REVIEW:
Startlement, New and Selected Poems

Runestone, volume 12

REVIEW:
Startlement, New and Selected Poems

Runestone, volume 12

Review by Isa Sanchez-Esparza

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As an aspiring young poet and writer of color myself, reading the work of the 24th poet laureate (who is also the first Latina woman to ever hold that title) left me with a buzz that I can’t quite explain. After a long few weeks of built-up anticipation, the package arrived and I ripped the grey packaging wide open as soon as I had set my bag down in my bedroom. Imagine my surprise when I flip open the first page of the book to find text that reads as follows: “THIS EDITION OF STARTLEMENT HAS BEEN SIGNED BY THE 24TH POET LAUREATE OF THE UNITED STATES, ADA LIMÓN,” (Limón). And there it was, Ada Limón’s signature written with black ink, and an effortlessly smooth signature which I can roughly make out as the initials ‘A.L.’ 

I was one of the lucky people who was early enough to preorder Startelment, at least, early enough in the bunch to get myself a signed copy of this book. Knowing that the poet I deeply admire had touched the very book I had held in my own hands evoked this feeling of inspiration and excitement only known to children. I showed my parents the front page when they came home that night. And as my enthrallment began to unravel, my journey with Startlement began.

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Startlement is a poetry collection like no other, one where Limón has gifted readers with an in-depth exploration of her own life, as well as the natural world around us. Something unique to Startlement that I haven’t really found in other collections is how Limón added selected poems from her previous collections to help build upon this newest one. This begins to not only weave the meaning of Startlement but the story behind it as well. 

Startlement means to be pleasantly surprised by something ‘unexpected’ or ‘unusual’. Limón highlights and embraces what the word ‘startlement’ means. Reading the collection felt like I was walking down the path of life, hand in hand with the author as she showed me the most vulnerable parts of herself while also trying to tell me a story. A story that tells me who she is, and what it means to be connected to an ever-changing world, one that may not always be happy, but despite that, it will always be beautiful.

In Limón’s new poetry, she offers us a breath of fresh air. With twenty-one new poems to present to the world, Startlement is a narrative that has been built to show us how Limón thinks and feels about the natural world. This is abundantly clear in her first poem of the collection “The Endlessness”. She states, “How was I supposed to feel then? About/ moving in the world? How could I touch anything/ or anyone without the weight of all time shifting/ through us?” (Limón, 163). “The Endlessness” frames the Startlement collection with the question of ‘how should we feel about moving in a world that is constantly changing?’ With poems like “Field”, “Mortality”, and “Literary Theory”, which discuss topics of language, life, and the world after death, Limón begins to paint the narrative of navigating an ever-changing world. When people die, how do we grieve them? When the land changes, what do the memories of those places do to us? These poems answer these questions and the themes begin to unravel further. 

By the time we make it to the title poem, Ada Limón has given us an array of poetry that asks questions about the world and answers them as well. This poem is an embodiment of the word it’s titled after. “Startlement” is a poem about the surprises of the natural world, and what Limón writes as the world saying, “What we are becoming, we are/ becoming together.” (Limón, 194). In a world where climate change is at the forefront of many people’s minds, this poem engages with its readers not only to spark curiosity for the natural world but also as an inspiration from the authors of the NCA5 and their dedication to the awareness of climate change. Ada Limón writes this in her notes about some of the poems of this particular collection. ‘Startlement’ was written for this particular issue and was crafted for this purpose. ‘Startlement’ was chosen for the title not only to evoke an emotion of curiosity, but also to provide readers with a different perspective and narrative for not only her new collection of poetry, but also all of her old ones as well. Startlement invites us to think about the world around us, how we interact with it, how we change it, and how it changes us. And if you couldn’t tell already, it has been one of the best collections I have ever experienced.