"I'm always talking about how the poems I am most obsessed with are like people: complex and unknowable and with a huge capacity for many different emotions."
"I mean, it's hard to talk about death without realizing that's our end too, right? I am constantly aware of death. It's not that I want to be, but it's a fascination of the mind and it plays a role in why I want to live my life a certain way. The more I am aware of my mortality the better person I am and the better I am at choosing a life that is aware of its beauty."
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Source: Ada Limón (2010). “Sharks in the Rivers”, p.7, Milkweed Editions
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"All night I dreamt of bonfires and burn piles and ghosts of men, and spirits behind those birds of flame. I cannot tell anymore when a door opens or closes, I can only hear the frame saying, Walk through."
"I think, as poets, we are in the odd position of constantly defending our art form. Which is funny and also sort of invigorating, too. No one really says, "Oh you're a lawyer? I've never understood the law. In fact, I kind of hate it." Or, "Oh you wait tables? I didn't know that was something people did." I say it can be invigorating because, on some level, we have to evaluate what we do and why we do it almost daily. We have to explain ourselves to people all the time. We have to say, "Yes, I am a unicorn, believe in me.""
"Poems have always been a place for questions for me. Not answers. And I have a lot of questions these days. One of the reasons I've felt so connected to poetry throughout the years is because it's the only art form that has breath built into it. And I need that breath now. I need that breath so much. So, yes, it is a refuge for me. Absolutely."
"I'm always telling my students that the weirdest thing is the truth. I mean, the fact that we get up in the morning and put on clothes is weird."
"There's so much rage in the world now and I'm finding poems to be the place where I want to stay. I rage and rage and then write a poem and return to breathing."