Ada Limón on the Bright Edges of Joy

Poet Ada Limón speaks with Diana Delgado at Guernica about her new book The Carrying (forthcoming from Milkweed Editions), "but also about her new life, what it means to wander and to take risks." A snippet of their Brooklyn afternoon:

Guernica: I sense, in all of your books, there is an unsaid struggle—can you share a little bit about what that struggle is?

Limón: Yeah, I think that the main question that I’m always asking is: how do we live in the world? How do we live? Because with the amount of loss and suffering that is all around us all the time—our own inevitable demise, the inevitable loss of loved ones, the damage to the planet—how do we live in that reality, yet still do the daily work of praise and presence and gratitude, without driving ourselves mad? I’m constantly trying to look for that balance. Like, how do I see the big picture and hold the world’s pain, and at the same time see all of the bright edges of joy? I think that’s at the center of my question.

Guernica: An epigraph from Joy Harjo’s seminal poem “She Had Some Horses” opens your book. It utilizes the last line, “These were the same horses,” which has always signified, for me, that in the world you encounter everything—suffering and joy—and that they exist in the day-to-day together.

Limón: Yes, and that’s what impresses me. I’m in awe of people, of our capacity to suffer greatly, and yet to go to work and still be kind to one another: to lose a parent and then brush your teeth and get your kids to school. The human capacity for that ability just blows my mind.

Read the full interview at Guernica.