The Carrying by Ada Limón (review)

Ada Limón's new book, The Carrying, is an adroit attempt at naming things, at putting into words the indescribable, grasping the elusory human conditions of living and longing and death. This is not a simple task, so The Carrying is a book full of questions, about identity, convoluted feelings, splendor and revulsion residing in the same tumultuous space we call home. Limón's title evokes both her ardent desire to have a baby and the burden of bringing another human being into a world where our loved ones pass away and the highways are littered with animals killed by speeding commuters. She wants to know: "What if, instead of carrying / a child, I am supposed to carry grief" (Limón 13)? It's with a heavy heart that Limón delivers urgent messages for our culture about contemplating the speed with which we drive toward death and our lack of time for commiseration with nature.

The activities in the poems are a way to stave off death and despair by tending to the living, whether it be a conversation with a friend calling in distress over the loss of a sister or the planting of natural things that will grow and add goodness to a polluted environment. These actions are a resistance to the violence and corruption of the world. In "The Leash," Limón lists some of the problems humans create and then struggle against—bombs, automatic weapons, pollution, hate. In this poem, the speaker is reaching for a semblance of hope in the midst of so much suffering, but acknowledging that the issues we're up against may be too many: "Reader, I want to / say: Don't die. Even when silvery fish after fish / comes back belly up, and the country plummets / into a crepitating crater of hatred, isn't there still / something singing? The truth is: I don't know" (Limón 6). The speaker is addressing the audience directly in these lines, asking for assistance in understanding just how much hope there is to hang on to because, despite all signs leading elsewhere, she holds out for a positive outcome, some sliver of light.

Limón's speakers are digging in the dirt in these poems, both physically and metaphorically, grounding themselves in the earth of their gardens, delving deep into the conundrum of human existence. "… I can't stop / putting plants in the ground. There's a hunger in me, / a need to watch something grow" (Limón 76). The speakers in Limón's poems are looking at themselves and their daily activities, trying to decipher what it means to be women and mothers and human beings alongside other, simpler living things like raccoons and beetles and horses. And, yes, the horses are back again in this collection.

In Limón's 2015 book, Bright Dead Things, horses abound, signifying strength and female power, and revealing the connection between nature and humanity. The horses in The Carrying are strong and capable as well, defying human expectations:

Then the horse comes out, first just casually trottingwith his lead horse, and all at once, a brief breakin the storm, and he's racing against no onebut himself and the o≈cial clockers, monstrouslyfast and head down so we can see that faded starflash on his forehead like this is real gladness.

(Limón 14)

There is a glimpse of hope in the recognition of the spirit to win in this horse, the animal (and human) capacity for not only survival but triumph. It's easy to see why Limón relates to horses. She is poised as well, watching for the skies to clear, no matter the forecast.

The Carrying is divided into three unnamed sections. The first is full of babies and women and animals, the connections between. It's also threaded with seasons and birds and stars, and an intense feeling of anxiety as Limón attempts to write of the ordinary moments that fuel our existence alongside all the ways we might at any...