As U.S. Poet Laureate, Ada Limón has focused her attention on the natural world, most recently editing a collection of nature poems, titled You Are Here. But Limón's ability to see what others often overlook goes beyond nature. Limón talks with Rachel about learning to forgive yourself, the smell of her grandparents' dueling fudge recipes and a premonition she once had.
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Wild Card with Rachel Martin
Ada Limón doesn't want all the answers
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Sharing our episodes with folks who don't know what you had is hugely, hugely helpful. So please leave us a rating and a review, and share an episode with your friends and your family, and help us grow this show. Okay, here's this week's episode. When's the last time you forgave yourself for something? This morning. Great. Top of mind. The nice thing about being in my mid-to late 40s, yeah, I forget myself all the time. I have to. I'm Rachel Martin, and this is Wild Card, the game where cards control the conversation. Each week, my guest chooses questions at random. Pick a card one through three, questions about the memories, insights, and beliefs that have shaped their lives. I am a very sensitive person, and so either it's sort of all walls, or there's no walls, and I have to find that middle ground. My guest today is a poet, and I'm going to start our episode with an excerpt of one of her poems. Look, we are not unspectacular things. We've come this far, survived this much. What would happen if we decided to survive more, to love harder? This is what US poet laureate Ada Lamont does in so many of her poems. She acknowledges the hard stuff of living, but it is embedded in perseverance and optimism. What would happen if we decided to survive more, to love harder? And I read that, and I'm like, "Yes, Ada, I am all in." Let's at least try, right? So she's just one of those people who can recognize all the ways that we inflict pain on each other, not to mention our planet, but not get consumed by it. Ada writes in that space between grief and joy, and I love that space. Hi, Ada! Hello, Rachel. How are you? I'm well. It's so nice to meet you. Thank you so much for doing this. Oh, my pleasure. Thank you for having me. It's great to see you. So we're going to talk, but I did bring you here to play a game. I hope you're excited about that. Question mark? I would say a little bit nervous, but yes, excited. I think that's a healthy balance. I think that's actually the right answer. But I do want to mention your latest book. You've published a lot of collections of your own poetry, but your latest is a curation of poems from different poets about the natural world. Yeah, I'm very excited about this anthology. It's called "You Are Here." Why is it called that? I thought so much of our life is, you know, we think about what's next, what's next. And I think not only in my life and in my heart. I am always trying to remind myself that I am here, not just on this planet, but in this moment, in this space, right here, you and I talking. This is it, actually. This is our life. This is our life. And so the title came to me once when I was on a hike. And I noticed the signpost on the trail marker, and it said, "You are here." And I thought, "What a good reminder. What a good reminder. You are here." Yeah. So are you ready to do this game? I'm ready. All right, let's do it. There are a few rules, okay? So number one, you get one skip. If you use your skip, I will replace that question with the new one from the deck, okay? Okay. Number two, you get a flip. You can put me on the spot and ask me to answer one of the questions before you do. We're going to break it up into rounds. Round one is about memories, experiences that shaped you. Okay. Round two is insights, lessons that you have learned or are learning. And round three is about beliefs, the ways you make sense of the world. It is a game, so there's a prize when you make it to the end. Yay. Is it chocolate? Is it chocolate? Oh, my gosh, it should be chocolate. I can definitely make that happen for you, but spoiler alert, it is not chocolate. Hey, Doc. So round one, this is memories, okay? I am holding three cards. You can't see the questions and you get to pick one, two or three, two, two, okay. When is the first time you remember feeling proud of yourself? I think that I remember feeling proud of myself when I was very young, I was very little. And I remember being able to get down a dance routine in my little dance class and thinking how amazed I was that the body could figure things out like that. And you know, like, wow, my body and looking kind of down at my legs being like, oh, my body did the same thing as the other bodies. And it was like moving in air and in a sort of, I remember feeling the real thrill of unison, yeah, and moving in unison. Do you remember the genre of dance? Oh, actually. Who pop, what are we talking about? It was jazz dance. Yes. Patty Ferrara was the teacher and I absolutely some of my best memories are from early, early days in the little dance studio in Sonoma, California. I mean, would I remember about jazz dance or the outfits? Did you have a good outfit? You mean leg warmers? That's great. I still have leg warmers and they are my favorite thing. Awesome. You heard it here first. I live on the Poet Laureate rights poems in leg warmers. Okay. Next question, we are still in memories, but we've got three new cards, okay? Pick a card, one, two or three. Let's go with one. Okay. One. Oh, this is like a softball for a poet, but here we go. What's a smell that brings back a vivid memory for you? Oh, it's so funny because we just mentioned chocolate. But my grandfather and grandmother on my mother's side both made dueling types of fudge because they had their specific fudge that they liked and his was a hard sort of old fashioned kind of fudge and hers was a soft, seized candy fudge and any time I smell it, like if it's in the vicinity, I just think of my grandparents. And it's such a like beautiful memory because my favorite thing was to go into their cupboard. It was a walk-in cupboard and they would have all of their, you know, Tupperware is full of their different kinds of fudge for guests and things and you could just smell it. You couldn't reach it, unfortunately, but you could smell it. So definitely, yeah, the smell of chocolate and the smell of fudge. Did you spend a lot of time with them growing up? I did, yes. And my grandmother just died this August and she's been on my mind a lot. So I think that she's with me in my heart. Was she a lover of poetry? She did like poetry, although she was very confused that not all my poems rhymed. I told her that some of them do and at one point when my grandfather passed away, she asked me to write a poem for him and I made it rhyme. Yeah, I love that. Okay, last question in round one, three new cards, two, two. Who is someone who played an important role in your life, but you haven't communicated with them in years? Hmm, I think I might skip this one only because I actually think that I am, I'm pretty good at communicating with all the people that have really, you know, supported me. You get a skip, you've deployed it, boom, pick a card, one or two, two, two. As a child, when did you realize that the adults around you didn't have all the answers? Hmm, I remember being around seven or eight and asking my mom about a rumor that my brother had said that the apartment we had moved into after my parent's separation was haunted. And I said, I told her, I said, well, you know, I mean, that's not true, right? I mean, ghosts don't exist. And she just paused and she was like, well, and I remember thinking, wait, what? We were just supposed to know that they don't. And she was like, we don't really know for sure. I mean, some people have had some experiences and she was very open and, you know, she's like, I've never had an experience, but, and I remember then thinking, oh, there was no direct answer to that question. She didn't. And she was willing to give me a, I don't know. And was that exciting for you? I think I would have liked a definitive no because you didn't want to live in a world with ghosts. I didn't want because I'm super into them. I mean, not, I mean, not the scary kind, but the idea of spirits and yeah. So yeah, so for me, I think that at the time, I would have loved to know. I think that unknowing that she offered me was a gift. And I think that's opened a lot of different world and experiences to me and allowed me to just say that I don't know. And even in that apartment, that space, there are people that still talk about things that they've seen there. Okay. So that was my next question. Was the apartment actually haunted? Was there any, I mean, evidence is too strong a word, but other people saw things or felt things. Other people saw things. I had an experience as a child, nothing, but it wasn't nothing, nothing too scary. Just, you know, seeing things and, you know, it seemed like a benevolent entity. What did you see? I saw a figure walking towards me when I was sleeping, like going to bed. I was awake, but, and then they just sort of disappeared, just disappeared. It didn't seem terrifying. It just seemed like a remnant of something. But you remember, I remember it quite well. Do you think that people transition that way when someone dies? Maybe. I think that it feels more like, like the world has a memory. After the break, Ada talks about navigating the vulnerability that can come with her job. I feel, I think, a little untethered and unskinned. This message comes from Apple Card. Earn 3% daily cash back when you use Apple Card to buy an iPhone 15, AirPods, or any products at Apple, and automatically grow your daily cash at 4.40% annual percentage yield when you open a savings account. Apply for Apple Card in the Wallet app on iPhone. Subject to credit approval, savings is available to Apple Card owners subject to eligibility, savings accounts by Goldman Sachs Bank, USA, member FDIC, terms apply. 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Pick a card, one, two, or three, one, one. When do you feel most like an outsider? I'm going to say I feel most like an outsider. When I'm in a room full of very wealthy, non-artists. I imagine you're in those rooms a lot. They're called patrons, like patrons of the arts. Yes. Yeah. And I think that that's where I feel most like an outsider. I've learned to be in them and I've even learned to enjoy them sometimes. But I am very aware of how much of an outsider I am in those spaces. May I plumb that a little bit? No shade to patrons of the arts. The arts need people to invest in them and subsidize them. Yes. Yes, we do. Please support your local artists and bookstores. But what specifically? You feel judged in some way because those people like venerate you, you know, like you're an artist, you're what they can't be, what they love. But it is an insecurity. I don't feel like it's an insecurity. I don't feel like it's being judged, but I feel like it's, what's the phrase I'm looking for? I'm trying to get this right. How do I feel in those spaces? Like you're on display in some way? Yeah. Like, it's not about the art anymore. It's about me. And I think that as most artists know, we make poems or we make paintings or we make music and it's about those things. We put that, that those are our offerings to the world. And I feel like sometimes in those spaces with non-artists, it is about me or the person. And that feels almost in some ways too vulnerable where in reality you would like to say, oh, if you wanted to answer that question, you should read this book or you should read this poem or, you know, like we put the poem out first. And the poem for me is the safest, most sacred space and not having that to protect me. I feel, I think, a little untethered and unskinned in some ways. Also, you carry this thing, right? You're not just the US poet laureate, you're the first Latina to hold this job and that would also ascribe like all this other significance that makes it about you, not the art, not the poetry. Exactly. Exactly. There's moments I have to figure out a way to be vulnerable and also protected. But I think I am a very sensitive person and so I tend to either it's sort of all walls or there's no walls and I have to find that middle ground and so those spaces can be tricky for me. Yeah. Like maybe like a fence has like some space between the boards with a gate that you can go through. Like a little circle of trees. Yes. I love that. Yeah. That's good. That's good. Okay. So next set of three cards, still in insights, pick a card one through three, three. When's the last time you forgave yourself for something? This morning. Great. Top of mind. I know a small thing. What was it? I have to forgive myself all the time for all sorts of things. I mean, just this morning I was, you know, I've been traveling a lot and it's been beautiful and I'm, you know, going to be traveling again and I was just getting into meditation. I was doing yoga, which I do every, try to do every morning and, you know, I was just very stiff and I just felt very like, oh, I hadn't been moving as much as I showed or I hadn't been doing and I was just hard on myself. And then I was like, you know, you were doing amazing things. Like you were doing other things that mattered and it's okay. Yeah. And I'm very, I think it's very important because I think that early on I thought all of self care was really more self punishing. And I just. What does that mean? Oh, it just felt like, you know, like, well, if I don't, if I miss a day of working out that this or if I do this or if I feast too much and enjoy too much, you know, then therefore you all have to have to, you know, go into deprivation mode. Yes, exactly. And so I just don't do that anymore. And I think that that's been really healthy for me because I feel like you spend a lot, at least for me, a lot of my, you know, twenties and thirties just trying to do everything right. And the nice thing about being in my mid to late 40s, having those moments of just being like, you know, I'm so grateful to be in this body and get to make choices and, you know, and live. And I think it's been just such a healthier space for me. So yeah, I forgive myself a lot of time. I think that's good. Ah, yeah, I have to. After the break, the beliefs around do you think there's more to reality than we can see or feel a 100,000 million percent? This message comes from NPR sponsor homes.com. What kind of programs does this school have? How are the test scores? These are all things parents ask when they home shop. That's why each listing on homes.com includes extensive reports on local schools homes.com. We've done your homework. 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It also comes with a glass visor for dramatic views, easily removable to accommodate larger dishes. More at OONI.com. Okay, moving on to round three, this is beliefs. These are questions about the ways that you make sense of the world. First set of three cards, one, two, or three. Three. Three. Oh! Have you ever had a premonition about something that came true? I feel like I have, and I'm trying to think of, there's many times where I'm a big dreamer, and my dream world is literally- Like literally and figuratively. Yeah, it's like sleeping dreams. And so I think that those moments can be slippery for me whether they were premonitions or if they were dreams, but I feel like there's a few times. One of them has been, I think that I knew that we weren't going to be able to conceive a child before we decided to give up on fertility treatments. I think I knew that, and I think it actually helped me to make some decisions to not move forward with any more of the treatments, and so I think I just knew. And it was also very helpful to me because it felt like as much as I just praised mystery and the unknowing, it felt like my body knew something, and it knew it was able to offer me another option and another future that I wasn't quite ready to do yet and to surrender to you yet, then when I was able to do it and listen to that premonition, it felt like a gift, and it felt like, okay, now, now what else is possible? Yeah. You know, because I think as women in our culture, the only possibility oftentimes offered to us is motherhood, and I felt very bound by that, and letting that go was really freeing, and I love my life, and I love being child free, and I think that premonition offered that before I even knew it. Did you have a specific dream or it was just a knowing in your bones? I was floating in the Chesapeake Bay, and I just had this moment of feeling what if my body was only my body, and it felt really powerful. What if it didn't belong to anyone else? And it was just mine, we never talk about it that way. I never felt it that way. All I wanted was to carry something in me, a baby, a child, and then it was so freeing, and I got out of the ocean, I remember thinking that was beautiful, like what if I'm enough? What if just my body? What if these boundaries and these borders have my skin touching the water, was it not? We don't say that. Women don't say that out loud. People don't say that. Sorry, it wasn't a baby. I'm totally going to the menopause, and so I cry all the two to me too. Oh my God, thank you for sharing that. Oh yeah. That's an intimate thing, and I appreciate you. Thank you for reminding me of it. Yeah. That's beautiful. And important. Whew, okay. Final round. Aida. Okay. Three more cards. One, two, three. Pick a card. One, three, three. Two. Two. Do you think there's more to reality than we can see or feel? A 100,000 million percent. One gazillion percent. Yes. Yes, I absolutely think that. I think our perception, I mean, all reality is perception. All of our brains work so differently. I had the great pleasure of speaking with a neuroscientist a couple of weeks ago, Heather Berlin, and she was talking about just how the deeper and further she studies the brain, the more generous she is with others, because our brains are so, we are wired so differently. We are all so individual and so unique in the way we perceive reality. It is not the same. The fact that we can be in communion with folks, that we can be in community, in relationships and partnerships is amazing. So I think that we just don't know anything. One of my favorite things about being a poet is that again and again, you just get to say we don't know anything. I can be an expert in what, like a language, a line break, so you're a sure. I know what a stanza is, I know the forms, but I have no wisdom and I love that. Oh, I don't think that's true. I think others would take issue with that. I mean, you know that's not true, Ada. You have wisdom, the thing you just told me about your body and agency and how we can be enough. That is a wise thing. You know we all hold wisdom. Yeah, I guess I don't mean, yeah, I mean, there is a kind of wisdom in that, but I also feel like I really love the sort of beginner's mind, right, like the idea of the more we know about anything, the more the unknown is revealed to us and I love that. I mean, I feel like if anyone asks, you know, if anyone says, like, why do you write a poem? Almost always I say, mortality because of mortality because this is amazing that it is finite and I would love to notice and hold as much as I can before I go. And I feel like as I've aged, I'm still really angry that death exists, but I am also more willing to accept that there may be more to this, you know, and maybe the more is just that we're part of a planet and how beautiful is that that we get to be part of a tree or we get to be part of the air, the ocean, the sand. I mean, we're always searching for meaning and I love that. Someone asked me at a table literally last week, they said, if you could know all the secrets to the universe, would you want to know? And I don't think I would. Yeah, no, me either. I don't think I would. I think it's one of the great gifts of being alive. We're done. We're done with the game. And I promised you a prize. I wish that a piece of chocolate I could like teleport to you right now. So the prize is a trip in our memory time machine to revisit one moment from your past. It's a moment you wouldn't change. You just want to spend a little more time there. Which moment do you choose? I think that I would want to go back to the moment when I was probably, you know, six or seven would go down to this creek that was across the street from my house called the Calabasas Creek. And it was the most quiet, most wondrous place I've ever been. And it still exists and it's still beautiful. But I remember feeling so small in that enormity of the creek bed and the lives of all the little things of that natural world. And I think now when I go back with my adult mind, I worry about it. I think about the protection of it. I think about creek restoration, I think about all of these things. And what I miss, I think, is that moment of just pure wonder without any of the worry. What does it sound like there? Well, it depends on what time of year. I would like to go back in the spring where it's still running. And the interesting thing about this particular creek is that it makes a wonderful little noise. There's a tiny little waterfall there. It'll be tiny, you know, just a sort of a stone. But one of the things I loved about it is that there's a road right above it. And so you could hear the rush of traffic. And then it made the sound of the creek so much more precious. Adalima, she is the 24th United States poet laureate. Her latest project is a book of poems about the natural world called You Are Here. Adal, what a joy it was to have this conversation with you. Thank you so much for doing it. Thank you so much, Rachel. What a delight. Next week on Wild Card, Jack Antonoff, he's produced albums for everyone from Lord to Lana Del Rey to Taylor Swift. It is proof that somebody really knows you. Proof that somebody really knows me is, as they understand, my rituals around feeling clean. Oh, so many, so many follow-ups to ask here. This episode was produced by Lee Hale and edited by Dave Blanchard with help from Lauren Gonzalez. It was fact-checked by Sarah Knight and mastered by Gilly Moon. Wild Card's executive producer is Beth Donovan. Our theme music is by Ron Tean, our Bluey. You can reach out to us at wildcard@npr.org. We'll shuffle the deck and be back with more next week. We'll see you then. This message comes from NPR sponsor, The Nature Conservancy. By working across communities, oceans, and aisles, The Nature Conservancy is delivering solutions for the planet and building a future where people and nature thrive. Learn more at nature.org/solutions. Support for NPR and the following message come from IXL Learning. IXL Learning uses advanced algorithms to give the right help to each kid no matter the age or personality. Get an exclusive 20% off IXL membership when you sign up today at ixl.com/npr. In this country, some truths aren't self-evident, and NPR's Black Story's Black Truths, a collection of stories as wide-ranging and real as the people who tell them, we celebrate the Black experience for all its soul and richness. 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