The Carrying by Ada Limón

Ada Limón is one of my absolute favorite writers, and The Carrying might be the best book of hers I’ve read. Limón writes with a tenderness and realness of connection with her subject and her reader that I’ve never seen anywhere else. The Carrying begins with the poem “A Name.” I saw this poem on the wall of a subway car in New York a few years ago, before I had heard of Limón, and have carried a picture of it on my phone to reread over and over. I’ve heard Limón read other poems from this collection. Every time I encountered these again in reading this book, I marveled at how perfect they are, like seeing a friend you aren’t thinking about in a place you don’t expect. Delight, but a little guilt that she wasn’t always in your thoughts. Buy here.

A Name

When Eve walked among 

the animals and named them—

nightingale, red-shouldered hawk,

fiddler crab, fallow deer—

I wonder if she ever wanted

them to speak back, looked into

their wide wonderful eyes and 

whispered, Name me, name me.