Ada Limón — U.S. Poet Laureate (Co-presented with Litquake)
Two-term U.S. Poet Laureate shares work from 'Startlement: New & Selected Poems,' connecting human experience with the natural world.
Why we picked this
The U.S. Poet Laureate reads from her new collection — sharp, warm, and attuned to both human messiness and natural beauty.
Ada Limón is a California-raised poet who writes with uncommon directness about the ordinary strangeness of being alive. As U.S. Poet Laureate, she’s brought poetry to audiences that don’t typically seek it out — her NASA collaboration sent a poem to Jupiter’s moon Europa aboard the Europa Clipper mission.
Her new collection “Startlement” draws on the tension between human restlessness and the steadiness of the natural world. Limón’s poems are precise without being cold, emotional without being sentimental — the kind of writing that makes you notice things you’ve been walking past.
Co-presented with Litquake, San Francisco’s literary festival. At Sydney Goldstein Theater, an intimate venue that suits poetry perfectly.