Friday, November 14, 2025

Startlement: New and Selected Poems by Ada Limón: Book Beginnings on Fridays, First Line Friday, The Friday 56, and Book Blogger Hop

   





Today's Featured Book: 

Startlement: New and Selected Poems

by Ada Limón

Genre: Poetry

Published: September 30, 2025

Page Count: 232 pages

Summary: 

An essential collection spanning nearly twenty years of emphatic, fearlessly original poetry from one of America’s most celebrated living writers.

Drawing from six previously published books—including widely acclaimed collections The Hurting KindThe Carrying, and Bright Dead Things—as well as vibrant new work,  Startlement exalts the mysterious. With a tender curiosity, Ada Limón wades into potent unknowns—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.




 


BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAY is hosted by Rose City ReaderWhat book are you happy about reading this week? Please share the opening sentence (or so) on BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAY! Add the link to your blog or social media post and visit other blogs to see what others are reading.

Happy Friday and welcome to the FIRST LINE FRIDAY, hosted by Reading is My Superpower! It’s time to grab the book nearest to you and leave a comment with the first line.


We solved the problem of the wind
                                                 with an orange.

Now we've got the problem
                                                 of the orange.







THE FRIDAY 56 is hosted by Anne of Head Full of Books. To play, open a book and turn to page 56 (or 56% on your e-reader). Find a sentence or two and post them, along with the book title and author. Then link up on Head Full of Books and visit others in the linky. 



After your father gets lost for the third time,
          you get angry because he won't answer his phone.

Part of me wants him to stay lost. God, what has stolen my generosity?









I only bought one book at the Texas Book Festival for myself---Startlement: New and Selected Poems by Ada Limón. 

I heard Limón speak to an almost-full room at the festival.

Limón was the Poet Laureate of the United States from 2023 to 2025. You are young to have a new-and-selected collection, the moderator, a fellow poet, remarks. Are there poems you've written and published that you wish you had not written and published?

I am who I was, Limón responds. These poems mark the arc of my life, the arc of a poet. 

The power of noticing is not as much a writing practice, she says, as it is a human daily practice, a practice of being alive. 

It's so easy to miss your own life, Limón tells us. 

Limón goes on to say, The wonderful thing about writing poetry is that it's an offering to the world. It's about loving. 

Sometimes Limón notices something about herself. Am I hungry? Thirsty? she asks herself. No, she realizes, I need to make something.






The purpose of THE BOOK BLOGGER HOP is to give bloggers a chance to follow other blogs, learn about new books, and befriend other bloggers. THE BOOK BLOGGER HOP is hosted by Ramblings of a Coffee Addicted Writer   

November 14th - Are you good at guessing plot twists? (submitted by Snapdragon @ Snapdragon Alcove)

No, I never figure out where a story is going, not even in a children's picture book. Plot, like life, is always a mystery.


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