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Program Poetry & Literature

Poet Laureate

Current Poet Laureate

Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden appointed Ada Limón as the 24th Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress on July 12, 2022 and reappointed her for a historic two-year second term on April 24, 2023. Limón’s second term will begin in September 2023 and conclude in April 2025.

Ada Limón was born in Sonoma, California, in 1976 and is of Mexican ancestry. She is the author of six poetry collections, including “The Hurting Kind,” (Milkweed Editions, 2022), shortlisted for the 2023 Griffin Poetry Prize; “The Carrying” (Milkweed Editions, 2018), which won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry; “Bright Dead Things” (2015), a finalist for the National Book Award and the National Books Critics Circle Award; “Sharks in the Rivers” (2010); “Lucky Wreck” (Autumn House, 2006); and “This Big Fake World” (Pearl Editions, 2006). She earned a Master of Fine Arts degree from New York University and is the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the New York Foundation for the Arts, the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center, and the Kentucky Foundation for Women.

“Ada Limón is a poet who connects,” Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden said on appointing Limón. “Her accessible, engaging poems ground us in where we are and who we share our world with. They speak of intimate truths, of the beauty and heartbreak that is living, in ways that help us move forward.”

Limón began her first term in September 2022 with an event at the Library of Congress, and during her term she participated in two events hosted by the first lady of the United States, for the National Student Poets Program and for the State Visit with Brigette Macron, wife of the president of France. Limón also participated in an event hosted by Beatriz Gutiérrez Müller, wife of the president of Mexico, for the North American Leaders Summit in Mexico City, and in Buenos Aires she participated in a conversation with Argentine poets Laura Wittner and Daniela Auginsky for the Library’s Palabra Archive. For National Poetry Month 2023, Limón guest edited the Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day series in a first-ever series collaboration between the Academy and the Library of Congress.

In 2021-2022 Limón hosted the podcast series “The Slowdown” from American Public Media, which was launched as part of Tracy K. Smith’s poet laureateship in 2019. Limón currently serves on the faculty of Queens University of Charlotte Low Residency Master of Fine Arts program. She lives in Lexington, Kentucky.

Limón succeeds Joy Harjo as Poet Laureate and joins a long line of distinguished poets who have served in the position, including Tracy K. Smith, Juan Felipe Herrera, Charles Wright, Natasha Trethewey, Philip Levine, W. S. Merwin, Kay Ryan, Charles Simic, Donald Hall, Ted Kooser, Louise Glück, Billy Collins, Stanley Kunitz, Robert Pinsky, Robert Hass, and Rita Dove.

For Poet Laureate media/press inquiries, please contact Brett Zongker in the Library of Congress Office of Communications at (202) 707-1639 or bzongker@loc.gov. For reading and event requests, please contact The Field Office External link's Vaughan Ashlie Fielder at fielder@fieldofficewriters.com. For permissions requests, please contact Bailey Hutchinson at permissions@milkweed.org. For book-related publicity, please use the Contact page External link on Limón's official website.