The Hurting Kind

Following the National Book Critics Circle Award–winning The Carrying, U.S. Poet Laureate Limón’s latest is divided into four sections by season. But though she closely and caringly observes the flora and fauna around her, Limón is not offering a naturefest. Instead, she shows how we are enfolded in the world, how we move through not just the seasons but the years. “It’s like staring into an original joy,” she proclaims on a mountaintop, and she wants to tap into that joy while bringing us along with her. The “Spring” poems celebrate not just coming to life but overcoming, while the “Summer” poems reflect desire: “I do not want to kill the longing woman in me,” she declares, and ends one poem about trees seeming to kiss, “Come/ home. Everything is begging you.” “Fall” is not just a time for “sad privacy” but for reimagining; “What good is accuracy in the perpetual/ scattering that unspools the world.” And that leads easily into the sweet nostalgia of “Winter” and preparations for the next round: “the world walking in, ready to be ravaged, open for business.” The title poem queries our ties to past, family, and identity but concludes encouragingly: “Love ends. But what if it doesn’t.”