Bright Dead Things by, Ada Limn

Bright Dead Things examines the chaos that is life, the dangerous thrill of living in a world you know you have to leave one day, and the search to find something that is ultimately disorderly, and marvelous, and ours.

A book of bravado and introspection, of 21st century feminist swagger and harrowing terror and loss, this fourth collection considers how we build our identities out of place and human contacttracing in intimate detail the various ways the speakers sense of self both shifts and perseveres as she moves from New York City to rural Kentucky, loses a dear parent, ages past the capriciousness of youth, and falls in love. Limn has often been a poet who wears her heart on her sleeve, but in these extraordinary poems that heart becomes a huge beating genius machine striving to embrace and understand the fullness of the present moment. I am beautiful. I am full of love. I am dying, the poet writes. Building on the legacies of forebears such as Frank OHara, Sharon Olds, and Mark Doty, Limns work is consistently generous and accessiblethough every observed moment feels complexly thought, felt, and lived.