In this collection, Ada Limón examines the physical realities of infertility, chronic spinal pain, and the death of a stepmother. She situates these personal hardships against the cyclical nature of the landscape, specifically the flora and fauna of Kentucky and California. The poems document a woman navigating medical appointments and failed treatments while trying to reconcile her desire for a child with the limitations of her anatomy. Limón writes about the labor of caring for aging parents and the heavy mental load of sustaining a marriage through periods of quiet grief and bodily rebellion.
Readers interested in how personal trauma interacts with the natural world will find a mirror for their own experiences with loss. This book is for those who live with invisible disabilities or have faced the end of a reproductive path. The reader walks away with a blunt understanding of how to exist in a body that does not always function as intended. They receive a vocabulary for the intersections of environmental beauty and human fragility, providing a way to hold both joy and physical discomfort simultaneously.
- Published
- 2018
- Language
- EN
