The Hurting Kind is Limón’s sixth book in just over 15 years.

But the last sentence, which ends the first poem and introduces the rest of the book, might not be just contrastive: another way of reading it is to recognize not only the woodchuck but the speaker’s “she” as simultaneously “funny” and “earnest.” Both adjectives are apt for much of The Hurting Kind, a collection of poems entangled with pervasive sorrow. Initially this poem seems to express a well-known contrast: unconscious nonhuman “pleasure” versus the “suffering” that comes with being human, a member of a species not only aware of but interested in discussing its suffering. She is a funny creature and earnest,Īnd she is doing what she can to survive. Me, a small spasm of joy I did not imagine I watch the groundhog more closely and a sound escapes Barbed wire pulled out of the mouth,Īs if demanding that I kneel to the trap of coiled Limón then turns to a situation distinctive to people, and familiar to writers - a letter out appearing of nowhere: and “waddle-thieving” makes the inflected verb sound as leisurely as an afternoon picnic, with time for one to imagine what the green tomatoes would taste like, “watery bites” that lead to the “delight” often absent from human life. “Muscle and bristle” sonically relate the animal’s two most salient characteristics. Why am I not allowedĭespite the speaker’s plaintive reaction, “delight” runs through these phrases, in both the accuracy and playfulness of description.

Munch and stand on her haunches, taking such Slippery and waddle-thieving my tomatoes, still

Moving, all muscle and bristle: a groundhog The world does not have enough good poems with woodchucks, so I was happy to find a vivid one on the first page of The Hurting Kind.

Bright dead things poems