharks are listening right now, I’m sending out signals.)
I’m dreaming of them. I’m wrapping my arms
around their cold, gray, magnificent bodies.
We’re both sleeping
with our shark eyes open.
But mostly, this is full of poems that are more symbolic than intimate, and I didn't quite get it.
World Versus Girl
The swinging sky patterns
itself after the inside of a giant quiver, shooting
stars at those who still cling
to the criminal bricks of their shaky morals.
Never knew a cloud to mock me so,
an amputated tree limb pointing darkly
at all the flaws inside my skin.
Ths song in my head has whiskey in it,
and a back porch full of rusted nails in mason jars.
It sounds nothing like the song in your head.
In fact, that’s the chorus.
I can hear a small angel dying on its breath.
It was so at home there once, a nest
of clean teeth and an honest-to-goodness tongue.
We can be our only judge, I suppose,
but the river never runs its hands through my hair,
never says, Good luck, girl.
Or at least never says it often enough.
I’m chock-full of bad ideas tonday,
my foul mouth worthy of a good kick.
Let’s storm the hospital!
Let’s burn the bedsheets!
I’ve been walking for a long time,
and it hasn’t made me smarter or faster,
but I bet I can still beat you.
Maybe not now, maybe not tomorrow,
but this stubborn monster-girl, gone all wrong
with the river’s sledge, is not
giving in to your one-way-ness.
World, turn all you want to,
faster even. I’ve come to like the way the breeze feels
as it rips me limb from limb.
May 1, 2020
This is actually more of a 3,5.
This collection is hard to rate because some of the poems I really liked while some of them felt either too abstract or specific for me to connect with. There were also few poems that stood out to me personally. However, I do feel that the writing style is very special and made me fall in love with lines more than the poems themselves. The title poem 𝘚𝘩𝘢𝘳𝘬𝘴 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘙𝘪𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘴 remains my favorite. The following quote is what made me look up this poem along with this book in the first place. I'm excited to see how 𝘉𝘳𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘋𝘦𝘢𝘥 𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴 will resonate with me compared to this one.
« I cannot tell anymore when a door opens or closes,
I can only hear the frame saying, 𝘞𝘢𝘭𝘬 𝘵𝘩𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩. »
This collection is hard to rate because some of the poems I really liked while some of them felt either too abstract or specific for me to connect with. There were also few poems that stood out to me personally. However, I do feel that the writing style is very special and made me fall in love with lines more than the poems themselves. The title poem 𝘚𝘩𝘢𝘳𝘬𝘴 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘙𝘪𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘴 remains my favorite. The following quote is what made me look up this poem along with this book in the first place. I'm excited to see how 𝘉𝘳𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘋𝘦𝘢𝘥 𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴 will resonate with me compared to this one.
« I cannot tell anymore when a door opens or closes,
I can only hear the frame saying, 𝘞𝘢𝘭𝘬 𝘵𝘩𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩. »
October 16, 2018
Until Goodreads I'd never heard of this poet. Was interested after reading Lisa Richter's review on another one of Limon's poetry books I'm also currently reading. Lately, I've been amazed at the poetry books I'm reading. The authenticity in poetry out there is astounding. This book and Bright Dead Things are no exception. (I am reading a couple that are pleasant enough, but nothing memorable.) Reading Ada's poems - I feel a kinship yet we are from different countries and cultures. A poet I'd love to meet. Love the alliteration, and assonance, the rhythm of the work. Her work really speaks to me.
August 29, 2020
I thought about giving this book four stars, but decided not to. It's difficult to rate poems ypu can't quite get into, and there were many of such in tthis book. I don't think that poetry needs to be understood, but one needs to be able to wander through the words, to climb the poems and see how the verses unfold.
In this collection, I was often left standing without any idea of where to go or what questions to ask. However, there were splendid poems I loved and some verses that hit very hard. I'm sure this is a very marvelous collection to read for someone else, although it wasn't entirely for me.
In this collection, I was often left standing without any idea of where to go or what questions to ask. However, there were splendid poems I loved and some verses that hit very hard. I'm sure this is a very marvelous collection to read for someone else, although it wasn't entirely for me.
July 3, 2020
Enraptured. I am enraptured with this collection of poems.
January 11, 2023
and dearest, can you tell, i’m trying to love you less
ada limón’s poetry is singularly unique. she utilizes flora and fauna imagery contrasted with bustling urban life in new york city to evoke powerful bittersweet emotions and a feeling of heavy listlessness.
i say something to god, but he’s not a living thing / so i say it to the river
her poetry sits on the tongue, burning a whole in the mouth like sweet and sour candy. there’s nothing clean about her words, about her use of language. every poem ignites a sense of depressed urgency in the reader, demands something of us just as limón offers up a little something of hers when she puts pen to paper. after finishing this collection, i need a scorching hot shower and a cup of black coffee that i have no intention of drinking until it’s already gone a bit cold.
[…] i say / i want to walk through this doorway / but without all those ghosts on the edge, / i want them to stay here. / i want them to go on without me
this collection did have a certain unfocused feel to it, as if limón wrote some of the poems in a frenzy late at night and then tiredly compiled them all into something resembling a collection later that same week. i have no doubts that limón is a good poet, but i’m not convinced this is a good poetry collection. i’m desperate to read more of her work.
[…] i want them to burn in the water.
ada limón’s poetry is singularly unique. she utilizes flora and fauna imagery contrasted with bustling urban life in new york city to evoke powerful bittersweet emotions and a feeling of heavy listlessness.
i say something to god, but he’s not a living thing / so i say it to the river
her poetry sits on the tongue, burning a whole in the mouth like sweet and sour candy. there’s nothing clean about her words, about her use of language. every poem ignites a sense of depressed urgency in the reader, demands something of us just as limón offers up a little something of hers when she puts pen to paper. after finishing this collection, i need a scorching hot shower and a cup of black coffee that i have no intention of drinking until it’s already gone a bit cold.
[…] i say / i want to walk through this doorway / but without all those ghosts on the edge, / i want them to stay here. / i want them to go on without me
this collection did have a certain unfocused feel to it, as if limón wrote some of the poems in a frenzy late at night and then tiredly compiled them all into something resembling a collection later that same week. i have no doubts that limón is a good poet, but i’m not convinced this is a good poetry collection. i’m desperate to read more of her work.
[…] i want them to burn in the water.
February 15, 2019
Fin
Tumbled in with all these sharks
swimming in the bathtub, I can’t hear you anymore.
Barracuda in the blood, the coral-gossip of these good bones.
Once I said, I wish you could pick me up at the airport.
(Air travel: big meandering of the flesh.)
You’re right here, you don’t need to be picked up.
But it’s what I want: the rough catch, the singular time.
How long have I been floating here?
Flickering letters in the fist, hitches in the throat.
The refrigerator says nothing; nor the window, nor the door.
Underwater all these things are swimming.
Fin of cold-blooded, spine-strong angelfish.
Fin of warm-blooded, streamlined tiger sharks.
Bathwater’s full of tomorrow’s spin, but still I’ll hold a fat lip kissed-dry.
Naked, I have no pocket to put you in.
Don’t fall asleep in the water.
Don’t fall asleep in the water.
My tenderness scared you—a circle around my scales,
the center of the universe, you said I was the center.
A smooth surface full of permission slips and please.
How many constructed conversations? Move your mouth this way.
Beguiled fish, haunted water, what’s the hook now?
(And all these nets under my arms.)
I’ve got the tug, I’m going under.
Tumbled in with all these sharks
swimming in the bathtub, I can’t hear you anymore.
Barracuda in the blood, the coral-gossip of these good bones.
Once I said, I wish you could pick me up at the airport.
(Air travel: big meandering of the flesh.)
You’re right here, you don’t need to be picked up.
But it’s what I want: the rough catch, the singular time.
How long have I been floating here?
Flickering letters in the fist, hitches in the throat.
The refrigerator says nothing; nor the window, nor the door.
Underwater all these things are swimming.
Fin of cold-blooded, spine-strong angelfish.
Fin of warm-blooded, streamlined tiger sharks.
Bathwater’s full of tomorrow’s spin, but still I’ll hold a fat lip kissed-dry.
Naked, I have no pocket to put you in.
Don’t fall asleep in the water.
Don’t fall asleep in the water.
My tenderness scared you—a circle around my scales,
the center of the universe, you said I was the center.
A smooth surface full of permission slips and please.
How many constructed conversations? Move your mouth this way.
Beguiled fish, haunted water, what’s the hook now?
(And all these nets under my arms.)
I’ve got the tug, I’m going under.
February 10, 2024
This collection wasn't as astounding as her later work (which I didn't expect it to be), but there are many great moments here that are classic Ada - unexpected and absolutely wonderful. I was interested in reading Limon's earlier works to study her growth and progression as a poet (as one of my favorite poets). I was also curious to read because she wrote while living in Brooklyn, rather than Kentucky, like her later three books. While there is certainly not a lack of nature in her writing here, this gives it a different, more urban feel to me.
World, turn all you want to,
faster even. I've come to like the way the breeze feels
as it rips me limb from limb.
World, turn all you want to,
faster even. I've come to like the way the breeze feels
as it rips me limb from limb.
August 13, 2024
I was actually surprised by the lack of shark appearances in this collection given the title, but when they did appear, it seemed to represent a sense of anxiety / paired with a love of kin (human and non-human). low key, more birds than anything but as always, plenty of water. “Flood Coming” and “The Widening Road” and “Fifteen Balls of Feathers” were just stunning.
November 11, 2018
i say something to god, but he's not a living thing,
so i say it to the river, i say,
i want to walk through this doorway
but without all those ghosts on the edge,
i want them to stay here.
i want them to go on without me.
i want them to burn in the water.
August 6, 2022
not my fav but by no means is it bad
4/5 stars
ada limon slays every time she publishes a collection it’s true i’m sorry
favs include how to give up, crush, fin, big star, etc.
“World, turn all you want to, faster even. I’ve come to like the way the breeze feels as it rips me limb from limb.”
4/5 stars
ada limon slays every time she publishes a collection it’s true i’m sorry
favs include how to give up, crush, fin, big star, etc.
“World, turn all you want to, faster even. I’ve come to like the way the breeze feels as it rips me limb from limb.”
May 29, 2024
"i remember thinking this was what life was, and what i had always wanted; being pressed on a warm, flat rock, our wet imprint there as if it would matter, i am holding on. i am holding on"
that's it.
that's it.
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