A whole dissertation could be written about Limón’s use of animals in her work, and here the quietly despairing speaker contemplating a world that seems hell-bent on destroying itself focuses on the image of her dog heading straight for the oncoming pick-up trucks.ĩ. The poem concludes, however – in ways which may recall Michael Donaghy’s wonderful sonnet ‘ The Present’ – with the consolation that the here-and-now is perhaps enough.Ī 2016 poem which helps us to see that, no matter what topic an Ada Limón poem is discussing, an animal is usually to be found. Using the rhetorical device of anaphora, Limón posits a series of possible or ‘conditional’ statements, ranging once more from the cosmic to the domestic. Here’s a slightly earlier poem, from 2013.

This poem needs to be understood in the context of the recent pandemic, and the era of ‘social distancing’, to be fully appreciated: published in 2021, it is about a world in waiting – waiting for everything to be ‘open for business’ once more, waiting for pleasure to return, and waiting, even, for the word ‘lover’ to attain its old meaning again. See also the poet’s masterly use of enjambment or run-on lines to sweep us along the tide of the poem’s emotions. Here’s a fine example of how deftly an Ada Limón poem can move between the delicately lyrical and the down-to-earth and colloquial: contrast the first sentence of ‘Lover’ with the second to see what we mean. Asked by a reader to describe what suffering is, the poet instead finds joy in watching a female groundhog as she joyously feeds on the poet’s unripe tomatoes. In this 2020 poem, Limón shows that the label ‘nature poet’, whilst not the most accurate categorisation of her work, is not entirely inappropriate.

Bright dead things poet