Published in May, Ada Limón’s newest poetry collection, The Hurting Kind, is a crash course on the very fundamentals of being a human and feeling like one too. Published by Milkweed Editions, this collection is intrinsically linked to the workings of both the natural world and the man-made one. Limón focuses predominantly on the wildlife she encounters and the ways in which those experiences allow her to better look inward.
Limón is not a new name in poetry circles—her collection The Carrying (2018) won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry. She was a finalist for the same award, as well as the National Book Award, for Bright Dead Things (2015). Her other works include Sharks in the Rivers and Lucky Wreck. These collections, The Hurting Kind included, all unerringly share a very grounded and vivid sense of place.
The Hurting Kind explores the author’s garden, remote creeks and the vast expanse in-between. Divided into four sections—one for each season—the book begins with poem ‘Give Me This’, a touching little commentary on the joy found in small moments, how those small moments are ever-spreading ripples even in the pool of suffering that so often seems greater. Limón simultaneously portrays life realistically and makes it seem sleeker and smoother than it is in actuality. Words such as “muscle” and “bristle” go hand-in-hand. It would be incorrect to say that her prose drips with vivid imagery because that would imply oversaturation, but the vividness is indeed there. Limón’s optimism is giddy yet grounded. A groundhog stealing her tomatoes is “a funny creature and earnest, and she is doing what she can to survive”.
The collection’s titular poem is perhaps one of its strongest. It is about, in part, the death of a grandfather. The concept of grief is deftly woven throughout the collection but comes to a head here. “You can’t sum it up. A life.” People, here, are portrayed as messy and wonderfully complicated, and both here and within the collection is carried the message that no matter how much weight your mind might be carrying at one time, life has to go on. At some point, whatever is happening will pass. It may not be as quickly or slowly as you expect, but it will. The collection’s commentary on sadness and difficulty does not wallow in sadness, sinking through the depths of it, but just lets it sit naturally for as long as it needs, then shrugs it off again.
An important aspect of Limón’s wildlife in poems is that although there is a sentimental aspect to her description of living things, they are not anthropomorphised. They don’t need to be. In ‘Drowning Creek’ she describes a Belted Kingfisher: “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.” She loves these creatures—so does the reader, possibly before reading the book and definitely after—but they do not need to love her in return. Everything shown within this collection is all the more loveable for the authenticity with which it is portrayed.
This poem, and the book, seem to be dedicated to those who feel things the most deeply and sharply. Those who hurt for other people and other creatures all the time. When reading, one gets the feeling that if Limón can love and respect those among us who are the most sensitive and the most hurting, they can love and respect themselves too.
Words by Casey Langton
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