Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden has appointed Ada Limón to serve a two-year second term as the nation’s 24th Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry.
The act of Congress establishing the poet laureate position states that the Librarian may appoint a laureate “for one- or two-year terms.” This is the first time a laureate will serve the longer option. Limón’s second term will begin in September 2023 and conclude in April 2025.
“During her first term, Ada Limón has done so much to broaden and promote poetry to reach new audiences. She also laid the groundwork for multiple laureate outreach efforts to come, many with federal agencies,” Hayden said. “A two-year second term gives the laureate and the Library the opportunity to realize these efforts and showcase how poems connect to, and make sense of, the world around us.”
Limón has a number of major collaborations under way to share more poetry with the public. On June 1, she will return to the Library to reveal a new poem she has written for NASA’s Europa Clipper mission. Limón’s poem will be engraved on the spacecraft that will travel 1.8 billion miles to explore Europa, one of Jupiter’s moons. The poem will be part of an upcoming program to invite international public participation.
In August, Limón will appear at the National Book Festival, and at the start of her second term in the fall, the Library will announce details of Limón’s signature project — a first-ever partnership with the National Park Service and the Poetry Society of America to present poems in select national parks across the country — as well as laureate initiatives with federal and non-federal partners.
“I am beyond honored to serve for another two years as the Poet Laureate of the United States,” Limón said. “Everywhere I have traveled during my first term, both nationally and internationally, I've been reminded that poetry brings people together. I am looking forward to continuing the important work of celebrating what poetry can do.”
For National Poetry Month, Limón has served as the guest editor for the Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day series in a first-ever series collaboration between the Academy and the Library of Congress.
Limón began her first term in September 2022 with an event at the Library of Congress, and during her term she participated in two events hosted by the first lady of the United States, for the National Student Poets Program and for the State Visit with Brigette Macron, wife of the president of France. Limón also participated in an event hosted by Beatriz Gutiérrez Müller, wife of the president of Mexico, for the North American Leaders Summit in Mexico City, and in Buenos Aires she participated in a conversation with Argentine poets Laura Wittner and Daniela Auginsky for the Library’s Palabra Archive.
Ada Limón was born in Sonoma, California, in 1976 and is of Mexican ancestry. She is the author of six poetry collections, including “The Carrying” (Milkweed Editions, 2018), which won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry; “Bright Dead Things” (2015), a finalist for the National Book Award and the National Books Critics Circle Award; “Sharks in the Rivers” (2010); “Lucky Wreck” (Autumn House, 2006); and “This Big Fake World” (Pearl Editions, 2006). She earned a Master of Fine Arts degree from New York University and is the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the New York Foundation for the Arts, the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center, and the Kentucky Foundation for Women.
Her newest poetry collection, “The Hurting Kind,” was published as part of a three-book deal with Milkweed Editions that includes the publication of “Beast: An Anthology of Animal Poems,” featuring work by major poets over the last century, followed by a volume of new and selected poems.
The Library of Congress Literary Initiatives Office is the home of the Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry, a position that has existed since 1937 when Archer M. Huntington endowed the Chair of Poetry at the Library. Since then, many of the nation’s most eminent poets have served as Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress and, after the passage of Public Law 99-194 (Dec. 20, 1985), as Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry — a position that the law states “is equivalent to that of Poet Laureate of the United States.”
During his or her term, the Poet Laureate seeks to raise the national consciousness to a greater appreciation of the reading and writing of poetry. In recent years, Laureates have initiated poetry projects that broaden the audiences for poetry.
For more information on the Poet Laureate and the Literary Initiatives Office, visit loc.gov/programs/poetry-and-literature/. Consultants in Poetry and Poets Laureate Consultants in Poetry and their terms of service can be found at loc.gov/poetry/laureate-2011-present.html. To learn more about Poet Laureate projects, visit loc.gov/poetry/laureate-projects.html.
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