Ada Limón: ‘Humanity is at its worst. It’s hard to celebrate’ 

Ada Limón, 48, is unstoppable. In 2022, the Sonoma-born woman was named the 24th Poet Laureate of the United States. She’s the first person of Latin American origin to hold the position.

Back in 2023, Limón won a MacArthur Fellowship — known as the “Genius Grant” — which is worth $800,000, distributed over five years. And, in 2024, she was chosen by Time magazine as one of the 12 most influential women in the United States.

In October of that same year, one of her poems — In Praise of Mystery: A Poem for Europa — was engraved in NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft, which is expected to orbit Jupiter in 2030. Her poem will be the first to reach space — quite a milestone.

Limón has published six books of poetry and has won the most prestigious awards in the genre. She won the Book Critics Circle Award for The Carrying — her most intimate collection, which explores infertility — and was a finalist for others, including the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award, the PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Award and the Griffin Poetry Prize. She’s also a widely-recognized environmental activist.

This coming September, she will publish a book that compiles the poems she’s published over the past 25 years, along with some new ones. This feels like a culmination of her career as a poet, as well as the perfect ending to a phenomenal year.

Question. What power does poetry have in today’s world?

Answer. It’s interesting because, on the one hand, my work is about expanding the audience for poetry, but, at the same time, I’ve traveled to different communities across the country and around the world, and I’ve witnessed the poetry that’s already being written and celebrated. People are speaking, singing and writing poetry regularly; they’re curious and interested in creating something transformative. This has filled me with hope.

Q. Your work frequently explores the intersection of poetry and nature. Tell us about You Are Here (2024), your project as poet laureate. How did the idea of creating poetry installations in seven national parks come about?

A. I thought about what poetry could do to connect us with the world. Our problem is that we continue to see nature as something that’s separate from us. I wanted to reconnect the human soul with the planet and the result was You Are Here. These installations are now permanently installed in seven national parks. They consist of large picnic tables, each with a metal surface engraved with a poem. They are accompanied by a prompt: What would you write in response to the landscape around you? The response has been incredible. In some places, we gathered big crowds, around 400 or 500 people!

Q. Writing the first poem in human history to be launched into space is a major feat, and also a responsibility. What was the process like?

A. It was very, very difficult. I think I had 19 drafts, and it took me a month to finish it. It took me a long time, until I understood that it didn’t have to be about space or Europa, but about our planet. I had to focus on the gifts and wonders of this Earth and of humanity, something that’s difficult when humanity is at its worst. It’s hard to celebrate it.

Q. You’ve mentioned in the past that your parents — by being an interracial couple in the 1970s — created a world that didn’t exist. Now, you’re the first Latina poet laureate. Do you feel you’re doing the same kind of thing?

A. I feel very rooted in California, and the huge Mexican population. I’ve always felt that the place where I grew up — Sonoma — was part of Mexico. But also, through my own genetic history, I learned about my Purépecha heritage and my Indigenous Mexican heritage.

We tend to think of Indigenous identity as something of the past, but I believe that it’s very much alive. This has changed my perspective. One of the most beautiful experiences I’ve had during these past three years while traveling as poet laureate is that many young Latinas have approached me. Some were only five-years-old, and they told me that, when they grow up, they also want to be the poet laureate. Although it was sometimes difficult for me to accept that my public role had turned me into a symbol of poetry rather than just a person, it is very moving to be able to inspire and impact someone’s life in that way.

Q. When you published A New National Anthem — a poem you wrote in 2016 — you never imagined becoming poet laureate. When you were appointed, Dr. Carla Hayden — the librarian of Congress — asked you to publicly read that poem. Why?

A. That poem encapsulates the complexity of my feelings toward the United States. I have a deep love for the people and the land; we have some of the most beautiful landscapes in the world. And yet, my relationship with the country itself is complicated. The way people reacted to that poem — and how they repeatedly asked me to read it — made me feel like I’m not alone, which moves me deeply. Suddenly, I realized we were all experiencing deep, deep-rooted conflicts about this country we call home.

Q. Your poetry isn’t political in the traditional sense of the word, but it explores identity, the environment, femininity, motherhood, a sense of belonging. How do you feel about this sociopolitical moment in the world?

A. We’re living in a very strange time in human history. It’s difficult to witness so many things, and not just the political division and mass atrocities of war, but also the fact that all of this is exponentially worse due to how rapidly our climate is changing. And we don’t seem to be waking up to solutions. On a deeply human level, it’s hard not to feel discouraged, not just by the state of the world, but by our own reactions to it. Poetry offers us a place for grief. And, in recent months, that’s what has brought me back to poetry: to grieve, to fully recognize where we are. To cry.

Q. One of the most contentious topics is the persecution of undocumented Latinos.

A. It amazes me that there’s still so much hatred within our own society toward the people who built it. What makes poetry beautiful is the same thing that makes the United States beautiful: the different languages and ways of being in the world. I’m deeply moved by the poetry being written all over the world to respond to what’s happening right now, not just within Latin American communities, but in all communities outside of the dominant white Christian society.

I believe we should all respond in whatever way feels right to us. And, for me, the best way to do that is through creativity. Poetry is where I keep my hope: where I channel my anger, my fears and my actions. Right now, I’m not only reading, but also writing a lot of poetry, looking for better ways to respond to this moment in history.

Q. Since 2014, you’ve been teaching in the MFA program at Queens University of Charlotte, in North Carolina. What changes have you noticed in students’ writing?

A. The most obvious thing is that people are reading a lot more global literature. I remember that, in the past, when I asked my students what they were reading, I knew all the authors they mentioned. But that doesn’t happen anymore; I often don’t know who they’re talking about. I think it’s something that the internet and social media have fostered, bringing together many different types of poetry and different voices. There are many people writing, encouraged because they’ve found a place to express themselves that’s alternative to traditional publishing spaces. They can make their work visible without having to ask permission. I find that very beautiful.

Q. What do you think about the fact that there are AI tools capable of generating poems in Ada Limón’s style?

A. I hate AI-generated poetry... I hate it. It wastes so many resources. I hate the fact that, instead of using technology to save the planet, we’re using it to make art.

Q. You did your MFA at New York University when there were many iconic poets as professors. Sharon Olds — whom you refer to as your “mommy” — and Philip Levine, your “daddy.” How did they influence you?

A. I think about them all the time. Sharon Olds still makes me nervous… I find everything she writes sublime. I respect her so much. They’re both in me, in all my poems. When you write, you’re writing alongside everyone who’s ever written a poem; we’re writing the same poem of humanity. And, in that sense, the people who write after us will be working with us. We never write alone.

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