The Nation's Poet Laureate, Ada Limón, will read and discuss her work on Thursday, October 6, at 7:30 p.m. in Staples Auditorium on the Hendrix College campus. A book signing in Mills Lobby will follow the reading, and WordsWorth Books will sell select titles of Limón’s work. This event is free, open to the public, and no tickets or reservations are required. Ms. Limón’s staff requests that members of the audience wear masks.
Limón is the author of six poetry collections, including The Carrying, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry; Bright Dead Things, a finalist for the National Book Award and the National Books Critics Circle Award; Sharks in the Rivers; Lucky Wreck; and This Big Fake World. Her new book of poetry, The Hurting Kind, was published by Milkweed Editions in May 2022.
Limón grew up in Sonoma, California and now lives in Lexington, Kentucky. She is the host of the critically acclaimed podcast The Slowdown, which is produced by American Public Media in partnership with The Poetry Foundation. Limón also teaches poetry at Queens University of Charlotte’s low-residency MFA program.
Limón 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.
In a press release, Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden said, "Ada Limón is a poet who connects. 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."
This event is sponsored by the Hendrix-Murphy Foundation Programs in Literature and Language, which are designed to enhance and enrich the study and teaching of literature and language at Hendrix College.