A Conversation With Ada Limon, in Six Poems
b'\\u200b\\u200b\\u201cOne of the biggest things about poetry is that it holds all of humanity,\\u201d the poet Ada Lim\\xf3n tells me. \\u201cIt holds the huge and enormous and tumbling sphere of human emotions.\\u201d\\n\\nWhen the news feels sodden with violence and division, it can be hard to know where to put the difficult emotions it provokes. Poetry may seem an unlikely destination for those emotions, especially to those who don\\u2019t read it regularly. But Lim\\xf3n\\u2019s poems are unique for the deep attention they pay to both the world\\u2019s wounds and its redemptive beauty. In otherwise dark times, they have the power to open us up to the wonder and awe that the world still inspires.\\n\\nLim\\xf3n\\u2019s books of poetry \\u2014 like her 2018 collection, \\u201cThe Carrying,\\u201d which won the National Book Critics Circle Award, and her 2015 collection, \\u201cBright Dead Things\\u201d \\u2014 are filled with meditations on grief and infertility, as well as striking moments of insight about friendship, lust and our fellowship with animals. Her most recent book, \\u201cThe Hurting Kind,\\u201d explores what it means to share the planet with nonhuman beings like birds and trees. Lim\\xf3n describes the marvels of Kentucky\\u2019s rural landscape and the dusky beauty of a New York City bar with equal care. Her writing is highly acclaimed by fellow poets and also delightfully accessible to those who have never before picked up a book of poetry.\\n\\nLim\\xf3n is a lively reader of her own poetry, so to structure this conversation, I asked her to read a varied selection of her work. We use those readings to discuss what poetry gives us that the news doesn\\u2019t, the importance of slowing down in a world that demands speed, how the grief of infertility differs from that of losing a loved one, how to be \\u201cin community\\u201d with ancestors and animals in lonely times, why Lim\\xf3n loves \\u201cchatty\\u201d and humorous poems as much as serious ones, why we often have our best thoughts in cars and on planes, how Instagram and Twitter affect our relationship to the world, why Lim\\xf3n meditates every day, how our relationship to excitement changes as we age and more.\\n\\nBook Recommendations:\\n\\nStones by Kevin Young\\n\\nFrank: Sonnets by Diane Seuss\\n\\nPostcolonial Love Poem by Natalie Diaz\\n\\nThoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.\\n\\nYou can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of \\u201cThe Ezra Klein Show\\u201d at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.\\n\\n\\u201cThe Ezra Klein Show\\u201d is produced by Annie Galvin, Jeff Geld and Rog\\xe9 Karma; fact-checking by Haylee Millikan; original music by Isaac Jones and Jeff Geld; mixing by Jeff Geld; audience strategy by Shannon Busta. Our executive producer is Irene Noguchi. Special thanks to Kristin Lin, Kristina Samulewski, Rebecca Elise Foote and Jahan Ramazani.'