I expected to meet a stranger, someone naive and very different than what I remember, but Lucky Wreck is not a stranger at all. Lucky Wreck is me at the beginning, at a doorway. It is, quite simply, where ‘I’ began.

The poems in Lucky Wreck trace the excitement of plans and the necessary swerving detours we must take when those plans fail. Looking to shipwrecks on the television, road trips ending in traffic accidents, and homes that become sites of infestation, Ada Limón finds threads of hope amid an array of small tragedies and significant setbacks. Open, honest, and grounded, the poems in this collection seek answers to familiar questions and teach us ways to cope with the pain of many losses with earnestness and humor. Through the wrecks, these poems continue to offer assurance.

Celebrating the fifteenth anniversary of Limón’s award-winning debut, this edition includes a new introduction by the poet that reflects on the book and on how her writing practice has developed over time.