A Guide to U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón’s Poems

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The Library of Congress has named 23 U.S. Poet Laureates since the presumption was renamed successful 1985, and they person named their 24th: Ada Limón, writer of six poesy collections, 5 of which person either won oregon been nominated for a multitude of awards. Limón is lone 1 of eight pistillate poets laureate, and the seventh writer of colour to clasp the position. She is preceded by Joy Harjo, who served 3 terms.

Limón began her word successful precocious 2022, and has not yet declared what task she volition enactment connected portion she holds the presumption (part of what a Poet Laureate does). In the meantime, she has an awesome and gorgeous assemblage of enactment to determination over, and that’s precisely what we’re going to do. If you’ve ne'er acceptable immoderate of Adam Limón’s poems, this is the primer to commencement with.

Who is Ada Limón?

Before we dive in, a small inheritance connected 1 of the top modern poets of our time.

Ada Limón grew up successful Sonoma, California, and present lives successful agrarian Kentucky with her husband, their pug Lily Bean, and their feline Olive. She holds an MFA from the originative penning programme astatine New York University, worked astatine assorted magazines during her clip successful NYC, and teaches poesy remotely astatine Queens University of Charlotte. She besides happens to constitute lusciously beauteous and arresting poetry.

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The recurring themes that Limón infuses her enactment with halfway astir nature, our narration with it and our reflection of it; relationships, particularly with her parents; identity; and chronic illness. She grounds her poesy successful places: successful the California of her childhood, the years she spent successful New York, her beingness present successful agrarian equine country. Her cognition of increasing things is truthful immense that she, astatine times, feels similar a diligent teacher showing america what flourishes successful her plot and what flora and fauna unrecorded and thrive astir her. She reminds america that we are portion of a greater satellite that existed earlier america and volition beryllium aft us. Her enactment is heavy autobiographical, and she excels astatine plucking retired a mundane facet of beingness and polishing it to a shine, calling attraction to that moment’s beauty.

The champion Ada Limón poems + collections

Let’s research each of Limón’s disposable poesy collections, from newest to oldest: what awards they’ve won, what themes they explore, and supply a sampling of immoderate of the loveliest poems successful each collection. Note: Limón’s precise archetypal book, This Big Fake World, is simply a communicative successful verse that is retired of print. She deed the crushed moving with this 1 — it won the 2005 Pearl Poetry Prize.

The Hurting Kind

Longlisted for the Brooklyn Public Library Book Prize

The Hurting Kind is Limón’s newest poesy collection, published successful May of this year. Right from the start, her vivid and lush descriptions of the earthy satellite and each that unrecorded successful it drip from each line. This postulation is divided into the seasons, starting with outpouring and ending with winter. It besides lightly touches connected the pandemic, the enduring we person each collectively done, and the longing to “sneak into the cities of the world.”

Excerpt From Sanctuary

Suppose it’s casual to slip
into another’s greenish skin,
bury yourself in leaves
and hold for a breaking,
a breaking open, a breaking
out. I have, before, been
tricked into believing
I could beryllium some an I
and the world…

Excerpt From It Begins with Trees

Two afloat cypress trees successful the clearing
intertwine successful a mode that astir makes

them look similar one. Until astatine a definite angle
from the bluish blow-up excavation I bought

this summertime to prevention my life, I spot it
is not 1 tree, but two, and they are

kissing. They are kissing truthful tenderly
it feels rude to watch, 1 hand

on the other’s shoulder, another
in the other’s branches, similar hair.

When did kissing go so
dangerous? Or was it ever so?…

Excerpt From Instrumentation

If I could ever play an instrumentality for existent I similar the thought of playing the jawbone, that rattle of thing dormant successful your hands, that happening that beats backmost astatine the entity and says, I’m inactive here, adjacent though intelligibly the donkey isn’t present oregon the equine isn’t here, conscionable the teeth and the jaw making euphony similar resurrection oregon haunting oregon conscionable plain need…

The Carrying

Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award

The Carrying came retired successful 2018, and it is simply a postulation that lovingly, painstakingly documents the earthy satellite and our narration with it, for amended oregon worse. It is besides astir the narration betwixt mothers and daughters; the lengths her ain parent went done to shield and support her. This morphs into exploring her feelings regarding infertility and coming to presumption with it aft trying for a child. Limón stated successful an interview that The Carrying terrified her, due to the fact that it was the archetypal clip she truly explored the “frailty of [her] ain body.” She besides examines what it means to upend expectations, and arsenic a Mexican-American poet, refusing to fto the satellite dictate what she should constitute poesy about.

Excerpt From Instructions connected Not Giving Up

More than the fuchsia funnels breaking out
of the crabapple tree, much than the neighbor’s
almost obscene show of cherry limbs shoving
their fabric candy-colored blossoms to the slate
sky of Spring rains, it’s the greening of the trees
that truly gets to me. When each the daze of white
and taffy, the world’s baubles and trinkets, leave
the pavement strewn with the confetti of aftermath,
the leaves come…

Excerpt From The Carrying

The sky’s achromatic with November’s teeth,
and the aerial is ash and woodsmoke.
A flush of colour from the dying tree,
a cargo bid speeding through, and there,
that’s me, lasting successful the wintering
grass watching the canine endure the cold
leaves. I’m not ample from this distance,
just a obstruction post, a hedge of holly.
Wider still, beyond the rumble of overpass,
mares look for what’s near of green
in the pasture, a fewer weanlings kick
out, and theirs is the aforesaid sky, white
like a calm emblem of surrender pulled taut…

Excerpt From The Raincoat

When the doc suggested surgery
and a brace for each my youngest years,
my parents scrambled to instrumentality me
to massage therapy, heavy insubstantial work,
osteopathy, and soon my crooked spine
unspooled a bit, I could respire again,
and determination much successful a assemblage unclouded
by pain. My ma would archer maine to sing
songs to her the full forty-five minute
drive to Middle Two Rock Road and forty-
five minutes backmost from carnal therapy.
She’d say, adjacent my dependable sounded unfettered
by my spine afterward. So I sang and sang,
because I thought she liked it…

Excerpt From The Contract Says: We’d Like the Conversation to beryllium Bilingual

When you come, bring your brown-
ness truthful we tin beryllium definite to please

the funders. Will you cheque this
box; we’re applying for a grant.

Do you person immoderate poems that speak
to troubled teens? Bilingual is best.

Would you similar to travel to dinner
with the patrons and sip Patrón?

Will you archer america the stories that make
us uncomfortable, but not complicit?

Don’t work the 1 wherever you
are conscionable similar us. Born to a greenish house,

garden, don’t archer america however you picked
tomatoes and ate them successful the dirt

watching vultures prime isolated another
bird’s bones successful the road. Tell america the one

about your begetter stealing hubcap
after a workfellow said that’s what his

kind did…

Bright Dead Things

Finalist for the National Book Award for Poetry and the National Book Critics Circle Award

Bright Dead Things is Limón’s 2015 collection, and if I’m being perfectly honest, my favorite. This postulation deals heavy with loss, grief, and identity. It explores the jarring displacement from surviving successful an municipality metropolis halfway similar NYC to surviving successful agrarian Kentucky and grapples with mortality arsenic Limón cared for her dying stepmother and past grieved her erstwhile she passed. These poems invoke empowerment, self-exploration, vulnerability, and earthy grief.

Excerpt From How to Triumph Like a Girl

I similar the woman horses best,
how they marque it each look easy,
like moving 40 miles per hour
is arsenic amusive arsenic taking a nap, oregon grass.
I similar their woman equine swagger,
after winning. Ears up, girls, ears up!
But mainly, let’s beryllium honest, I like
that they’re ladies…

Excerpt from Cower

I’m acold successful my heart, coal-hard
knot successful the upland buried
deep successful the boarded-up mine. So,
I fto decease in, larn to prospect
the betwixt dreams of the dying,
the 1 imagination that tells you when
to propulsion up, the other, when
you’re successful pain. I archer you
I volition emotion idiosyncratic that you
will ne'er meet, death’s warm
breath astatine the mouth
of the body’s holler.
You are crying successful the shower.
I americium crying adjacent the shower.
Your assemblage a welcomed-red
fire-starter successful steam and I think,
how frightened I would be
if I were death…

Excerpt From How Far Away We Are

So we mightiness recognize each different better:
I’m leaning connected the cracked achromatic model ledge
in my bully pinkish slippers lined with fake pinkish fur.
The Air Conditioning is sensational. Outside,
we’ve enactment up a inexpensive picnic array beneath the maple
but the sun’s to blistery to beryllium in, truthful the array glows
on unsocial similar bleached-out bones successful the heat.
Yesterday, truthful galore dormant successful Norway. Today,
a big-voiced vocalist recovered dormant successful her London flat.
And this country’s gone standstill and criminal.
I privation to springiness you something, oregon I privation to take
something from you…

Excerpt From Downhearted

Six horses died successful a tractor-trailer fire.
There. That’s the hard part. I wanted
to archer you consecutive distant truthful we could
grieve together. So galore bittersweet things,
that’s conscionable 1 connected a agelong caller list
that loops and elongates successful the chest,
in the diaphragm, successful the alveoli. What
is it they say, heart-sick oregon downhearted?
I representation a bosom lying down connected the floor
of the torso, pulling up the blankets
over its head, reasoning this symptom will
go connected everlastingly (even though it won’t)…

Sharks successful the Rivers

Sharks successful the Rivers is Limón’s 2010 collection, and though the intense, adjacent reflection of the earthy satellite is inactive present, these poems peel backmost the aboveground to uncover what threatens underneath. At the aforesaid time, she besides fervently revels successful the full experiences of being alive; of our bodies, our passion, and our drive. This postulation besides touches connected and celebrates Limón’s Latina heritage.

Excerpt from Sharks successful the Rivers

We’ll accidental unbelievable things
to each different successful the aboriginal morning—

our bluish coming up from our roots,
our h2o rising successful our bonzer limbs.

All nighttime I dreamt of bonfires and pain piles
and ghosts of men, and spirits
behind those birds of flame.

I cannot archer anymore erstwhile a doorway opens oregon closes, I tin lone perceive the framework saying, Walk through.

It is simply a abbreviated walkway—
into different bedroom.

Consider the handle. Consider the key.

I accidental to a friend, however frightened I americium of sharks.

How I thought I saw them successful the creek
across from my street…

Lucky Wreck

Winner of the 2005 Autumn House Poetry Prize

Lucky Wreck is Limón’s archetypal poesy collection, and unsocial successful that it is the lone postulation that features a fistful of haiku-like poems, arsenic good arsenic poems that are immense and segmented into abstracted sections, reminiscent of Walt Whitman. Whitman is an apt parallel, arsenic some of them intimately carnivore witnesser and constitute of our narration with nature. This archetypal postulation is the archetypal premier illustration of Limón’s stunning depictions of the earthy satellite with clever wordplay and dreamy observation, on with a fewer softly beauteous moments of introspection.

Excerpt From Little Kindness

My kindness is wrapped astir my ankles
and it is excessively dense to acceptable successful this door…

Excerpt From Little Commitment

Is it atrocious to privation to commit
because 1 is truthful tired?…

It volition beryllium breathtaking to spot what task Ada Limón creates during her clip arsenic Poet Laureate, though she has already fixed the satellite truthful overmuch successful these poesy collections. For further reading, research the works of past U.S. Poet Laureates:

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