The following transcript was generated using automated transcription software for the accessibility and convenience of our audience. While we strive for accuracy, the automated process may introduce errors, omissions, or misinterpretations. This transcript is intended as a helpful companion to the original audio and should not be considered a verbatim record. For the most accurate representation, please refer to the audio recording.
MICHAEL DUNNE: One of my favorite things about this job is being able to interview very accomplished people, and today's guest certainly fits that description. She's been awarded a MacArthur Genius fellowship, was named a Time Magazine, Woman of the Year in 2024 and one of her writings is even engraved on a NASA spacecraft. She's the Poet Laureate of the United States, Ada Limon, and she'll be in Oregon later this month to share poetry with children on the coast. Limon believes that poetry, like other art forms, is an essential part of education and provides a powerful voice to our youth, especially in challenging times, in an education system so focused on STEM, Limon believes it's critical to save space for poetry. Our conversation is next on Oregon On The Record. Ada Limon, the United States Poet Laureate. Thank you so much for coming on the show.
ADA LIMON: Thank you so much for having me.
MICHAEL DUNNE: Let's start with this in your own words, tell our audience about the role of United States Poet Laureate.
ADA LIMON: Thank you for asking. The poet laureate is someone who is named by the Library of Congress, and you are asked to serve in the role where you will really bring more attention to the art form of poetry. And you are also, in many ways, a representative of the library, the Library of Congress, which is, first and foremost, the largest library in the world. And I have served for the last three years, since September of 2022. I gave my closing event at the Library of Congress on April 17. So, we're just wrapping up my last term,
MICHAEL DUNNE: Tell us some of the experiences that you've had as the US poet laureate, large or small, in many ways, as you said, a representative of the art form.
ADA LIMON: Thank you. One of the things that has really been just mind blowing for me in terms of what I got to do in this role, which is I created a signature project called You Are Here, which is a project that focuses on poetry in the natural world. One element was an anthology called You Are Here; poetry in the Natural World, which has 50 original poems that speak to our new nature where we are right now, by really amazing contemporary poets. And the other part of it is a project that I worked with the National Parks called poetry in the parks, and that element was really extraordinary. I was able to place seven beautiful poems by incredible legacy poets in seven different national parks around the country, and I worked really closely with the national parks, both at the federal level and at the park level, in making these installations happen. And I also worked with the Poetry Society of America on getting the rights for poems and choosing the poems that would be the best fit for the parks. And it was really an extraordinary, really an extraordinary experience for me, because I was able to travel to each one of these places, unveil the picnic tables, meet the incredible communities where these parks are, and feel a part of something that is larger than us, which is the planet.
MICHAEL DUNNE: In researching about the project, You are Here, how does something as beautiful as poetry, how does it meld with something as beautiful as our natural spaces? But also, our current environment is under severe pressure with things like climate change. How does that all sort of fit together?
ADA LIMON: You know, I think that's a great question, because as the climate crisis deepens, I think it's very important to not numb out to the crisis itself, to not bury our head in the sand, but instead to remember that this relationship is reciprocal, that we have an impact as human beings on the planet, and that impact is lasting. And I also think that we can speak back and sing back in praise of the natural world. And those two things aren't exclusive. I think one of the things that I really love about poetry is that we have a lot of complicated feelings right now about the natural world, because many of us are nature lovers. Many of us wish to be the best stewards we possibly can to this earth, and yet we have a lot of fear. Even kids have a lot of fear right now with what the future holds. And so, I think when we're reading and writing poetry, it becomes a container for some of those more complex feelings that don't necessarily fit in prose. It allows for us to maybe make room for grief, as well as make room for Wonder. Make room for a connection and an awe, but also make room for action, a type of environmental awareness that might not otherwise be present. So, I find that poetry and the natural world are really linked because they're asking us to do one thing, which is to pay attention.
MICHAEL DUNNE: You said something about the complicated feelings with nature. Poetry obviously can be quite complex and complicated, but it can also be very simple. Do you find that, especially looking at something like the simplicity of a particular poem, and the idea that the natural world, in its simplest form, is pure beauty? Does that kind of fit in with what you're talking about?
ADA LIMON: When we think about the complexity of poems, we're also thinking about the complexity of the natural world, because we are nature, right? So, our whole bodies and minds and the chaos that runs through us is also a part of the complex beauty of the natural world. So, I think in many ways, when we're using poetry to connect to nature, it makes room for
paying attention to the little things, the big things, the wondrous things, and also the hard things. And if we don't do that, you know, a poem becomes maybe too easy. You know, like a tree is really complex. Think it's a very simple system, but it actually does a lot more than we think. I think about the coastal redwoods and how people may or may not know that the majority of their water comes from the fog and that moves through the tops of the trees to the roots. And I think poetry is like that is the more that you look, the more that you pay attention, the deeper the poem.
MICHAEL DUNNE: You're the 24th poet laureate, but you're the first Latina who has become Poet Laureate. Talk about that, what you think that means and in terms of inspiring the next generation of people who identify as Latino in terms of whatever creative pursuits, but certainly in poetry as well.
ADA LIMON: You know, I'm very proud of my Mexican ancestry, and I think it's really a lovely thing to model to anyone out there that is Latino or maybe from Mexico, or his family in Mexico, to see the types of things that are available to us In the world. Because one of the things we always focus on is representation, and I think it's so important for young people, you know, and adults as well, to see models of possibilities in the art forms you know. I think many of us need permission to dream big, and I think many of us need permission to think about what is possible, especially in the arts. And I'm hoping that my presence provides a little bit of that on another level, though, you know, first are always complicated, because I think for me, I didn't have a lot of models, Latino models growing up, and so I was always anxious to find anyone who had an accent over their last name writing poetry. And I'm very lucky that now we just have much more of a beautiful diversity of writers in the contemporary poetry world, and that's made a huge difference, not only to me personally, but I think, to the longevity and the power of contemporary poetry.
MICHAEL DUNNE: You will be here in our state, later this month, you're going to Cloverdale, and you're going to be talking with and reading poetry to youth there. Tell us about that event, but also within that, talk about when you read and interact with a young audience, what’s your goal with them? But also, what do you receive in terms of talking to kids about poetry?
ADA LIMON: I find it really fascinating to meet with young people, because there are so many different perspectives right now, and I think it feels very easy to feel hopeless or to feel like you want to surrender to despair and young people are not feeling that way. There is a lot that's happening, and yet they feel like there's some power that they have, there's some ownership over their own lives. And I get really inspired by that. Now that's not everyone. I find that sometimes I meet young people and they are very deep in their feelings, and it's a difficult time, but one of the things that unites us is that we're able to talk about those feelings. If we're talking about poetry, we are talking about feelings. When you were a child, what did poetry mean to you? Yeah, you know, I really discovered poetry when I was 15, and I still remember reading a poem, one art by Elizabeth Bishop, and thinking, Oh, this is so gorgeous. And also, really spoke to what it was to have a broken heart. And I think that we forget that there's so many universal qualities that we go through as human beings. And one of those was, of course, heartbreak. Another thing is that we're all going to die. And I think when we make art, a lot of what we're doing is recognizing that we exist on this planet for a short time. What do we want to do with that time? And even as a young person, even as a 15-year-old, I saw that, and I, instead of being terrified of the fact that I would no longer be on this earth someday, I thought, what can I do with it? What do I want to do? And my first thought was, well, first of all, I don't want to miss anything. I want to pay attention. And I keep coming back to that, not just in my work, but in my life.
MICHAEL DUNNE: I'd love it if you could, for our audience, read one of the poems that you're going to read at that event later this month.
ADA LIMON: I'd be so happy to. This is a poem that I was asked to write by the National Climate Assessment. They were putting together a report, which is a congressionally mandated report from all sorts of scientists and writers and reporters that tell us how we are doing in terms of the climate crisis when it comes to our nation. And the report is long and huge, and they asked me to write a poem for the front matter of the report. And so, I thought I would read that poem sounds good.
Startlement.
It is a forgotten pleasure, the pleasure of the unexpected blue bellied lizard skittering off his sunspot rock, the flicker of an unknown Bird by the bus stop, to think perhaps we are not distinguishable, and therefore no loneliness can exist here, species to species in the same blue air, smoke, wing flutter, buzzing, a car horn coming so many unknown languages to think we have only honored this strange human tongue. If you sit by the riverside, you see a culmination of all things upstream. We now know we were never at a circle center. Instead, all around us, something is living or trying to live. The world says what we are becoming. We are becoming together. The world says one type of dream has ended and another has just begun. The world says, once we were separate, and now we must move in unison.
MICHAEL DUNNE: It's beautiful. That's beautiful. A couple things I got from that, this sort of, this idea of, perhaps humility in in the face of nature, but then also this idea that,
for lack of a better phrase, we're all in this together.
ADA LIMON: I think that's very true, and aren't we, you know, and it's not just human beings that are in this together, but our plants and animals too.
MICHAEL DUNNE: The other thing I always find fascinating is that someone such as yourself, so talented as a writer, but also, you know, while you're reading that I'm thinking, you know, poetry done well, read well is a performance. Does the idea that, I can't just say these words, but I have to act them or really empower them. Talk a little bit about that performative nature?
ADA LIMON: I mean, not every poet is necessarily a performer, but I did go to the University of Washington, I have my degree in theater, and I think that helped me perform poems and read poems in a way that I embody them, and that makes a difference for me. I don't think necessarily everyone needs to do that as a poet. I don't think it's necessarily a requirement for poetry, but I do want to read it in my fullness of breath, in my fullness of my blood and body, and that I think helps connect me, not just to the people I'm reading it for, but also to the moment, so that I'm not rehearsed in a way that feels like, Oh, I just go and do this everywhere I go. But instead feeling like, Okay, I'm going to take a deep breath, I'm really going to be present and rooted in this place that I am, so that I can offer a performance and a connection that feels in this moment. I think the poem itself offers something called, you know, the lyrical present, which means when we read it, no matter when the poem was written, it feels like it's happening in that moment because it's being read. And I stay true to that as an artist, and hope that when I read it, I am really feeling it and embodying it and bringing it to life in a way that honors the work. Wow, we reintroduce you to the audience.
MICHAEL DUNNE: Looking at your bio and seeing the amazing awards that you've won, MacArthur Genius fellowship, named Time Magazine's Woman of the Year. When you were growing up, and just even beginning to understand poetry, did you have any concept that it would take you so far?
ADA LIMON: Such a beautiful question. I did not. I knew I wanted to make things in the world. I knew I wanted to create things. I knew I had an artistic spirit, but I didn't know what that was going to look like. And I think that part of me thought it could be very small. I'm a big fan of the small life. I very much love my private, small life. But I didn't know that not only was this opportunity to come to be the poet laureate and to have a wider stage, or a larger stage, if you will, but that I'd have the opportunity to speak to so many people, and then hear their stories with poetry. And that's been a real gift to me, is that I think about how I get to travel and then hear what other people are doing in the world with poems, with art, with photography, with painting, with music. And I think it's very easy to forget that there are so many artists and so many stewards of the land that are doing beautiful things in the world, and the news doesn't always amplify that. And one of the best things about this role was I got to hear those stories, and I, you know, I'll never forget that.
MICHAEL DUNNE: It's interesting and sort of taking off on that…obviously in the United States, our education system, seemingly, has been really, really hyper focused and geared towards STEM education. I wanted to get your opinion about the arts and about the fact that sometimes, those are programs cut out of curriculum. I wanted to get your opinion about how critical and how important it is for our young people to have exposure to poetry to painting to sculpture to photography to singing to drama to arts, those sorts of things.
ADA LIMON: It's a really important question. I think for me, I believe it was a great disservice to our education and to our ethos as a country to divide the arts from the sciences. They aren't divided. They aren't divided. That's just it's not that they aren't separate. They all begin in the same place. They begin with curiosity. They begin with questions. They start with the wonder of, how do we live? How is this made? How does this grow? How do we live in this world? And I think that for me, I see a lot of danger when we have science and engineering without what art can give, which is empathy,
which is attention, which is tenderness, sensitivity, awareness. And if you split those two, if you bifurcate Arts and Science, you're splitting the heart and the mind. And I think that is a great disservice. And the more we can connect them, and the more we can intertwine them and remarry them, if you will, the more we will grow as a society.
MICHAEL DUNNE: Incredibly well put, incredibly well put, it's been a pleasure talking to you. Ada Limon, the US Poet Laureate - it's been a pleasure talking to you. Thank you so much.
ADA LIMON: Oh, the pleasure was mine. Thank you.
MICHAEL DUNNE: That's the show for your day. All episodes of Oregon On The Record are available as a podcast atklcc.org. Tomorrow on the show, you'll hear about an Oregon bill to force big tech to pay up when sharing local news, and you'll hear about how Eugene's Alt-weekly is coming back from the brink. I'm Michael Dunne, and this has been organ on the record from KLCC. Thanks for listening.
