Startlement: New and Selected Poems

“Startlement is a book of rare treasures. With lyrical mastery and intimate storytelling, Limón’s poetry reveals new ways of paying attention. This powerful collection is a gift.”—Amy Tan

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 Kind, The 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.

Both a lush overview of her work and a powerful narrative of a poet’s life, this curation embodies Limón’s capacity for “deep attention,” her “power to open us up to the wonder and awe that the world still inspires” (The New York Times). From the chaos of youthful desire, to the waxing of love and loss, to the precarity of our environment, to the stars and beyond, Limón’s poetry bears witness to the arc of all we know with patient lyricism and humble wonder.

“A poet of ecstatic revelation” (Tracy K. Smith), Limón encourages us to meet our shared futures with open and hungry hearts, assuring “What we are becoming, we are / becoming together.”

© 2025 Milkweed Editions (Ebook): 9781639550524

Release date

Ebook: 30 September 2025