^B00:00:13 >> Laura Green: Hello everybody. Welcome. My name is Laura; I'm the programming assistant here at Hill Center. Welcome on this frigid night; I'm so glad that you all came; we've got a packed house, even with the night change so that's greatly appreciated that you're all here. Whose first time is it at Hill Center? First time. Wow, pretty nice. Alright. So, we really hope to see you back next week for Life of a Poet with Ross Gay on February 6th, a week from today, so hope to see you again as returning guests next time when I ask the same question. Life of a Poet has become one of my favorite series here and I'm particularly excited for tonight's program. We had to up the number of tickets three times because it was so popular and I want to thank the co-sponsors, Washington Post, Library of Congress, and the Capital Hill Community Foundation for making this possible. Some reminders; could you please silence your cell phones and we will be having East City Books selling Ada's books after the program and she'll be-- she'll be selling-- signing them as well. So, I'm going to introduce Rob Casper, head of lo-- Head of Poetry and Literature at the Library of Congress. ^M00:01:24 [ Applause ] ^M00:01:32 >> Robert Casper: Let me take this opportunity to take off my badge. Yeah. Hello everybody. What a crowd. I'm amazed. I thought, oh, the bad weather would keep everyone away but you made it out. I promise you'll have fun tonight. Thanks Laura, wherever you went, for-- for welcoming us, and thanks to everyone for making the Hill Center such a wonderful home for this series. Thanks as well to the Washington Post for their support and to dear Ron Charles for refusing to let shutdowns or snow storms stop him from championing poetry. We have one event, the second life of a poet, I was not officially here at because it was the last shutdown, yeah. That's why we have no tape of it. Before I go any further let me tell you a little bit about the Library of Congress and the Poetry and Literature Center. We are home to the U.S. Poet Laureate. The current Poet Laureate is Tracy K. Smith. She's the only federally funded literary artist in the country. In addition to making sure the Poet Laureate has a home we host a range of programs in our Capital Hill Campus just down the street. We'd love to have you come to our events at the library. You can check us out at www.loc.gov/poetry. We also would love to know what you think about tonight's program and to that end you should have surveys on your chairs. If you could fill them out and leave them after the event that would be terrific. ^M00:03:14 This is the first event of our spring season and actually the first of our [laughter]-- ^M00:03:20 It is spring. It is spring. Springy. We'll see-- we'll see how Ross Gay does next week, if that's more spring-like, but tonight it's Ada's turn to warm up the room. Born in 1976, Limon is originally from Sonoma California. She received an MFA from New York University; former Poet Laureate Phil Levine was her first teacher there. Her first collection of poetry Luck-- was it Lucky Wreck? Yeah. It was the winner of the Autumn House poetry prize. Her second, This Big Fake World, received the Pearl Poetry prize. She has published three subsequent books of poetry with [inaudible] editions, including Sharks in the Rivers and Bright Dead Things, which was a finalist for the Kingsley Tufts prize, national book award and national book critics circle award. ^M00:04:17 A former fellow at the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center, Limon has received a grant from the New York Foundation for the Arts and received the Chicago Literary Award for Poetry. She serves in the faculty of Queens University of Charlotte Low-Residency MFA Program and the online summer programs for the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center. She also works as a freelance writing in Lexington, Kentucky, which is currently colder than even here. Limon's fifth poetry collection, the Carrying, was named one of the top five poetry books of 2018, by none other than the Washington Post. As Elizabeth Lund writes, quote, a desire for connection runs throughout the work, as does the constant tension created by the gap between how life could be and how it really is. Evocative dreams and pivotal memories help make this collection a powerful example of how to carry the things that define us without being broken by them. It's no wonder the Carrying garnered Limon her second national book critic circle award nomination, as well as a nomination from the PEN/Jean Stine Book Award, a $75,000 prize which recognizes a book-length work of any genre, not just poetry, for its originality-- originality, merit and impact that has broken new ground by reshaping the boundaries of its form and signaling a strong potential for lasting influence. That is a mouthful. I am absolutely certain the conversation we're about to hear shares just such potential. So, get ready, get settled in and please join me in welcoming Ada Limon. ^M00:05:59 [ Applause ] ^M00:06:07 >> Ron Charles: There are so many people who've come before us, we want to try and be terrific. Even for an hour. ^M00:06:18 In one of your poems you write, shouldn't we make fire out of everyday things. That is exactly what you do. >> Ada Limon: Thank you. >> Ron Charles: I've had the greatest time the last few days reading all of her poems and now I'm going to talk about some major themes with her and ask her to read as we talk, alright. So, settle in, I know it's hard to concentrate to so many great poems flowing over you, but we will do our best. I'm going to take a little break in-between. You did theatre in college, right? >> Ada Limon: I did, yeah. My undergraduate degree is in theatre. >> Ron Charles: I think it shows in your verse. >> Ada Limon: Oh yeah. >> Ron Charles: You said once, I love poetry for numerous reasons, but one very essential reason is that poetry is the only creative writing art form that builds breath into it. >> Ada Limon: Mm-hmm. Yeah. >> Ron Charles: That's something an actor would know and notice. >> Ada Limon: Yeah. >> Ron Charles: What do you mean-- what do you mean about that? ^M00:07:06 >> Ada Limon: Well I think about it with it actually has a place to breathe with the stanza break, right, and even a smaller breath with a line break, and the fact that it actually allows for a place for the reader to breathe, and in that empty space we actually bring ourselves to the page so that the writer is not the only person experience the poem but the reader is part of that journey, and the breath exchange is part of that. >> Ron Charles: That's very intimate. >> Ada Limon: Mm-hmm. >> Ron Charles: For you, as an artist, to try and anticipate your reader's breathing, not just their consciousness. >> Ada Limon: Yeah. >> Ron Charles: The biographical fallacy was one of those things I studied in college. We were told never to assume that the writer of the poem was the speaker of the poem; this was one of those new critical ideas that now seems very out of date. ^M00:07:56 [ Laughter ] ^M00:08:00 >> Ron Charles: A few years ago, you said-- you confessed, most of my poems are autobiographical. Why does that feel like something that has to be confessed? >> Ada Limon: Well I think that we come from a place where we have to protect ourselves to a certain extent, right, so it's sometimes safer for a poet or an artist to say the speaker. >> Ron Charles: Yes. >> Ada Limon: Uh-huh, because then we can say-- >> Ron Charles: It sounds really-- >> Ada Limon: Well the speaker was having issues with this and that, you know, and then later on you're like, okay it was me. ^M00:08:27 [ Laughter ] ^M00:08:29 >> Ron Charles: Having Milton on blindness or Wordsworth, you know, in the field. >> Ada Limon: Right. >> Ron Charles: There was no doubt that's who they were talking about. >> Ada Limon: Right. I know. But there is a certain amount of, I think, protection that it allows us. I think it really came out of the workshop mode so that when we're talking about a poem and giving help to the poem, we're not necessarily saying you need to fix your life here, right, but we can say like maybe the speaker should look at another way of entering this, you know. >> Ron Charles: That's very interesting [laughter]. ^M00:08:55 So, the whole workshop industry. >> Ada Limon: I-- has-- >> Ron Charles: Shifted. >> Ada Limon: The speaker came out of that, I think. >> Ron Charles: This critical attitude. >> Ada Limon: Mm-hmm. >> Ron Charles: Because you write about some very personal difficult things. >> Ada Limon: That the speaker goes through, yeah. ^M00:09:09 [ Laughter ] ^M00:09:13 >> Ron Charles: For instance, infertility, infertility treatments. This is a very intimate, private thing and you write about it with great-- great honesty and candor and it's very moving. Is that hard to talk about publicly? >> Ada Limon: No, luckily. I mean it was and I think that I wrote the book and then I was able to release a lot of it. >> Ron Charles: Right. >> Ada Limon: And then when the book came out and I finally came to terms with everything, I think that I became very comfortable with it. But in the beginning, yeah, in the beginning they-- I was writing the poems without thinking of an audience, actually thinking that I was maybe writing them maybe just for my husband or just for a few friends, but I wasn't actually thinking of a book. I wasn't even publishing them at the time, because I needed to protect myself a little bit. >> Ron Charles: I can imagine. >> Ada Limon: But I also didn't know how to experience something like infertility and not write about it. It actually seemed very strange to me to-- to not have an outlet because it is such a sensitive thing and sometimes people won't even share it because they don't want people to know they're going through treatments because then you don't want people to get excited, right. >> Ron Charles: Exactly. >> Ada Limon: They're like, oh you had a treatment; that means that, you know-- and you're sitting there like, ah, it means nothing [laughs]. >> Ron Charles: Yeah. >> Ada Limon: You know, it might not mean anything. ^M00:10:31 >> Ron Charles: Yours was not a fertility story that ended in motherhood. >> Ada Limon: Correct. >> Ron Charles: Which is not a story we hear much of. >> Ada Limon: No. >> Ron Charles: Usually you hear very painful stories, but they always end in a child. >> Ada Limon: Yeah, which I find that-- I feel like that's sort of a false setup that we have a lot of times. >> Ron Charles: Yes, tremendously prejudicial. >> Ada Limon: Right. That story, and memoirs in general, right, like you never have like an addiction memoir that ends with like, oh and he felt, you know-- >> Ron Charles: Yes. >> Ada Limon: He now has-- still has the problem. Everything is always like and then we've solved all of life's issues. A child has come. >> Ron Charles: Yes. >> Ada Limon: You know, the sort of, these things. And I think that was why I felt like it was important to do. >> Ron Charles: Definitely. >> Ada Limon: Because it felt like I wanted to push against that falsehood. >> Ron Charles: And many people experience what you've gone through. >> Ada Limon: Many, I mean so much so that I was surprised. >> Ron Charles: Yes. >> Ada Limon: Because people come up to me, people-- dear friends who never talked about it with me; I just didn't know. ^M00:11:23 >> Ron Charles: What about the poems which deal with other people's intimate experiences? Your husband's, your mother's, your step-mother. That involves other emotional complications, like permission. >> Ada Limon: I ask permission. >> Ron Charles: You do? >> Ada Limon: I do. I think you should. I mean I think that it's kind of hubris to assume that just because I am the artist, I am the only person who gets to speak. >> Ron Charles: Yes. >> Ada Limon: And so, I felt-- I wrote the poems first and then I asked, because I think I-- if they had said no, you know, they might-- they needed to see the poem. >> Ron Charles: Right. >> Ada Limon: Right. So, I needed to be able to send the poem and say is this okay with you. And my mother was okay with both of those poems, but for a long time I wouldn't write about her experience because I was-- because it wasn't my story. >> Ron Charles: Right. >> Ada Limon: And so, I wrote the poem and then-- >> Ron Charles: It's not just your story. >> Ada Limon: Right. And so, then I wrote the poem and sent them to her and I didn't hear back for like half an hour, which is not like my mother [laughter]. >> Ron Charles: I thought you were going to say like half a year. >> Ada Limon: No. >> Ron Charles: Half an hour. >> Ada Limon: Like my mother-- like if my mother gets an email from me, she responds, so I was worried. I kept texting her, did you get-- and my step-dad texted me; I thought, oh this is bad. But he said, no, your mom, she's-- she's crying and she was really moved and couldn't quite figure out how to-- you know, and then she composed herself and was like, yes, you can-- you can publish them. But I was, you know-- it's very sensitive to write someone else's story and I-- I take it very seriously. >> Ron Charles: Would you read The Real Reason? >> Ada Limon: Sure. ^F00:13:14 ^M00:13:18 I should say that the reason it's called The Real Reason is because in Bright Dead Things there's a poem that is about why I don't have tattoos, and in The Carrying, this new book, I was trying to allow myself to maybe get deeper into certain situations and I realized that this was actually the real reason. The Real Reason. I don't have any tattoos is not my story to tell. It's my mother's. Once, walking down Bedford Avenue in my twenties I called her as I did, as I do. I told her how I wanted a tattoo on the back of my neck. Something minor, but permanent, and she is an artist, I wanted her to create the design, a symbol, a fish I dream of every night. An underwater talisman, a mother's gift on my body. To be clear, I thought she'd be honored. But do we ever really know each other fully? A silence like a hospital room, she was in tears. I swore then that I wouldn't get one. Wouldn't let a needle touch my neck, my arm, my torso. I'd stay me, my skin the skin she welcomed me into the world with. It wasn't until later that I knew it wasn't so much the tattoo, but the marking, the idea of scars. What you don't know, and this is why this is not my story, is that my mother is scarred from burns over a great deal of her body. Most from an explosion that took her first child she was carrying in her belly. Others from the skin grafts where they took skin to cover what needed it. She was in her late twenties when that happened. Outside her studio in the center of town. You have to understand, my mother is beautiful. Tall, elegant, thin and strong. I have not known her any other way. Her skin that I mapped with my young fingers, its strange hardness in places, its patterns like quilts here, river beds there. She's wondrous, preternatural, survived fire, the ending of an unborn child. Heat and flame and death all made her into something seemingly magical, a phoenix. What I know now is she wanted something else from me. For me to wake each morning and recognize my own flesh, for this one thing she made, me, to remain how she intended, for one of us to make it out unscathed. ^F00:16:21 ^M00:16:25 [ Applause ] ^M00:16:32 >> Ron Charles: It's such a moving and affecting poem about our connectedness with our parents and the way we share bodies even and skin even. >> Ada Limon: Mm-hmm. >> Ron Charles: And our responsibilities to each other. Just so lovely. >> Ada Limon: Thank you. Thank you. >> Ron Charles: You write a lot about being a woman in sharp, often funny, rousing ways. You've got a poem called Wonder Woman, which is not what you expect [laughter] from the title. And also, it involves another very intimate physical condition. I won't say anymore, but you-- you feel free to. >> Ada Limon: Yeah. This poem, I should say, deals with I have pretty severe scoliosis and I also have suffered from vertigo for about three years that comes on and off, and so this poem deals with that a little bit. It also takes place in New Orleans. ^M00:17:41 Wonder Woman. Standing at the swell of the muddy Mississippi after the urgent care doctor had just said, well, sometimes shit happens, I fell fast and hard for New Orleans all over again. Pain pills swirled in the purse along with a spell for later. It's taken a while for me to admit, I am in a raging battle with my body, a spinal column thirty-five degrees bent, vertigo that comes and goes like a DC comics villain nobody can kill. Invisible pain is both a blessing and a curse. You always look so happy said a stranger once as I shifted to my good side grinning. But that, alone on the riverbank, brass blaring from the Steamboat Natchez, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a girl, maybe half my age, dressed, for no apparent reason, as Wonder Woman. She strutted by in all her strength and glory, invincible, eternal, and when I stood to clap, because who wouldn't have, she bowed and posed like she knew I need a myth, a woman, by a river, indestructible [laughter]. ^M00:19:05 >> Ron Charles: That is so nice. ^M00:19:06 [ Applause ] ^M00:19:12 That's-- that's lovely. To think of this little girl inspiring you to overcome a pain that nobody else can see that you don't even give any indication of. You're not giving any indication of it now. >> Ada Limon: Yeah. >> Ron Charles: That's a-- >> Ada Limon: I try not to [laughs]. >> Ron Charles: Yeah. But you have another poem called How to Triumph Like a Girl, which is related, in a way, but you're inspired by something very different. >> Ada Limon: Mm-hmm. ^F00:19:40 ^M00:19:44 Yeah. I wrote this on the day before the Kentucky Derby, which is the Kentucky Oaks; it is when all the-- all the Phillies race. ^F00:19:55 ^M00:19:57 How to Triumph Like a Girl. I like the lady horses best, how they make it all look easy, like running 40 miles per hour is as fun as taking a nap or grass. I like their lady horse swagger, after winning. Ears up, girls, ears up. But mainly, let's be honest, I like that they're ladies. As if this big dangerous animal is also a part of me, that somewhere inside the delicate skin of my body, there pumps an 8-pound female horse heart, giant with power, heavy with blood. Don't you want to believe it? Don't you want to lift my shirt and see the huge beating genius machine that thinks, no, it knows, it's going to come in first. ^M00:21:00 >> Ron Charles: That's like a feminist anthem [laughter]. That's wonderful. ^M00:21:03 [ Applause ] ^M00:21:06 That's wonderful. It's so surprisingly eroticized and thrilling, tough. >> Ada Limon: Thank you. >> Ron Charles: It's really really surprising. But you're just full of surprises. I mean this poem about carrots. I remember the carrots is where the title of the poem-- the title of the collection comes from. >> Ada Limon: Yeah, someone wrote me afterwards and they were like, so bright dead things are carrots [laughter] and I was like, well not really, but that is where, you know, the inspiration came from, which I thought was funny. I was like no, but. ^M00:21:47 I remember the carrots. I haven't given up on trying to live a good life, a really good one even, sitting in the kitchen in Kentucky, imagining how agreeable I'll be, the advance of fulfillment, and of desire. All these needs met, then unmet again. When I was a kid, I was excited about carrots, their spidery neon tops in the garden's plot. And so, I ripped them all out. I broke the new roots and carried them, like a prize, to my father who scolded me, rightly, for killing his whole crop. I loved them, my own bright dead things. I'm thirty-five and remember all that I've done wrong. Yesterday I was nice, but in truth I resented the contentment of the field. Why must we practice this surrender? What I mean is, there are days I still want to kill the carrots because I can. ^M00:22:51 [ Applause ] ^M00:22:57 >> Ron Charles: That-- that boldness, that desire to exercise power, because you can. You claim the traditionally male prerogative as your own. >> Ada Limon: Mm-hmm. >> Ron Charles: And then you mock it with carrots at the same time. It's the kind of thing you do over and over again in your poems where they seem, I was telling you earlier, they seem accessible, and they are on one level, and then you realize suddenly there are all kinds of other things going on in the poem. Where do the-- how did you-- how did you move from the image of the carrots to that larger theme in that poem? >> Ada Limon: I think that I was fascinated by the idea that I still held that guilt and that I remember that as something I'd done wrong, that-- and that's a minor thing, right; I have many things that I've done wrong. >> Ron Charles: Your dad wasn't that angry. >> Ada Limon: Right. Although he does claim that he's going to write a companion poem called Carrot Crop Lost. ^M00:23:54 [ Laughter ] ^M00:23:58 Which he may, I don't know. But no, and I think that I-- that I-- that first idea of like the things that, how it's so impossible to be happy, to be contented and that trying to find, sort of, equanimity and peace and live in a place where you aren't always desires or fearful or rageful or self-pitying, you know. What does that mean? And for some reason the carrots and that idea of the-- I had been holding on to this and I think the reason I was holding on to it was because I still sometimes feel the need for destruction. >> Ron Charles: Of course. It's never-- >> Ada Limon: Like we all do. >> Ron Charles: Exactly. >> Ada Limon: Right. >> Ron Charles: Right. >> Ada Limon: And so-- >> Ron Charles: And we're all nice people. >> Ada Limon: Right. >> Ron Charles: But still. >> Ada Limon: And of course, I mean like any poem, I don't think I knew where the poem was going until it went there. >> Ron Charles: Right. Yeah. I love that. Your paternal grandfather was from Mexico. >> Ada Limon: Mm-hmm. >> Ron Charles: You really complicate the discussion of diversity in really interesting, brave ways. In one poem you begin everyone is busted a little. And in an interview you once said it seems that in an attempt to encourage diversity and to celebrate differences there is still an overwhelming need for cateri-- categorization. ^M00:25:26 In the same thing you write, maybe you don't ever say it for yourself, maybe you move your mouth like everyone moves their mouth. Maybe your mouth is the same mouth as everyone's all trying to say the same thing. That's a very provocative claim to make in a world where we are very skeptical of universal truths. >> Ada Limon: Mm-hmm. >> Ron Charles: Universal experiences, universal values. I wonder if you would read a poem, a prose poem, first time we've ever read a prose poem because I hate them [laughter]. ^M00:25:58 >> Ada Limon: Fascinating. Fascinating. I'm learning about you. ^F00:26:03 ^M00:26:08 This one's for my brother. My older brother, I should say. I got his permission for this one too. >> Ron Charles: Okay. >> Ada Limon: But it was a little late in the game. I was like, this book's coming out [laughter]. ^M00:26:22 >> Ron Charles: That's not permission. That's forgiveness. >> Ada Limon: Yeah it was, it was forgiveness. But I would have pulled it if he had an issue with it. >> Ron Charles: Okay. ^M00:26:35 >> Ada Limon: Prickly Pear and Fisticuffs. My older brother says he doesn't consider himself Latino anymore and I understand what he means, but I stare at the weird fruit in my hand and I wonder what it is to lose a spiny layer. He's explaining how white and lower-middle class we grew up and how we don't know anything about any culture except maybe Northern California culture, which means we get stoned more often and frown on super stores. I want to do whatever he says. I want to be something entirely without words. I want to be without tongue or temper. Two days ago, in Tennessee someone said, Stop it, Ada's Mexican. And I didn't know what they were talking about until one of them said, At least I didn't say, Wetback. And everyone laughed. Honestly, another drink and I could have hit someone. Started the night's final fight. And I don't care what he says. My brother would have gone down swinging and fought off every redneck whitey in the room. >> Ron Charles: Yeah, that gets right to it. Right to it. The way that poem moves and the tension that it never resolved [applause]. >> Ada Limon: Yeah. >> Ron Charles: You've talked about the tension between tokenism and inclusion. >> Ada Limon: Mm-hmm. >> Ron Charles: One-- one is condescending. >> Ada Limon: Mm-hmm. >> Ron Charles: One is desirable. ^M00:28:01 >> Ada Limon: Yeah. >> Ron Charles: And they look alike sometimes. >> Ada Limon: Yeah and they feel very different. >> Ron Charles: Yes. You say there are times where I feel like I've been invited somewhere or that I'm being asked to speak because I'm Latino background or because I'm a Latino poet. Other times-- a lot of times I'm with Latino poet brothers and sisters and I feel like the whitest girl in the room. >> Ada Limon: Mm-hmm. >> Ron Charles: So, there's this interesting struggle of what world I fit into. I think I'm done feeling guilty on either side now. I think it's actually this in-between space that intrigues me the most. You've got a really witty, daring poem called The Contract Says We'd Like the Conversation to be Bilingual. ^M00:28:40 [ Laughter ] ^M00:28:42 And you might have to set this up a little bit but this, I imagine, is the kind of thing one gets from a book festival or a poetry festival. >> Ada Limon: Yeah. >> Ron Charles: And you notice this one line in the contract. >> Ada Limon: Yeah, which was interesting because that-- clearly it meant they knew nothing of my work or my background [laughter] because I'm not fluent in Spanish. I can understand a lot of it, but-- but it just-- they kind of threw it in there, like, oh yeah, and then we'll have the conversation-- it was a conversation like this. >> Ron Charles: Yes. >> Ada Limon: That they wanted it to be entirely bilingual. >> Ron Charles: You could not do that. >> Ada Limon: Right. >> Ron Charles: What do you say? >> Ada Limon: I mean I just wrote back and, you know. >> Ron Charles: Sent them this poem. >> Ada Limon: Yeah, basically wrote this poem. >> Ron Charles: Exactly. >> Ada Limon: And I will say, you know, that it's also a poem for my father. ^M00:29:30 he Contract Says We'd Like the Conversation to be Bilingual. When you come, bring your brown-ness so we can be sure to please the funders. Will you check this box; we're applying for a grant. Do you have any poems that speak to troubled teens? Bilingual is best. Would you like to come to dinner with the patrons and sip Patron? Will you tell us the stories that make us uncomfortable, but not complicit? Don't read the one where you are just like us. Born to a green house, garden, don't tell us how you picked tomatoes and ate them in the dirt watching vultures pick apart another bird's bones in the road. Tell us the one about your father stealing hubcaps after a colleague said that's what his kind did. Tell us how he came to the meeting wearing a poncho and tried to sell the man his hubcaps back. Don't mention your father was a teacher, spoke English, loved making beer, loved baseball. Tell us again about the poncho, the hubcaps, how he stole them, how he did the thing he was trying to prove he didn't do. ^M00:30:55 ^F00:30:57 [ Applause ] ^M00:31:03 >> Ron Charles: That is a really brave poem. >> Ada Limon: Thank you. >> Ron Charles: And makes many of us were laughing out of nervousness or-- I mean I, as an editor, it's one of my expressed goals is to try and get a better mix of-- >> Ada Limon: Mm-hmm. Absolutely. >> Ron Charles: Viewers and books. >> Ada Limon: Yeah. >> Ron Charles: And sometimes we pick people because we hope they bring that. >> Ada Limon: Mm-hmm. >> Ron Charles: Because they check the box. >> Ada Limon: Yeah, I know. >> Ron Charles: So-- >> Ada Limon: Yeah, and there's a gift to it, right. >> Ron Charles: Is that wrong? Is it necessarily condescending? >> Ada Limon: If the gift-- the gift to that inclusion, you know, the gift of inclusion, the gift of celebrating different voices-- >> Ron Charles: Right, that all seems good. >> Ada Limon: All that is beautiful. It's all great. >> Ron Charles: So, when does it turn sour? When does it ferment and do something poisonous? >> Ada Limon: I think, you know, often times the intention is there where it is not about the work at all, and that's where I think, as an artist, you feel it the most. I was at a writers festival, I won't say the name of it, but you know, where we were-- some-- someone had dropped out and I was standing with a friend of mine, a wonderful Mexican poet, and we were together and they said, you know, do you know anyone in New York that could come up on the train and like, you know, fill the slot and we gave a name of another writer who happened to be Mexican; he was a greater writer. And she said-- she pointed at us and said, well no, we already have two Latino poets. And that's when you know, in that instant, right. >> Ron Charles: Yeah. >> Ada Limon: Why you're there. >> Ron Charles: Yeah, that is-- >> Ada Limon: It wasn't about my work. >> Ron Charles: That makes me cringe. >> Ada Limon: Yeah. So, I think that there is, you know, very-- it's actually, you can feel it more than you know. But at the same time, I don't think that this is pushing against inclusion or, you know-- >> Ron Charles: Right. >> Ada Limon: I think when it's about the work and it's authentically about the work then it's great, you know, it should be celebrated and it should be where we're moving towards. But I think that-- that, you know, the danger of also being performative as like well now we will have these voices represented and you are here to represent this voice, right. >> Ron Charles: Yes. >> Ada Limon: And then you-- you know in that instant, oh wait, no, I'm not here for-- to represent my own poems or who I am or who I am as a complicated person who is both Mexican, both white, you know, all of these things, and I am not allowed to be that person. And when that's taken away from me then part of my humanity is taken away. >> Ron Charles: Yes. It's a quota. ^M00:33:33 >> Ada Limon: Right. And so, the complexity and all that makes me human is what I want to be celebrated for or recognized for, not something that happens to be because I have an accent over my own. Now that doesn't-- doesn't mean that I want also to be given the opportunity, if I can, to celebrate writers, especially Latina writers, you know-- >> Ron Charles: Yes. >> Ada Limon: That's a goal in my life. >> Ron Charles: Yes. >> Ada Limon: You know, but I think that it-- there-- you know, I want to make sure that I'm not do-- not just going through a folder and being like, oh these people have this name, right. >> Ron Charles: Right. >> Ada Limon: It has to be about the work; it first and foremost always has to be about the work. And when you feel that that's-- you feel the inclusion. >> Ron Charles: Right. >> Ada Limon: And we don't feel that. It feels like tokenism. >> Ron Charles: Perfect. >> Ada Limon: Yeah. >> Ron Charles: I think the only way to get at that is through irony. >> Ada Limon: Yeah. >> Ron Charles: Through wit. >> Ada Limon: Right, and I think the thing about that poem is that is a true story. My dad was a teacher for a long time and he, at this point, was a school administrator and someone said that he wouldn't park his car over in this certain community because all the Mexicans there would steal his hubcaps, and my father went out into the parking lot and stole the man's hubcaps [laughter]. And the next faculty meeting wasn't for like another week and my dad came in with a poncho and a sombrero. >> Ron Charles: Wow. >> Ada Limon: And he had the-- his hubcaps like lined inside the poncho and was like, hey, you guys want some hubcaps, and he played this role for this guy. >> Ron Charles: That's great. >> Ada Limon: And made this real point to him, you know, and really destroyed him, you know. >> Ron Charles: Yes. >> Ada Limon: With this humor. >> Ron Charles: Yes. >> Ada Limon: I mean it was just-- and so when my father retired from that particular school district, they gave him an engraved hubcap [laughter]. That's a true story. ^M00:35:26 >> Ron Charles: That's great. That's great. I got to meet this guy. >> Ada Limon: He's pretty amazing. >> Ron Charles: And I'm going to read that-- I'm going to read your carrot poem too. I want you all to stand up, turn around, and sit back down now. >> Ada Limon: This our break. >> Ron Charles: Yep. >> Ada Limon: Alright. >> Ron Charles: It's not an intermission, you're not leaving the room, you're not even leaving your chair, you're just standing up. But you all must stand up. ^M00:35:46 [ Laughter ] ^M00:35:50 Okay, sit down because we're going to talk about grief and dying. >> Ada Limon: Oh yay. Some of my favorite topics. >> Ron Charles: Your poems about grief and illness are just devastating, largely because they're so beautiful. >> Ada Limon: Thank you. >> Ron Charles: Because they force us into a kind of emotional intimacy with things we don't want to think about. >> Ada Limon: Right. >> Ron Charles: In one of your poems you write, isn't it funny-- ^F00:36:22 ^M00:36:29 Isn't it funny how the cold numbs everything but grief? If we could light up the room with pain, we'd be such a glorious fire. In another poem, reflecting on the impending loss of your step-mother, I believe, you write, this is not a unique story. What we have in our hands is an unsolvable thing; it's the passage that perplexes us. This full weight that must take us down. On the PBS News Hour, you said, poetry is a place where both grief and grace can live. Help us understand that. What do you mean-- what did you mean by that? >> Ada Limon: I think that acknowledging mortality is one of the goals and purposes of poetry. I think that that idea of when we know that we're going to leave this world there is a sort of saturation of colors that happens and an idea of loving the world becomes deeper. And in that connection to our own mortality and to our family's mortality and to every stranger's mortality and to everyone's mortality it goes wider and wider to the point of that grief is actually what helps us recommit to being in the world. Because knowing it's going to end how could you not celebrate it. >> Ron Charles: One must morn things daily as a cause for continuing, you write. >> Ada Limon: Mm-hmm. >> Ron Charles: You're not a religious person. >> Ada Limon: Uh-uh. >> Ron Charles: You've got all the right material. You approach that tension in very striking haunting ways. I wonder if you'd read section 11 of a poem called Thirteen Feral Cats. >> Ada Limon: Oh wow, been a while. >> Ron Charles: It's a beautiful cycle. >> Ada Limon: Thank you. ^F00:38:33 ^M00:38:40 The Buddhists say it is of our nature to die, but that doesn't seem enough, does it. The bees in our body released, the wasps in the heart. Once above where a woman nursed a wasp nest grew in the ceiling. At first only a tiny discoloration, the spreading stain of larva pupate only looked like an upside-down puddle. No one wanted to kill them. The child in this woman's arms only one month old the wasps growing along with them. We wanted them to grow up and leave eventually, the wasps and the child. But what grows in us and around us may not always be protected, by mandates of good nature. One wasp nest contains 3000 to 5000 wasps, 19 stings is considered the lethal dose of wasp venom for a full-grown adult. When the first leg dropped through the plaster and paint white dust landed on the child's forehead. By the sixth leg everyone was out of the house until soon all the wasps were dead. White poison covering their small bodies, still preserved in their home, like a tiny winged pompey. ^M00:40:04 >> Ron Charles: That contrast between this helpless newborn baby and thousands of deadly wasps above the baby is just an indelible image. Where'd that come from? >> Ada Limon: A true story. Yeah. That was my little brother in my step-mother's arms. >> Ron Charles: Geeze. >> Ada Limon: And we really-- it was just a discoloration at first. >> Ron Charles: Yes. >> Ada Limon: And then, suddenly, you know, we weren't-- we were just thinking it'll-- they'll move on, you know, and then we didn't want to call the exterminator. And then the legs, you could see that like the-- it had gone so heavy. >> Ron Charles: Yes. >> Ada Limon: Right, as they do. >> Ron Charles: Yes. >> Ada Limon: But the legs started to come through and then we had to call the exterminator and then, of course, they pull it out once it's-- >> Ron Charles: Right. >> Ada Limon: And it's just so sad because it's just all of these wasps. >> Ron Charles: Yeah. So, this life and death newness and terror. >> Ada Limon: Yeah. And for a child, you know, for an infant. >> Ron Charles: Yeah. >> Ada Limon: It's really dangerous. >> Ron Charles: Of course. >> Ada Limon: Yeah, especially, at that point you don't know if there's any allergy too, so. >> Ron Charles: Right, right. Another one of these poems, section 13, I'm sorry, you'll have to read the whole cycle on your own. If you could read section 13. ^F00:41:17 ^M00:41:20 >> Ada Limon: This morning when I opened the screen door the cats were standing on a wooden ladder next to the house, one for each rung. At first glance, they were after nothing, scrambling for oblivion until I saw the bee, lasing in circles above them near the roof. When the door slammed, they turned, as if to say this is why we've come here, for this moment, to chase anything that might get away. As if we were put here to remember our own ending, to wander out into the streets, their own brutal oblivion, to stare at the trees dark bark, to know that in order to go on we must accept the cage we are given, that someday we will be released into the unimaginable, and until then, praise the walls and all the parts of us they manage to hold so dearly. ^M00:42:22 >> Ron Charles: I don't care what you say, that is a prayer. That is just a prayer. >> Ada Limon: Thank you. >> Ron Charles: In order to go on we must accept the cage we are given and until then praise the walls and all the parts of us we manage to hold so dearly. Is writing about loss and grief therapeutic, cathartic, does it give you a greater understanding of what you went through? >> Ada Limon: I think that I don't know how to go through something difficult without writing through it. I don't always do anything with the poems, like sometimes those poems, you know, are written in the white-hot moment of grief or anger and you think they're kind of killer when you write them and then the next day, you're like, wow, I got to throw that one away. But I-- I don't know how to experience something big without-- I think the writing saves me over and over again. And it's my way of processing and dealing with it. I think when my mo-- my step-mother was diagnosed with cancer she was sick for six years and so processing, not only the diagnosis and what it is to actually live with a diagnosis, right, with the sort of impending death, and to know that, you know, she had colon cancer, you know, she lived for-- they gave her six months, she lived for six years. >> Ron Charles: That's great. >> Ada Limon: It's amazing. And I think it was primarily because my younger brother was 12 at the time and she was like I want to make it until he's 18, and she did. And I literally feel like it was her will of thinking I want to see him when he's an adult. >> Ron Charles: Right. >> Ada Limon: Or, you know, 18 [laughter]. And she did. And-- and so and then-- and then writing about that loss-- so, writing about her death and it was a home death that I was a part of. It was my dad had called me and said, you know, it was sort of when you get that call and like the person who always makes sense isn't making sense. >> Ron Charles: Mm-hmm. ^M00:44:32 >> Ada Limon: And he was like so we've got-- I was like, okay, I'm going to book a flight tomorrow. He was like okay. You know, normally I think he'd refuse help and he was like yeah, yeah, come home. And so, I went home for a month and, you know, we helped her die and it was still, maybe, the biggest honor of my life. >> Ron Charles: Mm-hmm. How old was she? >> Ada Limon: She was only 52. >> Ron Charles: Geeze. I'm sorry. >> Ada Limon: Yeah. She was only 52. And, you know, I mean that kind of-- I wasn't writing while I was going through it. I was reading and I was sketching and she and I were drawing together sometimes and-- and I'm not an artist, it was just, you know, what something to do. >> Ron Charles: She was. >> Ada Limon: She wasn't, oh yeah, she wasn't an artist. But we just, you know, were-- it was what do you do with time. She was like I don't want to watch TV, you know, like she's like they say-- the nurse kind of is like well move the TV down. And she's like she never even was a TV person, she's like I don't want to-- >> Ron Charles: No. >> Ada Limon: You know, so we just did stuff. >> Ron Charles: Nice. ^M00:45:38 >> Ada Limon: And-- and then it wasn't until after she passed that I was able to, you know, the poem that we just read, the Thirteen Feral Cats, was written before she passed away, and then Bright Dead Things was the book that came out after she passed away. ^F00:45:56 ^M00:46:00 >> Ron Charles: Would you read After the Fire? >> Ada Limon: Yeah. ^F00:46:02 ^M00:46:08 This was-- I'm originally from Sonoma, California and, you know, they had those devastating fires and I had lots of friends lose homes and I have an apartment there on a friend's property and it came within five feet of the front door and I was very very lucky. But also, you know, there were a lot of people that were really hurt and a lot of people, you know, whose lives had changed, you know, and so this is a poem about that. After the Fire. You ever think you could cry so hard that there'd be nothing left in you, like how the wind shakes a tree in a storm until every part of it is run through with wind? I live in the low parts now, most days a little hazy with fever and waiting for the water to stop shivering out of the body. Funny thing about grief, its hold is so bright and determined like a flame, like something almost worth living for. ^M00:47:21 >> Ron Charles: I was sort of reminded of Emily Dickenson's poem, After Great Pain a Formal Feeling Comes. >> Ada Limon: Formal Feeling Comes, yeah. >> Ron Charles: The same-- the after pain, the stunning, penumbra of that tragedy. >> Ada Limon: Right. >> Ron Charles: That you live in. >> Ada Limon: And what that does and how sometimes just feeling that grief, whether it's the loss of a loved one or heartbreak is actually the thing that you feel beholden to. >> Ron Charles: Yes. Yeah. >> Ada Limon: You know, that that's the thing that you have to honor. >> Ron Charles: Yes. >> Ada Limon: Like that your life becomes about I have to carry this grief and hold on to it and honor it and describe it and I will live for this grief. >> Ron Charles: Yes. I understand that. >> Ada Limon: Yeah. ^M00:48:16 >> Ron Charles: You push back against grief in really beautiful ways, even without religion there is a kind of faith in your poems. A poem like The Crossing. Can you read The Crossing? >> Ada Limon: Yeah. >> Ron Charles: It seems like a very difficult poem to read aloud but it's very-- >> Ada Limon: We'll see [laughs]. >> Ron Charles: Yeah [laughter]. >> Ada Limon: We'll see what happens. >> Ron Charles: If you can't-- if you can't it's okay, I totally understand. >> Ada Limon: This poem was written for my step-mom and, you know, when someone, and I'm sure you've experienced this but when someone you love passes away and especially if it's terminal cancer and so that you have time, or terminal illness, so you have time to talk about things, that discussion about, you know, what happens next, you know, and we weren't religious people. I was raised an atheist. I'm spiritual but I don't believe in organized religion, and so there's certain rules and things that open up for us because we don't have this idea of what comes next. So, we talked about this. ^M00:49:29 The Crossing. For Cynthia. We drive up to Smokey Point and the Snoqualmie River is muddy. The fish have been crossing for days. All night, the news of Coho crossings, sightings of those swimming beaming finners. One band of sun holds its hands down on the field, but the water's still deep, the inaccessible earth, the dark birds in scissors cut the sky into gray and grayer, two halves of the same strange atmosphere. The trees stand up straight for now and the old barbecue is gone, but a whole cement village has bricked the land over in its place. Ever neon sign says stop. Every market sells a season, poor black-capped chickadee trapped in its rafters. The medication has made your face different. Your skin is not the same you lived in. We wait at the train tracks as a new deluge comes, a bold blundering sky of freshwater. A single leave on a tree, one big leaf maple child, a wet dog on a cement heap. You say you wish there was a way you could come back to find out who your wild son grows up to be, if that house stands up the years of rain, if your dear husband stands up to the years of rain. A car alarm, a fire truck. Maybe there is a way, like fish in the cold fall storms, maybe we do, our bodies unskinned and unadorned, making our way to the place our beatings belong, our pulsing light flashing of a river. Silvery across a flooded highway, our human faults forgiven, a returning to the first uncomplicated river system, blood to blood to blood, until we are carried around in the world like one grateful fish, escaping the lure and seeing the same moon it has seen for then-thousand years, the same moon our other dear fishes see. Maybe, I say, my own tenuous connection, maybe, the railroad crossing released, the car pushing toward home. Maybe, I say to you, maybe we do come back. ^F00:52:05 ^M00:52:09 [ Applause ] ^F00:52:13 ^M00:52:20 I feel like that poem she's with me every time I read a poem about her. >> Ron Charles: Exactly. >> Ada Limon: Yeah. >> Ron Charles: I mean that's the beautiful thing about the poem is when you read it, she comes back. >> Ada Limon: Yeah. And I've always thought, you know, I read this somewhere and I'm-- I don't know who said it and it's true though, which is that, like, writing is a great way of performing resurrection and I feel like that when I talk about the honoring of grief and like the actually living for grief, that is part of it. >> Ron Charles: Right. >> Ada Limon: Is that I feel like it is my job. >> Ron Charles: It's one of the oldest poets' jobs. >> Ada Limon: Mm-hmm. The elegy. >> Ron Charles: In mor-- in memorial. >> Ada Limon: Mm-hmm. >> Ron Charles: Yeah, it does. >> Ada Limon: The elegy, which is the greatest love poem. >> Ron Charles: Right. Yeah. Did she-- was she able to read that poem or had she passed? >> Ada Limon: She was. >> Ron Charles: That's great. >> Ada Limon: She was able to read it, yeah. In fact, I-- I was asking her, I said, you know, if-- if you're uncomfortable, because it's-- the book is dedicated for Cynthia, and I said, you know, I can say for C if you want to just have your-- and she looked at me and she was, you know, she was in the bed, she was going to die and she said-- I was literally doing the edits in this book with her on her deathbed and she said to me, why would you say C, you've only ever called me Cynthia. And it was so like-- she was so like-- I was like, right, of course, yes [laughter]. I'm like, yeah. >> Ron Charles: That's nice. ^F00:54:02 ^M00:54:08 There's another very different poem about resurrection involving a possum. >> Ada Limon: Mm, yes. The poor possum. >> Ron Charles: It almost seems sac religious to read it after that poem, but it-- >> Ada Limon: But not really. >> Ron Charles: No, I was going to say, because-- >> Ada Limon: Because actually, yeah. >> Ron Charles: It ends-- it ends with a very similar theme. >> Ada Limon: Mm-hmm. >> Ron Charles: It just gets there in a very different way. >> Ada Limon: Yeah. >> Ron Charles: Excuse me. >> Ada Limon: This was a poem that I-- this is a true story and this book dealt with a lot of-- I had lived in New York for 12 years and then I moved to Lexington, Kentucky and we had just moved into our new apartment together, our first apartment together and we lived out in the country in this sort of cool old house, it was an old tobacco weigh station. ^M00:55:04 In the Country of Resurrection. I should also say we moved-- Cynthia died in 2010, February of 2010. Sharks in the Rivers, that I just read from, came out in October or-- or September of 2010, so it was right after her death. I moved to Lexington. I fell in love May of 2010 and moved to Lexington. So, I basically like-- she died and then I fell in love and began this new relationship. And so even my relationship now with my husband is very much linked to her death and also who I am as an artist and where I went with my work is very much linked to her death. And so even though this poem deals with it in a way that it's not her death, it's-- I should say that she's in all of these poems. In the Country of Resurrection. Last night we killed a possum, out of mercy, in the middle of the road. It was dying, its face was bloody, the back legs were shattered. The mistake I made was getting out of the car. You told me not to, but I wanted to be sure, needed to know for sure, that it could not be saved. Someone else had hit it. The sound it was making. The sound folded me back into the airless car. Do it, do it fast, I lowered my head until the thud was done. You killed it quiet. We drove home under the sickle moon, laundry gone cold and dry on the line. But that was last night. This morning the sun is coming alive in the kitchen. You've gone to get us gas station coffee and there is so much life all over the place. ^F00:57:03 ^M00:57:07 >> Ron Charles: There is so much life all over the place. That's so reassuring and so damn offensive when someone you love has died. >> Ada Limon: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Because-- >> Ron Charles: How can that be alive? >> Ada Limon: Right, and how can the sun come up? >> Ron Charles: Yes. >> Ada Limon: Like how dare you. >> Ron Charles: Exactly. >> Ada Limon: Right. >> Ron Charles: Yes. >> Ada Limon: How dare you rise again. Like, if she doesn't get to rise how dare you rise. Yeah. And I think that that level of like also needing the light, right, and wanting to celebrate it and then also always being surprised it's still being here, that life is continuing. >> Ron Charles: Yes. Wow. >> Ada Limon: Yeah, that it seems so bizarre that you just go on. >> Ron Charles: Right. >> Ada Limon: And everyone's like, oh yeah, they'll get your coffee and you're just kind of left there like wait, what. >> Ron Charles: It is the strangest thing. >> Ada Limon: It's the strangest thing. And yet everyone goes through it. >> Ron Charles: It happens all the time. >> Ada Limon: It happens all the time, that's what's so wild to me. >> Ron Charles: You have another poem called The Great Blue Heron on Dunbar Road and it's about your father or step-dad. >> Ada Limon: My step-dad. >> Ron Charles: Recovered alcoholic. >> Ada Limon: Mm-hmm. >> Ron Charles: Driving you to school and every day you cheer each other up by seeing the blue heron. He spots it sometimes, you spot it sometimes and it becomes this sort of symbol of life of the future, beauty. >> Ada Limon: And like the day was going to be good if we saw the blue heron. >> Ron Charles: A good day. >> Ada Limon: Yeah. >> Ron Charles: But then, you know, the pond dries up. >> Ada Limon: Yep. >> Ron Charles: Blue heron goes away. >> Ada Limon: Mm-hmm. >> Ron Charles: But you still see it. >> Ada Limon: Yeah. >> Ron Charles: Or you still imagine you do. >> Ada Limon: Or we still pretend we do. >> Ron Charles: You still pretend you do. >> Ada Limon: For each other. >> Ron Charles: I just-- it's like cognitive behavioral therapy [laughter] right there, you know. >> Ada Limon: Yeah. >> Ron Charles: You just-- you just-- you see the blue heron. >> Ada Limon: Yep. >> Ron Charles: Because it makes a better day. >> Ada Limon: Yes. >> Ron Charles: Whether the blue heron's there or not is almost irrelevant. >> Ada Limon: Mm-hmm. >> Ron Charles: You see it. >> Ada Limon: Yeah, and we'd sort of makeup stories and say, no, I think it just-- see the rustling over there, I think it just took off, you know, we would just lie to each other that we had seen the blue heron. >> Ron Charles: I don't think it was a lie. >> Ada Limon: It wasn't a lie, it was a-- but it was, but it wasn't. >> Ron Charles: St. Paul talks about-- >> Ada Limon: But we believe it. >> Ron Charles: Right, St. Paul says the evidence of things not seen. >> Ada Limon: Yes, exactly. >> Ron Charles: That's the blue heron. >> Ada Limon: Exactly. >> Ron Charles: I just love that. We'll talk about love. We are winding down here but I do want to move to love because love is one of the things that pushes back against grief in your poems. Would you read this poem Overjoyed? ^F00:59:51 ^M00:59:58 >> Ada Limon: Yeah. Overjoyed. What's the drunk waxwing supposed to do when all day's been an orgy of red buds on the winery's archway off Gehricke Road and it's too far to make it home, too long to fly, even as the sober crow goes. What's the point of passion when the pyracantha berries keep the blood turned toward obsess, obsess? Don't you want those birds-- don't you know those birds are going to toss themselves into the streets for some minor song of happiness? And who can blame them? This life is hard. And let me be the first to admit that I-- if I-- when I come across some jewel of pleasure, I too want to squeeze that thing until even its seedy heart evaporates like ethanol, want to throw my bird-bones into the brush-fire until, half-blind, all I can hear is the sound of wings in the relentlessly delighted air [laughs]. ^M01:01:08 >> Ron Charles: That's a change of pace. Yep, you know Ross Gay. >> Ada Limon: Desire desire. >> Ron Charles: The poet who's coming next week, you know Ross Gay. >> Ada Limon: Love Ross Gay, yes. >> Ron Charles: This kind of reminds me of the kind of thing he would respond to. >> Ada Limon: Totally. >> Ron Charles: Yes, just the unbounded joy. >> Ada Limon: Yeah. >> Ron Charles: Passion without limits. >> Ada Limon: And the admission of obsession and the admission of, you know, sometimes we do want all the things, like, you know, that I would want to squeeze it, you know, squeeze every last little bit out of it. ^M01:01:38 >> Ron Charles: Yes. >> Ada Limon: You know, and I feel like he does that well. >> Ron Charles: Yes. You do too. >> Ada Limon: Thank you. ^F01:01:43 ^M01:01:47 >> Ron Charles: We're going to end with one poem from this book. >> Ada Limon: Oh, I love that. >> Ron Charles: The Epilogue. >> Ada Limon: Yeah. >> Ron Charles: I won't even talk about the book, just the last poem. ^F01:01:56 ^M01:02:04 >> Ada Limon: Epilogue. This Big Fake World. The object is to not simply exist in this world of radio clocks and moon pies, where holidays and lunch breaks bring the only relief from the machine that is our mind humming inside of its shell. Shouldn't we make a fire out of everyday things, build something out of too many nails and not wonder if we are right to build without permission from the other dull furniture. Out of the small plot we are given, small plot of cement and electrified wires, small plot of razors and outlandish liquor names let's make a nest, each of us, of our own pieces of glass and weeds and names we have found. Somewhere along the banks of this liquid world let us all hold close to the lost and the unclear and in or own odd little way find some refuge here. ^F01:03:09 ^M01:03:11 >> Ron Charles: That is your benediction. ^M01:03:13 [ Applause ] ^M01:03:15 >> Ada Limon: Thank you. >> Ron Charles: Thank you. ^M01:03:18 [ Applause ] ^M01:03:22 >> Ada Limon: Thank you. ^M01:03:23 [ Applause ]