Giving up on identity with Ada Lim\u00f3n

Ada Limon, the current U.S. Poet Laureate, as well as a new recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship. Anya Lorenzo hide caption

toggle caption Anya Lorenzo

Ada Limon, the current U.S. Poet Laureate, as well as a new recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship.

Anya Lorenzo

Ada Limón is many things: the U.S. Poet Laureate, a recently named MacArthur "Genius," a Latina, a summer-person becoming a fall-person. But underneath all those outer identities, she's still in search for the "original animal at [her] core."

On this episode, Gene talks to Ada about how her identity is always in flux, why she thinks poetry matters right now with the world on fire, and how both grief and freedom are animating this current season of her life.

Ada's most recent poetry collection is