Ada Limón

Ada Limón (born March 28, 1976) is an American poet.

On July 12, 2022, she was named the 24th Poet Laureate of the United States by the Librarian of Congress.

This made her the first Latina to be Poet Laureate of the United States.

Limón, who is of Mexican-American descent, grew up in Sonoma, California.

She is the daughter of Ken Limón and Stacia Brady, the latter being the cover artist for her daughter's books.

Ada says she developed a love for poetry in high school, despite dedicating her extracurriculars to theatrical productions.

She attended the drama school at the University of Washington, where she studied theatre.

After taking writing courses from professors including Colleen J. McElroy, she went on to receive her MFA from New York University in 2001, where she studied with Sharon Olds, Philip Levine, Marie Howe, Mark Doty, Agha Shahid Ali, and Tom Sleigh.

Upon graduation, Limón received a fellowship to live and write at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Massachusetts.

In 2003, she received a grant from the New York Foundation for the Arts, and in the same year won the Chicago Literary Award for Poetry.

To support her writing career, Limón began working in marketing for Condé Nast.

She quit this job following her stepmother’s untimely death, which was a catalyst for Limón to decide to pursue her writing career before it was too late.

After 12 years in New York City, where she worked for various magazines such as Martha Stewart Living, GQ, and Travel + Leisure, Limón now lives in both Lexington, Kentucky and Sonoma, California, where she writes and teaches.

Limón's first book, Lucky Wreck, was chosen by Jean Valentine as the winner of the Autumn House Poetry Prize in 2005, while her second book, This Big Fake World, was the winner of the Pearl Poetry Prize in 2006.

The two books came out within less than a year of each other.

When her third book, Sharks in the Rivers (Milkweed Editions, 2010) was released, a reviewer writing in The Brooklyn Rail observed: "Unlike much contemporary poetry, Limón’s work isn’t text-derivative or deconstructivist. She personalizes her homilies, stamping them with the authenticity of invention and self-discovery."

In 2013, Limón served as a judge for the National Book Award for Poetry.

In a 2014 article in Compose magazine, she stated: "I went from having no books at all, to having two in the span of a year. I felt like I had won the lottery, well, without the money. I suppose, in my life, I’ve never done things the ordinary way. I’m either deep in the bottom of the well or nowhere near water."

She serves on the faculty of Queens University of Charlotte low-residency M.F.A. program, and the "24 Pearl Street" online program for the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center.

Her poem "State Bird" appeared in the June 2, 2014, issue of The New Yorker, and her poem "How to Triumph Like a Girl" (2013), which portrays different aspects of female horses, was awarded the 2015 Pushcart Prize.

Her work has also appeared in the Harvard Review and the Pleiades.

It was announced on January 30, 2023, that she will be writing an original poem dedicated to NASA's Europa Clipper.

The Europa Clipper will launch in 2024, and by 2030, will be orbiting Jupiter.

Limón's poem will be engraved onto the craft.

She has been a beneficiary of the Kentucky Foundation for Women.

Limón's fourth book, Bright Dead Things, was released in 2015.

She was shortlisted as a finalist for the 2015 National Book Award for Poetry.

Her 2018 book, The Carrying, subsequently won a National Book Critics Circle Award.

In 2020, Limón was awarded a Fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.

In July 2022, Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden appointed her the 24th United States Poet Laureate for the term of 2022–2023.

Hayden renewed Limón's term for another two years in April 2023.

In October 2023, she was named a MacArthur Fellow.

She received a 2023 PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Literary Award for The Hurting Kind.

To raise public awareness of the Europa Clipper mission, NASA undertook a "Message In A Bottle" campaign, i.e. actually "Send Your Name to Europa" campaign on 1 June 2023, through which people around the world are invited to send their names as signatories to a poem called, "In Praise of Mystery: A Poem for Europa" written by Ada Limón.

The poem connects the two water worlds — Earth, yearning to reach out and understand what makes a world habitable, and Europa, waiting with secrets yet to be explored.

The poem is engraved on a tantalum metal plate that seals an opening into the vault.

The inward-facing side of the metal plate is engraved with the poem in the poet's own handwriting, along with participants' names that will be etched onto microchips mounted on the spacecraft.