A Special Conversation with Ada Limón
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Roses are red, violets are blue. Today is a special episode for you. Hello, I'm Sam Sanders and a poet. I'm Saeed Jones and I'm being tested. And I'm Zach Stafford and you're listening to Vibe Check, National Poetry Month edition. ♪

Yes, yes. That's right. April is National Poetry Month. Obviously, this podcast, Vibe Check officially is a fan of poetry, which I love and adore. For a while now, Sam has been like, we should do an all poetry episode. Yes. I've had a gun to Saeed's head for a few months now. I was like, no. He put that gun to my head and I was like, Michael Jackson, just like, put the gun down. Let's just dance. Let's just dance. Okay.

But I finally let him say it down and he was like, oh, I have a friend I can call. And we're like, who's your friend? And he's like, oh, the National Poet Laureate. Just casually. I got a deep bench. You know what I'm saying?

I mean, but, you know, my friend Ada Limon is the U.S. Poet Laureate, which is to say, if you're not familiar, this is a role selected by the U.S. Library of Congress. I think the terms are usually two years. Sometimes they're like renewals.

But it's this person who's appointed to be an advocate for poetry and to engage communities all across the country. And Ada Limon has been doing this since 2022. I'm also just a fan of her work and her vibe. She's very calm but mischievous, as you will hear in our conversation. And it's been a real joy to have her as both as Poet Laureate but now as a friend of the podcast to talk about poetry.

how we can kind of recalibrate our relationship to poetry. And how to enter the world of poetry. I think a lot of people, myself included, our first introductions to poetry are very rote and didactic and off-putting.

Ada in this chat has a lot of good guidance on how to just appreciate and like poetry. Yes. Yeah. So what you're saying, Sam, is healing. We're healing today. We're healing. From some of our past traumas with poetry. Yes. Yes. Sister Kathleen, I've never forgotten. Memorizing poetry. Oh, Lord. I hated it. Well, but of course, before we get into the show, we always check in. Sisters, how we doing? Good.

Well, this week, I'm feeling like an elder. Sam, I'm like you. I'm feeling older. Don't you, Sam? I'm like... You're drinking insure right now. To be clear, Sam started when we logged into the Zoom. The first thing I saw was Sam being like, Saeed, look. And he was like holding up the insure. It's my post-run drink. Do you have some insure too? No, I don't have any insure. Or some Celsius. Are you on that stuff? That's for kids. That's not for me. Celsius is really everything to me, but that's a whole other conversation. I love it. Why I'm feeling so old is on Friday...

I went to a nightclub for the first time in years. Oh, wow. Me and Craig, it was Philip McCarty's birthday. He got a table, ran into lots of people at the club. And let me tell you, I used to be a club kid. If you know me well, like I, at 18, started sneaking into clubs in Chicago. I was really- Well, you were a journalist, right? Yes, before I was a journalist. I was like, my very first job was, I was an intern on a documentary series that followed drag queens.

And so I was 18 with a camera and I would walk into the club. And that's why I learned is that if you had a job at the club, they let you into the club without showing an ID. I now do not want a job at the club. The club is too loud. There's too much like taking shots. There are young people who are singing songs that are older than them. That's really disorienting for me. There's Gen Z kids that like that Keisha Cole song, Love.

Yes. It's really weird. Anyway, I'm feeling my age lately. And I definitely am feeling my age because Miss C. Elliott announced her tour. I think it's her first headlining tour ever. I'm so excited. And I was at a SoulCycle class, I think, last week. And they started playing One Two Step with her and Ciara. And the SoulCycle instructor was like,

I hope I'm not the only old person in here that knows every word to the song. And I almost fell off my bike. I was an old person. Girl, that came out the other day. And I picked it up. Oh, it did. It came out in 2003. Yeah, girl. 20 plus years. Yeah, girl. We are aging. Our music is aging. And we are now vintage. So it's very... Yeah, you get really thrown. I listened to Missy Elliott's album, Under Construction. So good. So good.

For the first time in a long time recently. And I was thrown because I forgot that it came out like right after 9-11. And also Aaliyah had just – like Aaliyah died like just before 9-11, a few months before. So it's really jarring when, yeah, these songs, you know, I mean Missy Elliott, that sound, it's just – I just think it's a vivid part of like black life in particular. It's ageless and timeless. But on the intro, I mean she's directly referencing Aaliyah and 9-11. And you're like, okay.

Oh, it's been 20 years. Oh, God. Anyway, that's my vibe. Feeling old, but missing Aaliyah, I guess. Yeah. Mood. You know, mood. Sam, how are you doing? What's your vibe? I have two little vibe check-ins. So yesterday was the eclipse. We're taping this on Tuesday. And I was out walking Wesley during the eclipse, and I saw all these Angelenos out and about. And my whole thought was just like, you know people.

You can go outside and look up in the sky and be nice to strangers every day. Don't let it just be the eclipse. Jesus Christ. I'm just saying, it was so interesting. Everyone was like, oh, we're out in nature and talking to people. The sun is there every day. The moon is there every day. Get outside. That's my first vibe. Second vibe. Oh, my God. And I want y'all's help with this because I can't interpret dreams. I had the weirdest dream last night. Can I tell you about it? Yes, please. I had the weirdest dream.

So y'all know that I like Vegas. I don't gamble, but I go for the shows. I go to people watch. I go to eat the food. I love Vegas. I will drive there in a heartbeat. Just tell me when. But I had this dream that I had gone to Vegas and I had parked my car in some garage underground and I couldn't find my car.

And then this really attractive man was like, I'll help you find the right elevator to get to your car. And he leads me around Vegas for like 40 minutes and I cannot find my car. And the whole time he's like showing off, trying to impress me. And I'm like, what's going on here? I never get to my car. I get really frustrated. Then before I know it, this other man is like, I'll help you find your car. He can't help me find it. He's leading me here, there, everywhere. And before you know it, we end up waiting for his car and his two children.

And he's talking to me about the custody battle with his kids. And then I still don't have my car. And I'm like, I have to go find my car. And then I keep looking for my car. I keep getting the wrong elevator. And then I woke up and I was really angry.

And I have no idea what this means. Sam, I have a reading for you. I have a reading for you. I have a reading for you. I woke up viscerally angry. Let's just go ahead and break this dream down. So cars symbolize independence and freedom. You began with saying, I like to drive to a place I love. So, you know, there's an act of you being with yourself and going somewhere we love is really important to you.

However, when a man gets involved, you have this feeling in which you don't have that independence or that kind of individuality anymore and that it becomes all about them. And that even there's like a fear, sounds like subconsciously, that even like finding a man with children who may be able to create more independence or like stability in his own life for you or, you know, since a family would also take something away from you to where you would lose something, you know, in the pursuit of being with a man and wouldn't be able to get home. So that's my reading of it. Okay.

Okay. My reading of your dream is... Okay, don't be nice. Bitch, you're spending too much time on Grindr. What is this? You out here hoeing on the highways and byways, and now it's all up in your neural pathways. Girl, please. Different men taking you left, taking you right. You can't get out of the parking garage. It wasn't sexual. It wasn't sexual. You need to text on Betty. Okay.

Although, the first guy in the dream, if I recall correctly, the first guy in the dream gave a lot of clay from Love is Blind energy. I bet he did. I bet he did give a lot of clay. Any vibers out there listening who can help interpret dreams, any vibers who can interpret this with Zach, email us. Because I woke up from this dream angry. Anywho, Saeed, what is your vibe?

My vibe is that, y'all might have noticed this, like I came in like carrying books into the room. There are books, I need to come up with a system because for this chapter of the book I'm working on, I am, God, I might be 12 books in for this one chapter, which this is just like never-

Never really happened where I'm kind of doing this level of research. So I'm deep in the archives. And I guess it's – I highly doubt I'm the first person. This is a realization for Saeed. This is not a realization for the world. I think many other people know this. But something I'm learning about history and culture, if you want –

to hide something from American culture, I'm convinced just put it in a book and it will, with time, kind of disappear from the collective kind of memory because I'm just stunned at the things I'm reading. And, you know, like, for example, right now, I've been, like, really honing in on the McCarthy era and the McCarthy hearings. And, like, this is all documented. It's all... Many people have written about it. And I'm just...

It's an exciting feeling. I think when you're doing research and you have one of those like, you know, or I didn't know, or wait a minute, this can like, that's why we do the work. And that's what I'm trying to bring to my writing. But also I guess what I'm trying to say is, and I wonder if y'all have felt this way. We've talked about, for example, Langston Hughes before and the way like his sexuality was suppressed, even by like his biographer. I found an article in like 1991 in the Los Angeles times where,

Where his official biographer refers to Langston Hughes as asexual, which we know is untrue. And when I say untrue, it's like, baby, I have documentation of Langston's STIs. So he was having sex with somebody and he was not having sex with women. I don't know. I just always feel like when I'm in the archives and I discover something, quote, quote, discover something.

It feels like I'm retrieving something that's in fact been stolen from me. Like that's my vibe. It's like, it's this very emotional, like, why didn't I know about this? Shouldn't I know about this? Who kept this from us? That's, that's what I'm thinking.

It's like, what are the spaces pre or post social media that were giving that kind of insight outside of books? Was it ever outside of books? Was it ever outside? That's my question. It's not like the History Channel 20 years ago was doing that stuff either. They were hiding it too. I would say my only contribution to this, because I feel similar feelings about archives as you're talking about, but I always kind of rationalize it as...

If I ever find information about historical figures that share community with me that I didn't have before, I have a grieving process of realizing that, you know, my own body may not be looked at in history, may not be seen as valuable in terms of the historical landscape. And that's a really shocking thing because, you know, a lot of people who don't look like us get to open books and see their stories and see things that connect directly to them all the time. So when we find ours and have to uncover it in the archives, it just –

affirms the arranger of self. And maybe, weirdly, you know, it's like the next solar eclipse, I think that we'll see with the kind of this totality or whatever, it's like 2045, which is, you know, a while from now. And I think when you start thinking about mortality, you're also like, wait, so how will I be remembered? Who will be in control of how I'm remembered? Well, and I think there's a larger thing that happens with

big figures in history, particularly black figures in history, all kinds, they get desexualized. You know, like Dr. King was a hoe. He was a hoe and a half. And depoliticized as well. Yeah. And like his sexuality was stripped from him. There's something about the way history, American history, remembers black people of note, right?

We can't see them as good if we also see them as sexual. Yeah. I would say, oh, we should do a whole episode on this. Because I would say any sexuality is erased from history books unless it's just about procreation. Because even like there's an incredible book called Sex and the Founding Fathers by Thomas Foster. It came out like 10 years ago and it breaks down all the founding fathers. And they had very complicated sexualities, all of them.

not all queer, but all like non-normative in how we conceptualize them in the past. So I think like sex is erased in history. And why, and the kind of why is that is weird. We're all having sex. And maybe I know I'm being very Sagittarius and like connecting a lot of dots, but thinking about our poetry conversation with Ada, which I think so many people's, if you feel you have a distance to poetry, my sense for the average American listener, that distance is created because of your relationship to

poetry when you were being educated. Right. So this feels kind of similar. When I was in school, for example, I thought Langston Hughes poetry was boring. I felt totally disconnected, but because it was how he was being taught in a very stripped away way. So I guess I'm just interested whether it's about poetry or history, how

How can we return to these histories in terms of how they were presented to us with whatever hangups, erasures, censors, and like, what can we salvage, retrieve to kind of change the way we think about, you know, these events and people?

All right, before we get into the episode today, we want to thank all of you who sent us fan mail and reached out to us on social media. We absolutely love hearing from you. Keep them coming at vibecheckatstitcher.com. And don't forget, of course, can leave us a review where you're listening. And, of course, check out our Patreon. It's been really fun chatting with people in the group chat. We got a lot of our questions today from Ada, in fact, from our Patreon group chat. So don't forget to subscribe there. Go to the Patreon and help me decipher my dream. Oh, yeah.

Sure. All right. For now, let's jump into our conversation with Ada. Let's do it. I haven't gotten to see you in a couple of years. I just want to hug you. Your voice is a hug, Ada. Oh, I miss you.

I miss you too. You know, I'm hoping to use this conversation to demystify poetry, to ground it. I think, you know, certainly, and we'll talk more about your work as poet laureate, I'm sure this is a lot of the work you're engaged in. To start, let's start with you as a student. Did you have a, I call it like a this is it moment for poetry, you know, as a student in particular, where you...

you felt something kind of in the direction of your life change because of something you read? Yeah, I mean, I think there was a few of them.

I was very lucky to grow up in a town that had this really great bookstore that opened across the street from the apartment I lived in. Oh, okay. Where was this? It's called Reader's Books. It's still there in Sonoma, California. And I walked across the street and asked for a job. And I said, I will never be late. I was right there. Okay.

That's a good pitch. That's a good pitch. And I was able to spend a lot of time with all of the books.

And my favorite thing to do was to pick poetry off the shelf and read a few poems, put them back, peruse at my leisure. And I feel like as much as I loved, I had some wonderful teachers and definitely had some experiences with poetry inside the classroom. I actually think it wasn't until I was sort of allowed to really dive in on my own.

and follow my own instincts and permission to put down a book that wasn't suiting me or wasn't helping me or didn't in any way speak to my own experience.

And that was something that I didn't have in school, right? It felt like, oh, we are working on this poem. This is the poem we're reading. And that was the kind of freedom I think I needed to really get interested in not just poetry, the art form itself, but also the amount of different kinds of writers that were writing and the amount of different types of poems there were.

And that was where everything shifted for me. Yeah. It's funny because I hadn't quite...

connected the dots in the way you just explained. But, you know, and I actually, I had pretty good experiences as a college student and even high school with poetry, you know, no poetry trauma. But in college, there was a time period where I've spent a lot of time by myself and I would just go to the library and I literally be like, this is the Anne Sexton day or the Lucille Clifton day. And I would just pull, just sit down cross-legged and like one book at a time. And I

Yeah, can you say more about that? So it sounds like classroom's fine, obviously important for a lot of us for a lot of reasons, but the independence, and you said the right to say, I'm done with this book or this isn't working. Why is that so important? You know, I think one of the reasons is that I think of poetry very much like music. There's a lot of difference, of course, but...

You don't listen to one song, and if you don't like it, decide you hate music. Good point. And yet. But people often read one poem or have to, you know, elucidate a poem in school, and they decide that's it.

And so I think for me, just because of my personality and who I am, I think there's a lot of, I need freedom. I need permission to play. And so I could pick up a book and go, oh, I really like this poem. Oh, I don't like the next poem. And it's the same author. Interesting. And just keep thinking, what do I like? What am I drawn to? What are the lines that I love?

And I think that was really important for me to see it, that just because you could like poetry and not like every single poem that was ever written. Of course. And not liking every single poem that was ever written didn't mean that you were never going to read another poem. And so I think that it allowed me to figure out my own stylistic tendencies, my own...

and the things that really ignited my own passion for not just poetry, but for a way of life.

That's so helpful. And gosh, I frankly hated so much of the poetry I was taught in class. You know, I just like it's not, you know, so much of that's just like not for me. But it's like if you are reading widely enough that you're able to, I'm thinking like line by line, like literally just amassing enough lines of poetry or individual poems that your love,

is greater than the words worth poems that you just don't like. Yeah, and to allow yourself that kind of, to let a poem find you, I think that was also very important for me was that there are poets that I deeply disliked when I was in graduate school or undergraduate even, and I would think I will never get this poet. I don't know what they're trying to do. And then in my 40s, suddenly I was like, oh,

I really like this poem. I get it. I get it. You know, I'm like, oh, okay, they're doing something. They're kind of cooking. Yeah, this is really interesting. You know, and I had to have a little more patience. And I had to have a little more, honestly, you know, knowledge under my belt before. And life experience. Yeah, and life experience. And so that was the other thing was that

No one knows where you are in your life when they hand you a book. And so it's hard to kind of grasp and hold on to something that you want to love, but it may feel off-putting for numerous of reasons. And one of the reasons could just be timing. Yeah. Oh, that's such a good point.

And then you go back to it a couple years later and go, I mean, I still like it. But why did I? I mean, I wasn't obsessed with it. Yeah, you're like, what was I thinking? Did I even realize what the song was about? Yeah. That's such a good point. Well, so another angle in this kind of demystification effort is I get the sense that people also feel that poets...

I don't know where they think we live. I think we live on the sides of mountains or we're just in the woods, maybe next to a volcano. Like wherever Tilda Swinton is. I think that's, you know, that kind of like, I don't know, y'all are just out there and then books happen at some point. You know, I think poets kind of exist in the American world

at least cultural imagination, as pretty abstract. So I was wondering, you mentioned your life in the bookstore in California, but you were also in New York City working at Condé Nast at some point? Yeah, for 12 years, yeah. Yeah, so can you talk about that time? Because I've always known you as Ada, my gal pal in Kentucky. How did that switch come about? Yeah, I lived in New York for quite some time. I moved there for graduate school to go to NYU and quickly realized I needed education.

a way of making an income. Very expensive. Yeah.

So I actually had a temp job at GQ. And that was one of my first jobs in New York City. And from there, ended up to many different full-time positions throughout many different magazines, including Martha Stewart, Living Brides, Modern Brides, Elegant Bride, many different brides. And then ended my time there as the creative services director for Travel and Leisure magazine. And it was a time where I was putting out

numerous books. I think that my third book, Sharks in the Rivers, came out in 2010 and that was the year that I ended up quitting those jobs. Oh, okay. I think that might be right around the time I first met you. Yeah. Wow. And so...

It was, you know, for me, a very interesting time because like you were talking about the, at least the American perception of where poets exist. And I do think there is a level in which they don't feel like we're real, right? I'm like, we go grocery shopping. Yeah. Poets, they're just like us. They're just like us, I swear. And so I felt like it was also something I kind of, I had a little bit of a bifurcated life where I,

In the evenings, I was doing poetry readings and going to poetry readings and writing poems and reading. And during the day, sort of submerging that part of myself deep into the bottom of my shoes while I wrote copy. And I loved it. I actually really had a great job. And it was enough money to get by in New York, which is very difficult to do in any job.

But I definitely felt like my life was completely divided. And so in 2010, I decided that I was going to take the risk to see what it was like to write full-time, as I know you have. It's a leap. Yeah. Immediately, I was like, I did not save enough money for this crazy adventure. What have I done? And so, of course, what I did was ended up, yes, writing. But what I ended up doing was, of course, freelancing for all the magazines I had worked for before.

prior to that move. So I moved to California. I was there for six months and then fell in love. Well, I was already in love, but was brought to Kentucky by my man. Yeah. I always think of horses. Suddenly there's another horse. Suddenly there's another horse. Well, so, you know, one thing I think about is one of the very few

things the U.S. government has gotten right in decades is the U.S. Poet Laureate Project. You've been serving since 2022. Before that, Tracy K. Smith, Joy Harjo, Juan Felipe Herrera. You know, I guess I wanted to ask, like,

How has the reality of this job synced up with what you thought it would be like to be the U.S. poet-loyale? Yeah, that's a great question because it's such a historical...

position, holding so much weight and legacy. Like, I mean, Gwendolyn Brooks. Yeah, yeah. It's intimidating. It's a very intimidating list. Very intimidating list. I think about her every time I'm in the Library of Congress office that is dedicated to the laureate. And I think this is where Gwendolyn Brooks held office hours.

And I just hold that in my heart. This is where Elizabeth Bishop wrote the poem Looking at the Capitol Dome. It's where Rita Dove wrote the poem Looking at Lady Freedom. I mean, I can see these things and being a part of that legacy is such a really beautiful and overwhelming task in so many ways. I think for me, the thing that has sort of surprised me perhaps is that

As an artist, and I know you know this so well, being one of my beloved poets, is that our job is to perceive, is to look, is to notice. And when the gaze turns on us, we usually put a poem in front of it or a book in front of it, right? We're like, I am promoting this book. I am reading you this poem.

And as the poet laureate, you don't have the book in front of you. You're not promoting your book. It's not about your poems. It is, but it isn't. It becomes how are you as a human being, an embodied person, going to amplify the power of poetry? What do you want to do?

And it's a very interesting thing because I think you do feel sort of stripped down because we're so used to the protection of the work itself, the poem itself, the thing that we would do anything to make and create and devote ourselves to. And then suddenly it's like, oh, how do you want to talk about poetry itself? And that's been the interesting, kind of wonderful because it's taught me a lot about

about my own feelings about poetry. Because I am someone who writes privately, I read privately, I think about all of these things of making art as a very sort of safe and sacred thing I do for myself. And then here is a position that's like, hey, how do you want to talk about this? And that's been really eye-opening. Yeah. Yeah, I believe it. And even just, you know, even if the position wasn't poetry, I think any role that...

that not just invites, but in fact, insists upon you engaging the entire country would be transformative. Is there something, you know, and it could just be like an experience or an idea that you've come to understand based on your, you know, your work in the last two years?

Yeah, I think that there's a couple things. One is that I do have recognized and I've always known this, but this solidified it for me is that I am a private person and that I need to create a sort of self-protection and self-preservation in order to make sure that I keep writing and doing the work. Because as you know, most of us that write, we are literally writing to save ourselves.

And if I am not doing it, I am not well. And so I think that actually advocating for my own well-being in the role has taken up some time, which I didn't expect.

And it's been actually really affirming because I have now doubled down on boundaries and the things that I believe in and the way that I want other artists to feel the permission to protect themselves and to protect their own time. And then the other thing that really has surprised me and keeps coming up again and again is that I think actually there are more people out there

that are doing the work of poetry, that love poetry, that are writing poetry all around the country. And I feel like when you first get the job, there's a level in which like, I will bring poetry to the people. And in reality... I will sprinkle poetry upon these unknowing, you know, yeah. Yes, exactly. And in reality...

You get there and they're like, let me tell you the things that we're doing in our community. Let me tell you about our literacy program through poetry. Let me tell you about our poetry in the city park. Let me tell you about. And there are more good people doing the amazing work in grassroots organizations to bring poetry to everyone that I have left places much more inspired and fueled up.

about the art form itself and the people behind it than I ever expected. And that to me has been just such a surprise and delight. And also a rethinking, because I do think there's a level in which we think, oh,

If poetry sales are this, or if it's in the New York Times, it's this. But there are a lot of places that poetry is, and it's surprising. And I think, for me, it's been really affirming. I love that. I love that. Well, I also want to, in the spirit, to point out that you kicked off April, which is National Poetry Month, by publishing a wonderful anthology, You Are Here, Poetry in the Natural World.

I know you well enough to know, and I was telling Saban Zach, I was like, listen, it ain't a poem if an animal...

Or nature. You know, even I love the poem, like you're in a mechanic shop and there's a pit bull. You know, and the pit bull becomes such an important part of the poem. A queen of the car shop. Yes, we love her. We love her. What a fierce poem. But I was wondering, you know, can you talk about specifically this anthology? Because it's also about the national parks, which is really cool too. Yeah, I was really trying to figure out the best way to come up with a signature project. And for those listeners out there,

who don't know, as the Poet Laureate, you are asked to do a signature project. They'd love for you to do one. You don't have to do one. But if you have met the incredible Librarian of Congress, Dr. Carla Hayden-

And she is an inspiration and a mentor. And she wants to do things as much as she can to bring in communities all over to have access to reading, to books, to the library itself. And so she's definitely like, I hope you do a project. And I wanted to do something that brought together poetry and nature. And I had lots of different ideas. As you know, I'm enthusiastic about possibilities.

And I was like, oh, we could build a bridge over the Rio Grande made of foams. Okay, work. Yes, I know. I said, oh, we could. I love it. I could fly a plane and I would drop poems on native seed packets to reseed deforested lands. I had lots of, these were. This is why you're my girl. This is why you're my girl, Aisha.

Either we are changing the landscape or we're changing the goddamn constitution. Get on it. You want a signature project? I will bring you a signature project.

But then, of course, I was like, how do I open it up and include as many people as I can? And so we have these two prongs of this project called You Are Here, Poetry in the Natural World. And one part is this anthology, which is 50 original contemporary poems all speaking back to the natural world at this urgent moment on our planet.

And then the second part of it is that there are going to be poetry installations in seven different national parks around the country. And that's in partnership with the Poetry Society of America. And one of the best things about that is we've joined the National Park Service with the Poetry Society of America. And that project will continue and be ongoing after my laureateship.

Okay. Oh, okay, legacy. I love that. That's beautiful. And also, I mean, it's transformative, as you say, it will continue on beyond your tenure. But also, again, it's true to you. I mean, when I think of so much of your work, I mean, I just think there's a call and response between the self, place, the natural world, the animal, and like maybe we are all animals too, obviously. Yeah. Yeah, I love that. And I did really want to do something that was authentic to myself.

You know, it's hard because I have many authentic selves. I love it. But I really believe in this project, and I'm super excited that it not only got to feature a lot of great voices, but it also, there'll be iconic poems in the national parks, which I'm excited about, too. That's so cool. I did want to have one, okay, we've demystified, but we're going to bring the miss back. We're going to bring the miss back for one second. One.

One graduate level question, because this actually has been something I've been curious about. It was inspired by a Blue Sky user who goes by DroneKuzak, which is such a great username. Great name. And they wanted to ask about the art of translation. Yeah. And so I was like, okay, and this is something I've wondered. Is a translated poem still the same poem? Or do you consider it something different entirely? Because, you know, if poems come down...

To word choice, line break, punctuation. I mean, it's really like a detail by detail by detail. And then to translate, you know, a Palestinian poem or a poem from Ukraine. You know, what do you think about it? It's not life or death, to be clear. But what do you think? Right. I mean, I think that, you know, I've spent a lot of time with translation. And I actually, I do think it's different. I think that because...

Our language is how we know how to name things, and we're working with sound work. We're looking for, you know, I always say the poems are the smallest units. We work with the sound first, and then the syllable, then the word, then the clause, then the line break, then the sentence, then the caesura, then the stanza break. And, you know, so we're working in a very, very, very small unit. And so...

to make all of those decisions that we make as poets is such an embodiment of our own spirit, soul, blood, all of that. And so to have that translated, you know, when you see that translation, it's very intimate. And I think at closest, it's like it's twin. Right. Or sibling. And then oftentimes it's a sibling, like a sister or a brother. And I think that it becomes its own thing. I think it's its own sort of brilliant life force that's meeting the other life force. Mm-hmm.

Oh, perfect answer. Perfect answer. You should be the poet, Laurie. Yeah, we should get on that. You're pretty good at this poetry advocacy stuff. All right. It's time for us to take a quick break, but stay tuned. We'll be right back with your questions for Ada Limon.

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All right, listeners, we're back. Zach and I are now going to ask Ada Limon and Saeed some of your questions about poetry. I have a question for you. You know, I grew up in Catholic school. God bless St. James Catholic in Seguin, Texas. But the way those nuns taught us poetry was downright draconian. They'd make us memorize poems and then recite them in front of our parents at a poetry recital.

That seems like the worst way to get kids to love poetry. So I'm wondering if you were advising teachers on how to teach poetry to young kids, what would be the one thing that you would tell them to not do? Yeah. I think the first thing I would say would be to not act as if the poem itself has an answer.

That it is not a question to be solved. Right. A correct answer. It's actually a mystery and that it can be read many, many different ways, have many different interpretations. And it might sit and land with someone on an individual level that's entirely different than someone else's interpretation. I love that. Because so much of the way I was taught poetry was like it was math. Yes. Here is a rhyme scheme. Here is the answer. This is it. Yeah. I love that.

Okay, what is the one thing then that you want every poetry teacher to do with young kids?

I would love for us to talk about feelings. This is going to sound very strange, but like how does it make you feel? I think that there are a lot of amazing teachers doing incredible work out there. But one of the things that they'll talk about word choice, they'll talk about images, they'll talk about metaphor. But I think that we don't leave space for how does it make you feel? Yeah. And I think that's really important that people,

You know, poetry does have an emotional impact and we've gone too long without giving enough credit to poems for the way they shift our beings. Yeah, and I would also, just to jump in, to say that one of poetry's most distinct gifts compared to the other forms of literature, which obviously I love too, you know, I write a lot of nonfiction, for example, but I think poetry really works to give

language to help us name often ineffable murky feelings. Feelings that you can't get from a newspaper article or even a short story necessarily. And so yeah, pushing students and obviously it's helpful for young people to talk about feelings anyway. But that's kind of why poetry is special. Yeah, I think about that CD, right? The goal is not to tell a story but to experience the whole mess.

And that is so important, right? We need to experience the messiness of life. And so poetry doesn't have clean answers. It doesn't have a clean narrative. It's about the mess. It's about...

you know, the emotional impact. It's about the nuance. It's about making space for complex ideas all in one place, which is how we live, right? That's how we live. We can live with sorrow and grief and rage as well as joy and as well as love all at the same time. We do that almost on a momentary basis.

Yeah. I love that. Well, speaking of mess, I have a messy question for you. Well, really, it's just messy that I'm making myself a part of it. Oh, okay. And so here we go. So some people may know this about me. I know Saeed Jones knows this about me. But years ago, I would say, I mean, 10 years ago, I was obsessed with Prelude to Bruise, Saeed's first child book. Oh, God. I know what you're talking about.

I famously or infamously would read poems to men on dates from Saeed's book, and I would just pick and choose. Did it work? It worked, girl. It worked. Look, I don't know where it's going to lead you, but it'll lead you somewhere. It depends on what kind of date you're trying to have.

This is 24-year-old Zach. So, you know, different time, different moment of my life. But that brings me to a question from Heather, one of our Patreon sisters. And she writes, I read a lot of novels. So I'm used to picking up a book and reading it from front to back, ideally in a few sittings so everything is fresh. But is that the best way to read a poetry collection? I feel like there might be other ways that enable the reader to absorb the work better, but I'm not sure what it is. What are your thoughts?

That's a great question. You know, I don't think there's a right way. It goes back to I don't think that there's a certain answer to a poem. I like to dip in and out. I like to move into a poem, you know, read one poem, think about it, contemplate it. And then there are times where I think, oh, I really, I love this poem. I wonder what the first poem's like. And then I will end up being like, oh, no, I just, you know, sat here for three hours and finished this book.

But I think oftentimes the intent for me is to go in just one poem at a time. I think that the currency of poems is one poem at a time. And if you have the moment and the wherewithal and the heart space and the head space to read a whole book, more power to you. But it certainly doesn't have to be that. One poem at a time is beautiful enough. And I would also offer to Heather that if she finds that her mind wanders...

That is a beautiful thing. Poetry says you can have, your mind can wonder. You can come back. It's supposed to. And then you can go back and read it again because, oh, sorry, I just had this whole emotional experience where I was thinking about my own mother and this and that. And then you go back to the beginning. You start again. That is so beautiful. That is not a wrong reading. It's a right reading because it's a soul reading. I love that. Well, and it's like we give ourselves that grace.

With other mediums. Like if I have a podcast on and I missed a thing, I rewind. Same with the show. You're allowed to reconsume, overconsume, whatever you need to. And you are allowed to skip.

Yeah. Yes. And I think what I love about how you're framing this is that it does apply to other art consumption because when you find yourself daydreaming, going somewhere else, walking away, I went through a phase where I'd be watching in college. I'd watch these movies with my friend and someone in my program and I would leave during really tough moments of a movie and he would always notice it. And I thought I just got bored. He's like, no, you're, you're getting triggered in these moments. So I think what you're bringing up is,

The body is communicating some information. So if you find yourself not finishing the poem or skipping ahead, just listen to the body. That's all data. Listen to the body. That's a beautiful analogy. Yes. Yeah. We have a question from our Patreon subscriber, Alicia. And it's for both Saeed and Ada. She wrote...

I always enjoy hearing how different writers structure their days when writing and what rituals or routines they use to get into that creative mode. What does your writing practice look like? I love this question. Yeah. I mean, I would love to hear it from Saeed, but I know for me, it looks very differently for me when I'm on the road and when I'm home and I'm on the road quite a bit. I probably travel at least with the laureateship position once or twice a week.

But I wake up, I set an intention. I have a journal. The journal is all things. I used to be very precious about my journal. I thought that I'd have a dream journal and then like a daily journal and then a poetry journal. That's too much. No, this is too much. Also, I was like, this is all one life.

This is all one life. Bam. Also that. Bam. And so I have notes for poems, you know, and then I'll have like the word like patriarchy and then like, oh, you know, musket coffee. You know, they all sort of go together. And so I'm constantly taking notes. That's a big part of my day. When I'm actually sitting down with intent to write because I feel something coming on or I have enough notes where I think something interesting is moving in me.

then the biggest thing I have to do, and this is difficult, I think it's difficult for all of us, but is to be quiet and to have silence. And I am someone who loves music. I love podcasts. I listen to you guys all the time. I have like all of these things, but for me, it's very difficult to,

to hear my voice underneath the voice if I am not quiet. And so silence is the biggest tool that will lead me into a poem. - Absolutely. - And that's hard to do, 'cause I have Alexa at home and I'm just talking to her all day. And I'm like play me some music, answer a question. How are you doing? - Yes.

Pretty similar. I think it's important to... I'm going to start calling it a rich between. Like, I think it's important for writers to have a rich between when you're traveling, when you're running groceries, which is to say...

75% of our lives is the rich between. I saw you say in the New York Times, you were like, many writers' lives don't actually allow us to write. So, you know, yeah. I mean, even as I was prepping for this interview and making notes, I started making notes on my phone for a poem. In the past, I wouldn't have done that. Yeah, as a student, I used to be very specific and, you know, it was like a ritual, very regimented. And then I was like, baby, you're never going to write if you're setting all these terms and conditions down.

So yeah, I think it's important to have a rich between. I cannot write on planes. I can't write in really shared public spaces for the reason Ada pointed. I can write like dialogue, even nonfiction, especially if I need to be looking out at the world and observing in prose. I think that makes sense. But poetry, I have to be at home. Yeah, and intentional. And then the other thing is, and this is true for any type of writing I'm doing, is

I need to have some sense of

aspiration the night before I start writing. I cannot, if I'm just Tab Ross, when I wake up in the morning, no idea, no notion, and I sit down, it is a very stressful and actually unproductive experience. I need to, the night before, like you said, and that's why the rich between is important, some notebook or something that I can pull from and be excited to attempt the next day I found helps me.

That's so smart. Yeah, I love that. So our next question is also for both of you. People really wanted to hear from both of you. Oh my gosh. Yeah, take it on the road. We want to see this live. And this question comes from Jennifer B. She writes, writing poetry usually goes hand in hand with reading a lot of poetry.

When writing, do you find yourself being influenced by what you are reading? And how do you keep true to your poetic voice? Which, Ada, you just talked a bit about voice. I'd love to hear your take on this from both of you, actually. I mean, it's a great question. I think that it's very tricky for me. It's one of the reasons I can't listen to music.

When I'm writing poems, I'm a mimic. I love it. I can hear it. I can, and I just will, oh, this is, I will do this. And I look at the poem, like, oh no, this is the song, you know? And so for me, it has to have, I actually do have to have a little space. And so when I'm really writing, oftentimes I'm not reading as much. I'll end up reading prose because I don't like to pull too much. I love to pull some inspiration, yes.

But I have to be careful of my own urge to mimic. I don't think everyone else is like that. I just know myself. I'm very sonically inclined. And so if there's a poem that I love the sound of, it's easy for me to be like, oh, this is the kind of music I want to work with. So I often will have to read prose instead of poetry while I'm really either finishing a book or working at the sort of tail end of editing my own work.

Yeah, basically the same. Particularly with poetry, if it's like research driven, which a lot of my poetry lately has become, like in the archives, I try to read a lot, a lot and just build up. And like I said, that rich in between. So I just have like a notebook full of notes and all of them will not become something. Because yeah, when I'm in the writing, I do get nervous. And frankly, even more so with prose. When I was writing my memoir, I was nervous.

I still haven't seen Moonlight because I was convinced that it was too close. Someone showed me that Barry Jenkins had posted an Instagram of Prelude to Bruise, the cover, which is boys in water, when it came out. And I was like, too much. This is... And I just kind of... Yeah, so I think, you know, because...

Poets, we do. We have such a rich relationship with sound and perception that I think Ada's right. It's a little hard to maybe turn that off. And so, yeah, even with poets I love, I'm like, I'll have to read that later. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Yeah.

I know we're getting short on time and we'd be remiss without having you read a little something from your new anthology. It's called You Are Here, Poetry in the Natural World. It's out now. We'd be so blessed and highly favored if you'd read us one of those selections. Bless us. We need it. Bless us. Okay. Thank you for that, by the way. This is a beautiful poem by the poet Ruth Awad.

Oh, who lives in Columbus, Ohio? Yeah. We love. We love. Reasons to live. Because if you can survive the violet night, you can survive the next. And the fig tree will ache with sweetness for you in sunlight that arrives first at your window, quietly pawing even when you can't stand it.

and you'll heavy the whining floorboards of the house you filled with animals as hurt and lost as you and the bearded irises will form fully in their roots their golden manes swaying with the want of spring live live live live one day you'll put your hands in the earth and understand an afterlife isn't promised

But the spray of scorpion grass keeps growing, and the dogs will sing their whole bodies in praise of you, and the redbuds will lay down their pink crowns, and the rivers will set their stones and ribbons at your door. If only you'll let the world soften you with its touching.

come on wow that's it there it is yeah i had to look away from the zoom i started feeling come on i love to as they know i love to look out when you were saying live live i was like oh my god yes oh the sunlight wow the window

Wow. I love it. With that, we're going to take a quick break. But one thing our listeners really asked a lot about was how to begin reading poetry. And I think we're going to touch on that in our recommendation segment coming up next. So don't go anywhere, listeners. We'll be right back. We'll be right back.

This message is brought to you by McDonald's. Did you know only 7.3% of American fashion designers are Black? Well, McDonald's 2024 Change Leaders Program is ready to change the face of fashion. The innovative program awards a monetary grant to five emerging Black American designers and pairs each with an industry professional to help them elevate their brands.

I know specifically and distinctly how McDonald's can support and empower not just black Gen Z, but black people. My first job was McDonald's. I learned a lot there about customer service and how to relate to people. I still love that place and go there very often. Look out for the change of fashion designers and mentors.

at events like the BET Awards and the Essence Festival of Culture. And follow the journey of the 2024 McDonald's Change Leaders on their Instagram page, WeAreGolden.

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Order your copy today at Tito's Vodka dot com slash book. Read it and sip with Tito's. 40% alcohol by volume, namely 80 proof, crafted to be savored responsibly. All right, listeners, we are back and we are here with our best girlfriend, Ada. Just really, it's our first time meeting. I told you, I was like, I was telling him, I was like, I think the way I've talked about poetry on the podcast has been hopefully welcoming and inviting, but I was like, trust me, Ada is way nicer and like way better at it.

No, but you have been doing such an amazing job, Saeed. Thank you, McQueen. And also, I mean, can we just say you're just such an incredible reader of poems that really I could just listen to you read poems all day. Oh, my goodness.

But we'd love to hear some of the recs you brought. I hear you have some tools for us or some inspiration. Well, one of the things that you guys were talking about earlier was the idea of how to get started, right? And I do think one of the poets that to me was a gateway poet was Lucille Lipton. Oh, yes! Sorry, I was chuckling at gateway poet. So I think for me, the collective Lucille Lipton is you cannot go wrong. Yes. You cannot go wrong. Yeah.

And then there's also this incredible book that I love. It's called Please Excuse This Poem.

And it's out by Viking. It came out, I think, in 2015. So it's been a while. But it's 100 poems. And they're all just, they're wonderful. And I oftentimes will recommend an anthology with different authors because that way it is like getting a great Spotify or, you know, however you listen to music, whatever platform you use, like a mix.

And then being like, oh, I love this one and being also to skip around. And so that's a really good place to start. And then the other book that I just find so beautiful is Tracy K. Smith's New and Selected. It came out a few years ago as well called Such Color. And I go back to it often. I just think she's one of our best. And I also find her work very approachable. If you haven't spent time with poetry, I think she's a great doorway.

I love you pointing, because I keep thinking about this, creating the occasion so that you can amass lines or poems or poets you like. And anthologies are great because it occurs to me, I'm like, for the average...

I don't know, I guess I would say college-educated reader. It's like, well, if you only see poems in The New Yorker, then you're seeing one or two isolated poems a month. And if you feel already daunted by poetry, then you open it, you see this one poem, and you go, I like it or I don't. And that's too much power for one poem. So an anthology is a great way to open that up. Yeah, and that's one of the things I really wanted to do with You Are Here was that it felt like, you know, with the legacy of a nature poem story,

In my education, speaking of unlearning things, almost every nature poem I knew was a white man going to a mountain having an epiphany. Very that. While his wife was home watching the kids. And how do I re-own it, re-home it? And how do I make sure that

all of us, you know, feel like we can have a sense of interconnectedness, that we are all nature together on this planet. And that that sense can give us all a sense of belonging. And that was really important for me just putting together the project because I

That was not the nature poem that I was taught. My agent still laughs at me. I'll text you the specific tea later, Ada. But in a moment of panic a few years ago, I said, I'm not ready for my daffodils era. I can't. I am not ready. Wow.

I think we just gave Saeed a poem prompt. Yeah, oh no, oh no. That's the first line of the poem. I'm not ready. I'm not ready, but you're right. It's interesting, I think particularly queer people, people of color, the way we're introduced to natural poetry, nature poetry,

It is often like colonizer poetry is actually what's often happening. It is. There's an ownership, a colonizer mindset. There is an idea that this land is ours, you know? And instead, what is it to be like, oh, I am...

in a reciprocal relationship with every living thing on this planet. There's power in that. That's such power. Such power. Oh my gosh. Ada, thank you so much for joining us. This is a dream come true. Oh my God. Thank you so much. And I, I want to thank you specifically for your poem called the contract says we'd like the conversation to be bilingual. That one really hits. I love it so much. Thank you for it. Thank you.

All right. That's the show. Thank you for tuning into this week's episode of Vibe Check. If you love the show and want to support us, please make sure to follow us on your favorite podcast listening platform. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, leave a review, tell a friend. And of course, a very special thank you to our guest, Ada Limon. Huge thank you to our producer, Shanta Holder, engineer Rich Garcia, and Marcus Hom for our theme music and sound design. Also, special thanks to our executive producers, Nora Ritchie at Stitcher and Brandon Sharp from Agenda.

I was thinking about how to rhyme the last line of credit, but I'm going to skip that. I'm not going to do that. Let it go.

Let it go. Because as we've learned, of course, not all poems have to rhyme. All poems do not have to rhyme. There we go. Especially if you're writing it and your name is Sam Sanders. Put that finger down. You're pointing real hard. Leave that rhyme scheme alone. Put that finger down, Saeed. Leave that rhyme scheme alone. Listeners, we always want to hear from you. Don't forget, you can email us at vibecheckatstitcher.com. Keep in touch with us on Instagram as well. We have a brand new page online.

that Zach put together because he is a woman in STEM at vibecheck underscore pod. Also, we have our Patreon, our Patron for five bucks a month. Get in that group chat with us. Patreon.com slash vibecheck. All right, poets. Until next time, be good to yourselves. We'll see you next Wednesday. Oh, I love that. All right, poets. Bye. Bye.

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