Poet Laureate Ada Limón discusses her poem 'The End of Poetry' exploring themes of nature, spirituality, grief, and authentic human connections. Hear her passionate plea for connection and how language failed her in this emotional piece.
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The End of Poetry
Ada Limón reads her poem "The End of Poetry."
The poem expresses a weariness with traditional poetic themes and a yearning for human connection.
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An impassioned plea, a yearning for connection — the poem U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón wrote when she says all language failed her. Take in Ada's reading of her piece, “The End of Poetry” — and hear her read more of her work in the On Being episode, “To Be Made Whole.”
Ada Limón is the 24th Poet Laureate of the United States. She’s written six books of poetry, including The Carrying, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry, and Bright Dead Things, which was a finalist for the National Book Award. Her most recent volume is The Hurting Kind. As poet laureate, she edited the collection You Are Here, part of her signature project focusing on how poetry can connect us to the natural world. She is a 2023 MacArthur Fellow, a former host of the poetry podcast The Slowdown, and an instructor in the MFA program at Queens University of Charlotte, in North Carolina.
On Being with Krista Tippett