The Carrying: Poems
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The Carrying: Poems Audible Audiobook – Unabridged

Ada Limón (Author, Narrator), Milkweed Editions (Publisher)
4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 564 ratings
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WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD

FINALIST FOR THE PEN/JEAN STEIN BOOK AWARD

From U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón comes The Carrying—her most powerful collection yet.

Vulnerable, tender, acute, these are serious poems, brave poems, exploring with honesty the ambiguous moment between the rapture of youth and the grace of acceptance. A daughter tends to aging parents. A woman struggles with infertility—“What if, instead of carrying / a child, I am supposed to carry grief?”—and a body seized by pain and vertigo as well as ecstasy. A nation convulses: “Every song of this country / has an unsung third stanza, something brutal.” And still Limón shows us, as ever, the persistence of hunger, love, and joy, the dizzying fullness of our too-short lives. “Fine then, / I’ll take it,” she writes. “I’ll take it all.”

In Bright Dead Things, Limón showed us a heart “giant with power, heavy with blood”—“the huge beating genius machine / that thinks, no, it knows, / it’s going to come in first.” In her follow-up collection, that heart is on full display—even as The Carrying continues further and deeper into the bloodstream, following the hard-won truth of what it means to live in an imperfect world.

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  1. Listening Length
    1 hour and 39 minutes
  2. Author
    Ada Limón
  3. Narrator
    Ada Limón
  4. Audible release date
    March 28, 2023
  5. Language
    English
  6. Publisher
    Milkweed Editions
  7. ASIN
    B0BYG7ZZ48
  8. Version
    Unabridged
  9. Program Type
    Audiobook
  10. See all details
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Product details

Listening Length 1 hour and 39 minutes
Author Ada Limón
Narrator Ada Limón
Whispersync for Voice Ready
Audible.com Release Date March 28, 2023
Publisher Milkweed Editions
Program Type Audiobook
Version Unabridged
Language English
ASIN B0BYG7ZZ48
Best Sellers Rank #49,037 in Audible Books & Originals (See Top 100 in Audible Books & Originals)
#7 in Family Poetry (Audible Books & Originals)
#13 in Love Poetry
#29 in Hispanic American Poetry

Customer reviews

4.6 out of 5 stars
4.6 out of 5
564 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Jennifer Paquette
5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful poetry
Reviewed in the United States on November 30, 2022
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It should not be a surprise that the writer is the current Poet Laureate of the U.S. Her poems are lovely, often lyrical, insightful and a joy to spend time with each line in each poem. Her poems easily open the heart and the eyes, each truly a delight to read and to read again.
4 people found this helpful
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woahwoahwoahwhat
5.0 out of 5 stars A Worthy Follow-Up to Bright Dead Things
Reviewed in the United States on September 26, 2018
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Ada Limon’s poems are like a daydream. Consider your most peaceful moments—the contemplative, content ones where you get to observe a moment in your life as if it were in a museum. Consider thinking and not thinking, transcending thought, absorbing and experiencing, contributing and receiving. In The Carrying, Limon writes about her life with impressionistic grace, conjuring all the soaring triumph of a quiet moment during golden hour. She does this even when writing about what’s difficult: grappling with her struggles to have a child, struggling with self-image, considering what it means to love and be loved. Her poems are fiercely personal, and because of that they are universal in their beauty. Like all good poets, Ada Limon offers no answers through her work, but offers her company while we play with questions. The result is a comforting and deeply human collection that embodies the strength and curiosity of the nature she so frequently invokes. If you don’t know Ada Limon, I am envious of you. The only thing more perfect than experiencing her is discovering her.
17 people found this helpful
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doc peterson
4.0 out of 5 stars Slow to start, strong to finish
Reviewed in the United States on November 12, 2018
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I heard Ada Limon read "Wonder Woman" on the radio, and was so moved by it, that I had to pick up the book. The collection is, to borrow a metaphor from a previous reviewer, a thunderstorm. It is slow to start - the first 18 poems didn't really grab me or really capture my imagination. But like a storm, the pressure builds until there is a tremendous release and torrent. So, too, here, as the remaining two-thirds of the collection really hit me where I live. Among my favorites are her "The Contract Says: We'd Like the Conversation to be Bi-lingual" in which Limon writes,

"When you come, bring your brown-
ness so we can be sure to please

the funders. Will you check this
box; we're applying for a grant.

Do you have any poems that speak
to troubled teens? Bilingual is best. ..."

Several of her poems seem to be of a more personal nature, which I struggled connecting with. Those that touched on issues of politics, race, gender and broader descriptions of relationships and life resonated more with me - like "Wonder Woman" and "Instructions on Not Giving Up":

"More than the fuchsia funnels breaking out
of the crabapple tree, more than the neighbor's
almost obscene display of cherry limbs shoving
their cotton-candy colored blossoms to the slate
sky of spring rains, its the greening of the trees
that really gets to me ..."

I am glad that I pushed through the first section of the collection - the images, the perspectives, the emotions that Limon stirred in me through her poems were why I read poetry in the first place: they capture moments in time and open a door through which I can connect with the poet. A beautiful anthology.
24 people found this helpful
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KLS
5.0 out of 5 stars She is a first rate poet
Reviewed in the United States on April 1, 2023
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I'm so pleased that she is the new poet laureate of the United States. Her poems are first rate -- deeply emotional, deeply intelligent, and also accessible.
4 people found this helpful
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Joanie Hieger Zosike
5.0 out of 5 stars This is a voice to love
Reviewed in the United States on July 20, 2021
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This is a voice that is worldly wise, and I mean wise in the sense of cherishing her world. A voice engaged in nurturing that world. This is a voice whose owner is uncertain about her own strengths, a modest, sometimes almost self-effacing voice. This is an earth mother’s voices and the voice of a woman who is childless. But she cannot help but nurture nature, cherish her mate, bond with the sparrows over birdsong. This is a writer who loves language with a giving, generous spirit, giving life to her ideas and emotions, and allowing them to breathe. I look forward to reading her other collections. She picked me up and returned me to the ground, hence carrying me to a very pure place.
11 people found this helpful
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Cali Muchacha
5.0 out of 5 stars Luscious imagery, wonderful stories
Reviewed in the United States on October 23, 2020
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Ada Limón is a superb poet whose writing spans pedestrian, but never ordinary, mystical, but never nostalgic, satisfying, yet not larded, stories. This is one of those books that I read, and re-read, never in the same order. I simply open to a page and let her work amaze me.
3 people found this helpful
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Shelby Peeden
3.0 out of 5 stars 3/5 Stars
Reviewed in the United States on July 2, 2023
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This was just not preferred brand of poetry. While there were some really excellent lines, a lot of which I highlighted, it just wasn't to my tastes.
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memorrow
5.0 out of 5 stars Profoundly poignant but grim.
Reviewed in the United States on July 19, 2022
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The author is truly original; delving deeply into the hardest human emotions in a unique style that is both personal and universal. However, I struggled with the weight of unrelenting bleakness.
3 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

Andrea Tmz
5.0 out of 5 stars 50/50
Reviewed in Mexico on November 21, 2023
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there are poems that are really enjoyed and were breathless by them, others were okay
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Christina Strigas
5.0 out of 5 stars Loved this poetry book
Reviewed in Canada on November 3, 2021
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I loved everything about this poetry book. From beginning to end, from the middle, from the top to bottom. If I could give it ten stars I would. I folded so many pages to go back to read the poems. Most of them touched me deeply and I felt a connection to them. It's rare these days that happens. This is a special poetry book to keep close. I highly recommend it.
3 people found this helpful
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Natasha Hewson
5.0 out of 5 stars Great poetry
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 3, 2023
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Really good book, great value, would definitely recommend
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a reader
5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful poetry
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 28, 2020
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I devoured these and then bought her previous book. Just great.
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