Praise for Startlement
"Limón just ended two terms as the United States poet laureate, on top of a heaping pile of other accolades she has earned throughout her career. This volume of new and selected poems shows why: With a voice that is charming and warmly personal, Limón offers work across a gratifying variety of forms and pays scrupulous attention to her readers. Her best poems are garrulous, funny and heart-on-sleeve even when being a little wicked."–New York Times Editor's Choice
"A very fine poet. . . . Limón's characteristic voice is casual, even chatty . . . and warmly personal. . . . It's garrulous, funny and heart-on-sleeve even when being a little wicked."–New York Times Book Review
"This volume of new and selected poems by the twenty-fourth Poet Laureate of the United States lucidly illuminates moments of beauty and peculiarity, intimacy and loneliness, experienced in the natural world and in the course of everyday living. Several entries originally appeared in the magazine, including "The End of Poetry" " . . . enough sorrow, enough of the air and its ease, / I am asking you to touch me."–New Yorker, "Best Books of the Year (So Far)"
"With Startlement, Limón demonstrates her brilliance, gathering 21 new poems and 102 from her previous books, all of which precisely observe life with emotional clarity. To read her is to want to keep quoting lines until people surrender and pick up her books. . . . Limón's work illuminates the value of an individual life that might otherwise feel minuscule, as well as the moments that reveal 'how the Earth was made.'"–Minnesota Star Tribune
"Ada Limón, who recently completed her tenure as U.S. poet laureate, conveys the natural world's beauty and delights in her gorgeous Startlement: New and Selected Poems. Isn't it a joy that one of our finest wordsmiths knows talk has its limits, that phrases can't precisely convey the chatter of birds or how wind hums? As she writes in 'Mortality': 'Language, I love it, but it is of the air / and we are of the earth.'" –Garden & Gun
"Ada Limón writes poems of haunting that also operate as poems of joy. That this is not a paradox may be what's most exemplary about her work. Through six collections, she has created a space that balances introspection and observation, identity and nature, the inner and the outer worlds. . . . To call [Startlement] capacious would be an understatement; it represents a career overview, after all. And yet, Startlement is not a retrospective but rather a vehicle for considering Limón's career anew. . . . An essential quality of Limón's work is the texture of her writing, with its astonishing range and sensitivity."–Alta Journal, "Why You Should Read This"
"What is evident is the lucidity and beauty of her work over six poetry collections. . . . Certain works from these collections appear now in her breathtaking Startlement: New and Selected Poems, along with around 20 new poems. Startlement allows us to trace the evolution of Limón's aesthetic over nearly two decades, from characters longing for love to work that seems to slide back the superficies of the world, allowing us to see it more fully, more particularly, lured forward by the passionate, wholehearted energy of striking lines, intelligently enjambed. Read aloud and be awed."–Alta, California Book Club announcement
"The U.S. poet laureate's seventh collection of poetry is rooted in the land, but gives voice to the transcendent. The compendium features selections from Limón's first six books, along with an entirely new collection of her word magic."–Los Angeles Times, "30 books to read this fall"
"With six poetry collections under her belt, Ada Limón is looking back at nearly 20 years of work - drawing poems from The Hurting Kind, The Carrying and Bright Dead Things - and featuring new poems in Startlement. The Poet Laureate of the United States since 2022, Limon continues to wade into the unknown, including the 'strangeness of our brief human lives, the ever-changing nature of the universe and emerges each time with new revelations about our place in the world.'" –USA Today
"Limón has established herself as a lyricist of enrapturing narrative, astonishing intimacy, and unmatched insight into quotidian connections between human and animal worlds across her six widely acclaimed collections. . . . A fine testament to the life's work of a poet for our times."–Booklist, starred review
"Limón's ability to connect the individual to the universal is fully displayed here. . . . An essential choice for any collection of modern American poetry."–Library Journal, starred review
"In a retrospective spanning two decades, former U.S. poet laureate Limón captures the mind and soul with exquisite linguistic mastery and vision that will compel readers to earmark every other sentence. Limón raises the standards for elegy, needling the heart with surgical, diaphanous, and cathartic reverie."–Publishers Weekly, starred review
"I marvel at Ada Limón's ability to weave on the page her playfulness and wisdom. Her lyricism dances. This is the poetry of a tender and compassionate human."–Joan Baez, singer-songwriter and author of When You See My Mother, Ask Her to Dance
"Startlement is a book of rare treasures. With lyrical mastery and intimate storytelling, Limón's poetry reveals new ways of paying attention. This powerful collection is a gift."–Amy Tan, author of The Backyard Bird Chronicles
