WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FOR POETRY 2019 n n Ada Limon is a poet of ecstatic revelation . . . a book of deep wisdom and urgent vulnerability Tracy K. Smith, Guardian n n Vulnerable, tender, acute . . . The Carrying is a gift Natasha Trethewey, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and former US Poet Laureate n n Exquisite poems Roxane Gay n n From National Book Critics Circle Award Winner Ada Limon comes The Carrying - her most powerful collection yet. n n 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 Limon shows us, as ever, the persistence of hunger, love, and joy, the dizzying fullness of our too-short lives. Fine then, / Ill take it, she writes. Ill take it all. n n The Carrying leads us deeper towards the hard-won truth of what it means to live in an imperfect world. n