Sharks in the Rivers

The speaker in this extraordinary collection finds herself multiply dislocated: from her childhood in California, from her family''s roots in Mexico, from a dying parent, from her prior self. The world is always in motion and it is also full of risk.

In such a world, how should one proceed? Throughout Sharks in the Rivers, Limón suggests that we must cleave to the world as it ''keep[s] opening before us,'' for, if we pay attention, we can be one with its complex, ephemeral, and beautiful strangeness. Loss is perpetual, and each person''s mouth ''is the same / mouth as everyone''s, all trying to say the same thing.'' For Limón, it''s the saying - individual and collective - that transforms each of us into ''a wound overcome by wonder,'' that allows ''the wind itself'' to be our ''own wild whisper''.