QuickTake:

Ada Limón, first Latina U.S. poet laureate, stopped May 20 in Cloverdale, Oregon, to read poetry about the natural world and the human experience.

U.S. poet laureate Ada Limón filled the Nestucca K8 School’s gym May 20 with people eager to hear her poetry. 

Nestucca is in Cloverdale, which is about 10 minutes from the coast between Portland and Salem. Sitka Center for Arts & Ecology sponsored the event.

Mariachi Tradición, a high school mariachi band from Forest Grove, kicked off the evening, ending with the iconic “La Bamba” which had people grooving in their seats. As Limón took the stage, she thanked the band, saying “La Bamba” was her Mexican father’s favorite mariachi song and that their performance had “brought him into the room.”

It was Limón’s last event as poet laureate, a position appointed by the U.S. Librarian of Congress each year to a distinguished American living poet. Poet laureates spend their terms performing local poetry readings and lectures, doing outreach projects and attending conferences. 

Limón was the first Latina poet laureate in U.S. history and has been in the role since 2022. She spoke Tuesday night about the opportunities the position has brought her. NASA engraved her poem “In Praise of Mystery: A Poem for Europa” onto the Europa Clipper, a spacecraft sent to one of Jupiter’s moons. She has also visited and worked with national parks across the country to promote poetry about the natural world in the parks.

Limón dedicated a handful of poems she read Tuesday night, including “A New National Anthem”, to former Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden, who appointed Limón. President Donald Trump dismissed Hayden on May 8. Hayden was the first woman and first Black person to hold the position and was the reason Limón accepted the role as poet laureate, she said.

One of Limón’s last poems of the night was “Startlement,” the namesake of her forthcoming book of poems coming out in September. The poem is also on the front page of the United States’ Fifth National Climate Assessment, published in December 2023. The poem speaks about the interconnectedness of the human world and the natural world, the last three stanzas setting the tone for the report: 

The world says, What we are becoming, we are

becoming together.

The world says, One type of dream has ended

and another has just begun.

The world says, Once we were separate,

and now we must move in unison.

Lilly is a graduate of Indiana University and has worked at the Indianapolis Star and in Burlington, Vermont, as well as working as a foreign language teacher in France. She covers education and children's issues for Lookout Eugene-Springfield.