Published: 2018
Author: Ada Limón
Genre: Poetry Collection
Audience: High School (Grades 11–12) / Adult
Number of Stars: ★★★★★
Goodreads Link: The Carrying
Content Warnings: Infertility/fertility struggles, chronic pain, and mild language.
Diversity: Ada Limón is Mexican-American and was named the 24th U.S. Poet Laureate (and the first Latina to hold the position).
Publisher’s Summary
From National Book Award and National Book Critics Circle Award finalist 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.
Review
This lovely collection of poetry is both an offering of wisdom and a gorgeous meditation on life. Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award, Limón writes poems that are deeply moving, accessible, and profound. Her subjects range from our national anthem and bilingual identity to the natural world and everyday life in Kentucky, where she resides.
Many of the poems are autobiographical in nature, allowing the reader to intimately learn about Limón’s personal landscape. Central to this collection are themes of names, lineage, fertility, and chronic physical pain. Limón writes “for the people,” avoiding dense, exclusionary jargon in favor of a clear, realistic diction and an understandable structure. This heartfelt collection touches the reader in unexpected ways and is a book you will find yourself returning to again and again. Her words are an absolute gift, and I highly recommend this collection.
🔍 Thematic Analysis: The Multi-Layered Meaning of “Carrying”
The title The Carrying serves as a brilliant linguistic anchor. Throughout the collection, Limón explores how the concept of “carrying” shifts from a physical impossibility to an emotional duty.
- Carrying a Child (The Void of Infertility): The collection deals heavily with the grief of trying to conceive and letting go of that expectation. The body becomes a space that carries absence rather than life.
- Carrying the Body (Chronic Pain & Vertigo): Limón chronicles living with a body that is sometimes uncooperative, dealing with physical ailments while trying to remain anchored to the earth.
- Carrying Ancestry & History: As a Latina writer, Limón notes the weight of carrying familial legacies, language, and the fractured, “unsung third stanza” of American history and identity.
- Carrying Nature (The Kentucky Landscape): The poems are rooted in horses, soil, trees, and gardens. Nature is not just a backdrop; it is a force that carries the characters through their grief, demonstrating cycles of renewal and acceptance.
🎒 Classroom & Curricular Connections
- English Language Arts (Poetry Analysis & Diction):
- Activity Idea: “The Ordinary as Extraordinary.” Limón writes using simple and accessible language to describe everyday events. Have students select a completely mundane object or routine (e.g., pulling weeds, making morning coffee) and write a free-verse poem that uncovers a deeper emotional truth within that ordinary moment.
- Social Studies & Civics (National Identity & Perspectives):
- Activity Idea: “The Unsung Stanza.” Read and analyze Limón’s poems that critique or reflect on American identity and the national anthem. Have students discuss how literature can be used as a tool for civil critique, personal patriotism, and exploring the diverse realities of living in the United States.
- Creative Writing (The Poetry of Place):
- Activity Idea: Limón’s shift to Kentucky deeply influences the natural imagery in this book. Have students write a “Landscape Poem” that uses regional flora, fauna, or weather patterns unique to their own town or state to reflect their current internal mood.
- Interdisciplinary Art Integration (Visualizing Verse):
- Activity Idea: Pair specific poems from The Carrying with visual art pieces that deal with light, shadow, and nature. Have students create a mixed-media presentation or collage that pairs a poem’s text with textures (like soil, leaves, or textiles) to emphasize Limón’s grounded, tactile style.
🏷️ Tags
11-12,
