Podcast appearances and mentions of ada lim

We are so back! How To Do Everything returns for a packed second season. This episode, one listener asks Mike and Ian how to write the perfect “out of office” message. So, they confer with the highest language authority in the land, U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón.Comedians Andy Samberg and Kate McKinnon join the show to answer your couple's advice questions, some stranger than others. Plus, a fashion tip for your post-Labor Day needs.You can email your burning questions to howto@npr.org. How To Do Everything won't live in this feed forever. If you like what you hear, scoot on over to their very own feed and give them a follow.How To Do Everything is available without sponsor messages for supporters of Wait Wait Don't Tell Me+, who also get bonus episodes of Wait Wait Don't Tell Me! featuring show outtakes, extended guest interviews, and a chance to play an exclusive WW+ quiz game with Peter! Sign up and support NPR at plus.npr.org.How To Do Everything is hosted by Mike Danforth and Ian Chillag. It is produced by Heena Srivastava. Technical direction from Lorna White.******After listening:“I am OOO from (INSERT DATES HERE). For any urgent concerns, please email Mike and Ian at howto@npr.org. Please bear in mind that Mike and Ian don't know anything about anything and their help may in fact make your urgent concern worse, but they did promise to answer any email they get from this out of office message.” Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

While our team is on a brief recording hiatus, we're sharing another encore episode from the Slush Pile archive. This one is from late 2017 and found Jason still in his bathrobe. Nick Lantz published a new collection of poetry in 2024 “The End of Everything and Everything That Comes after That”, and we love an opportunity to celebrate our past authors. Sidle up to our virtual editorial table and take a listen to an episode that considers three poems by Nick Lantz.   In this episode, the editors review three poems by Nick Lantz: “An Urn for Ashes,” “Starvation Ranch,” and “Ghost as Naked Man.”  As a child, Nick Lantz was obsessed with paranormal phenomenon and the unexplained, from cryptids to aliens to ghosts… Present at the Editorial Table: Kathleen Volk Miller, Tim Fitts, Sharee DeVose, Jason Schneiderman, Marion Wrenn, Samantha Neugebauer, Joe Zang (Production Engineer) For the first and possibly only time, we were in a recording studio within Drexel University's LeBow College of Business, which made us feel like we were on an episode of The View. This week, the editors review three poems by Nick Lantz: “An Urn for Ashes,” “Starvation Ranch,” and “Ghost as Naked Man.” As a child, Nick Lantz was obsessed with paranormal phenomenon and the unexplained, from cryptids to aliens to ghosts. These days, he tells people he's writing a book of poems about ghosts, though that's only sort of true. His fourth book, You, Beast, won the Brittingham Prize and was published by University of Wisconsin Press in 2017. He was also the recipient of a 2017 NEA fellowship for his poetry. He lives in Huntsville, Texas, where he teaches at Sam Houston State University and edits the Texas Review. “An Urn for Ashes” gets us started off on our a conversation on past lives and reincarnation. Lantz's impressive use of language and imagery draws up ideas of present beings possessing remnants of those far in the past. Moving on to “Starvation Ranch,” the editors reflect on what memory and recollection look like in the modern era. The poem layers alluring images that are beautifully constructed and give us a front seat in recounting many summers past. The final poem, “Ghost as Naked Man” offers a reimagined commentary on gender as a social construct. Seemingly in conversation with other works on the topic, the poem conveys frustration and destruction, then pride, as expressions of manhood. It also brings to mind Ada Limón's “After the Storm,” published in Issue 66 of Painted Bride Quarterly. Listen in for our takes on these poems and the verdicts! An Urn for Ashes The atoms that made up Julius Caesar's body, burned on a pyre, spread by wind and time, have since dispersed far and wide, and statistically speaking you have in you some infinitesimal bit of carbon or hydrogen from his hand or tongue, or maybe some piece of the foot that, crossing a river, turned a republic into an empire. But that means you carry with you also the unnamed dead, the serfs and farmers, foot soldiers and clerks, and their sandals and the axles of chariots and incense burned at an altar and garbage smoking in a pit outside a great city at the center of an empire, that you are a vessel carrying the ashes of many empires and the ashes of people burned away by empires, their sweet, unheard melodies. And look how finely wrought you are, how precise your features, your very form a kind of ceremony for transporting the dead through the living world. Starvation Ranch Frank Hite, my mother's father's mother's father, named his farm Starvation Ranch, and one July, I balanced high on a ladder to repaint those white letters on the same red barn where they've been for a hundred years. But that summer is a sketch, a note written in the margin of a book I gave away. I shot rabbits and learned to drive and listened to the same Lou Reed tape on loop in the upper bedroom of my family's farmhouse. In a closet I found my grandmother's high school yearbook in which she had crossed out the name of each classmate who had died. I learned there are three kinds of garbage— the kind that goes in the compost heap to feed the garden that grows the peppers and the corn, the kind that goes in the ditch to feed the coyotes who howl at night, the kind that goes in an old oil drum to burn I learned to love the indentation my grandmother's pencil left in the paper over a name, like the tally marks I carved into a tree for each rabbit I shot. I learned that a stone arrowhead, taken from a newly plowed field that has held it for hundreds of years is still sharp enough to cut my palm. I learned to love the hiss of silence on the tape after a song ended, the sound of time like the susurrus of insects at dusk, like a broom whisking clean the floor of some upper room. I learned how to walk the perimeter of the house and feel in the grass the edges of the old foundation, a version of house that burned, that disappeared, that was rewritten, and I learned how to walk farther out into the pastures, to spot the earthen mounds left behind by people who remain only in names of rivers and country roads. That was one summer. Decades later, I learned that the barn I painted was not even the original, which had been replaced, board by beam, years before. And I learned that barns are red because red paint is cheap because iron is abundant because dying stars sighed iron atoms into space and those atoms gathered here on earth, became the earth, became blood and arrowheads and steel girders holding up towers and the red paint of barns. Ghost as Naked Man “Gender is a kind of imitation of which there is no original.”—Judith Butler Take away his beard, his hairy flanks. Lick your thumb and smear off his Adam's apple. Lift away his penis like a live bomb, and bury it under a mountain. Hide the testicles behind a broad leaf. But look, he still goes around town pointing at things he wants and moaning, rattling his imaginary chains. Every time he sees his reflection in a shop window, he cuts a thumb and with the blood paints over gaps in his shimmering reflection. Then he takes a brick and breaks the glass. There, he says, look what I made.

Summer scrambled us, Slushies, from UAE to North Carolina, from D.C. to Scotland and back, from North Carolina to New York City, and to Philly, of course. Phew! Sam has just returned after a month-long residency through the Hawthornden Foundation in Scotland in an actual castle where she worked on her novel. The crew came together on Zoom to discuss two poems by Elvira Basevich, “Beautiful Girls” and “Pallas Athena”. The first poem transports Kathy and Marion to their teenage days on the Jersey shore. For Marion, the ending of the poem with its Beauty in the bathroom mirror, recalls the energy of Ada Limón's “How to Triumph like a Girl”.     The discussion of “Pallas Athena” notes the poem's foresight to mark a memory as it's made, which sends Marion to Wordsworth's Tintern Abbey and has Lisa mis-marking that poem as the one with daffodils. Imagining the future while in the past also reminds Marion of André Aciman's discussion of arbitrage and Tintern Abbey in the New Yorker. We talk about endings, Slushies, and how hard it is to nail the dismount. Last but not least, we celebrate the release of Marion's new book of poems, Gladiola Girls, with a group photo. Be sure to check out the picture to peep how Kathy's chrome manicure matches the book's color scheme.   At the table: Kathleen Volk Miller, Marion Wrenn, Samantha Neugebauer, Lisa Zerkle, and Sebastian Rametta (sound engineer)   Elvira Basevich is assistant professor of philosophy at University of California, Davis. Her first poetry collection, How to Love the World (Pank 2020), was shortlisted for the National Jewish Book Award. Her poems have recently appeared in Pleiades, On the Seawall, Diode, & The Laurel Review. Lately, she's been writing a lot about her father who returned to Russia years ago without saying goodbye.   Website:  www.elvirabasevich.com   Instagram: @elvirabasevich   BEAUTIFUL GIRLS   I used to line up with teenage girls on the boardwalk like oysters on the half shell. We kissed each other  for practice. We guessed how much nakedness we  could fit inside our mouths, swallow whole or spit out.  These are some of my best memories. Sitting on  lifeguard chairs till dusk talking about life.  Dates, gulls, the milky surf came to us, but they  had to climb a ladder to our perch. Bring an offering  of beer and cigarettes. Even then, we admitted few.  Our bodies were a salvation then, a cause for celebration, something new to smell and taste and touch every  morning, the threshold of a pagan's afterlife:  an all-you-can-eat buffet of physical pleasures. All these  years later, even without the hours of applying makeup  in the bathroom mirror, matching mesh crop tops to low risers, taking selfies, I feel so beautiful.  I don't mean that metaphorically, as in Plato's description  of a beautiful soul as a chariot pulled by two winged  horses, but the real, pulsating thing: the Beauty  who looks back from the bathroom mirror and smiles.   PALLAS ATHENA   We tracked deer in the snow, studied philosophy  and mathematics. Like you, I inherited  my father's passions: the love of war, physical beauty,  America's Funniest Home Videos. I can still hear  his laughter in a hotel in upstate New York  on our only family trip. Soviet émigrés with blue hair and adult grandchildren preferred to speak in English and eat hot dogs and hamburgers rather than piroshki and cold cuts with slivers of wobbly jellied fat. We ice skated among pine trees and rooks. Napped in cots before waiting in a buffet line  in a wood-paneled cafeteria. Pallas, that weekend  you took care of me like a big sister.  You showed me a bloom of wildflowers by  the frozen river, a dusk replete with angels,  reminders that this too won't last, but  it will become my favorite memory of my father.  That was your greatest strength: to have  the foresight to remember a moment as it faded.  You didn't judge me when I left all my doors  and windows open and called out to my father,  Come in. That sometimes we don't choose  the angels that we believe in, as a house  does not choose the ghosts who wander its halls.

Today's poem is Sex Without Love by Sharon Olds. The Slowdown is currently taking a break. We'll be back on Monday, August 18 with episodes from our new host, Maggie Smith. This week, we're going back into the archive to revisit Ada Limón's time as host. In this episode, Ada writes… “Today's poem is from a dear teacher, Sharon Olds. This poem has stuck with me for years. It examines the honest way in which some people are able to be intimate without all the heavy weight of romance.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Today's poem is Lately I Am Trying by Sanna Wani.The Slowdown is currently taking a break. We'll be back on Monday, August 18 with episodes from our new host, Maggie Smith. This week, we're going back into the archive to revisit Ada Limón's time as host. In this episode, Ada writes… “Today's poem explores how the love of an animal can help us process grief and even remember the precious value of touch.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Today's poem is I Worry My Mother Will Die and I Will Know Nothing by Asa Drake. The Slowdown is currently taking a break. We'll be back on Monday, August 18 with episodes from our new host, Maggie Smith. This week, we're going back into the archive to revisit Ada Limón's time as host. In this episode, Ada writes… “Today's poem centers on ideas of hunger and fullness. It asks what can satisfy us in a world that is often telling us we are not enough and will never have enough.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Today's poem is Trash by Joshua Bennett. The Slowdown is currently taking a break. We'll be back on Monday, August 18 with episodes from our new host, Maggie Smith. This week, we're going back into the archive to revisit Ada Limón's time as host. In this episode, Ada writes… “Today's poem is a perfect example of starting a poem in one place and ending it in another, unexpected place. I admire how this poem reveals a truth and a desire that pulsates under each stanza.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Today's poem is [since feeling is first] by E.E. Cummings.The Slowdown is currently taking a break. We'll be back on Monday, August 18 with episodes from our new host, Maggie Smith. This week, we're going back into the archive to revisit Ada Limón's time as host. In this episode, Ada writes… “I have a friend who will stare at something and say, “Now that's a poem.” A glove in the snow, a bird feather stuck in the fence post, a good meal. It feels like she is blurring the lines between what we think is a poem and what is poetic, between what is real life and the language we use to capture it. Today's poem, by the beloved poet E.E. Cummings, does that work of showing us the resounding “yes” to the poem—and also “yes” to the real, tangible, touchable, life.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Today's poem is Sunflowers in the Median by Natalie Homer.The Slowdown is currently taking a break. We'll be back soon with new episodes from a new host. This week, we're going back into the archive to revisit Ada Limón's time as host. Today's episode was originally released on March 4, 2022. In this episode, former host Ada Limón writes… “What is it about noticing beauty that brings you out of yourself and returns you to yourself? I love rooting for beauty, for awe, for those unexpected visions that make life a little easier to manage. In today's vibrant poem, we see how the image of sunflowers can allow for a sort of grace. I love this poem for its appreciation of unexpected beauty.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Today's poem is Saudade by Silvia Bonilla.The Slowdown is currently taking a break. We'll be back soon with new episodes from a new host. This week, we're going back into the archive to revisit Ada Limón's time as host. Today's episode was originally released on October 19, 2021. In this episode, former host Ada Limón writes… “There are days I'm prone to see the nostalgia in things, the ache of the moment. Most days, I try to focus on the bright edges, those little seams of joy that vibrate in the world. One of the many reasons I love today's poem is that it is full of that cantaloupe-colored longing and makes no apologies.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Today's poem is It's 9:30am, I've ran four miles, cried four times, & eaten two chicken sandwiches by Christian Aldana.The Slowdown is currently taking a break. We'll be back soon with new episodes from a new host. This week, we're going back into the archive to revisit Ada Limón's time as host. Today's episode was originally released on April 4, 2022.In this episode, former host Ada Limón writes… “Annie Dillard once wrote, “How we spend our days is of course how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour and that one is what we are doing.” I think about this a lot when I'm planning my day and what sort of pleasure I might suck out of its marrow during these tumultuous times of constant upheaval and war. Sometimes that means noticing even the most mundane of tasks in order to know we are alive, that we are living.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Today's poem is Let Me by Camille T. Dungy.The Slowdown is currently taking a break. We'll be back soon with new episodes from a new host. This week, we're going back into the archive to revisit Ada Limón's time as host. Today's episode was originally released on September 27, 2021. In this episode, former host Ada Limón writes… “The thing that makes me break down in tears the most often is not grief, but human resilience. To watch someone dress their kids and get them to school, ship them off with backpacks and N95 masks knowing how hard the world is. To watch someone keep going with some sort of unfathomable fortitude, no matter how rough the human waters, that is what astounds me. And still we go on, the world seems to say.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Today's poem is John Muir, A Dream, A Waterfall, A Mountain Ash by Robert Hass. The Slowdown is currently taking a break. We'll be back soon with new episodes from a new host. This week, we're going back into the archive to revisit Ada Limón's time as host. Today's episode was originally released on October 20, 2022. In this episode, former host Ada Limón writes… “Today's poem by former U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Hass, is a poem that balances the worrisome long threads of our lives against the large wonder of mountains. The poem's title also asks us to question who gets to name, or claim, nature at all.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Today's poem is Prayer Beginning with a Line by Czaykowski by Pablo Piñero Stillmann. The Slowdown is currently taking a break. We'll be back soon with new episodes from a new host. This week, we're going back into the archive to revisit Ada Limón's time as host. Today's episode was originally released on April 29, 2022.In this episode, former host Ada Limón writes… “Today's poem is that kind of prayer, a prayer for pleasure, for the brief moment of relief, to be made whole again. In this poem's repetition we hear the desperation, but also the song.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Today's poem is Practicing by Ciona Rouse. The Slowdown is currently taking a break. We'll be back soon with new episodes from a new host. This week, we're going back into the archive to revisit Ada Limón's time as host. Today's episode was originally released on May 18, 2022. In this episode, former host Ada Limón writes… “I've always been interested in how we plan for the future. I try to put a little money away now and again for a rainy day as they say. I try to imagine future scenarios to see if I am prepared. But if the last three years have taught me anything, it's that I cannot be prepared for all the scenarios. Life is full of terrific… and terrifying surprises. I never know what's coming next. I can only be here at this moment and try to be somewhat flexible.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Today's poem is Little Grey Dreams by Angelina Weld Grimké. The Slowdown is currently taking a break. We'll be back soon with new episodes from a new host. This week, we're going back into the archive to revisit Ada Limón's time as host. Today's episode was originally released on November 9, 2021. In this episode, former host Ada Limón writes… “Today's meaningful poem by early 20th century poet Angelina Weld Grimké is a tribute to dreaming, the wishes we send into the world without an idea of what will become of them.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Today's poem is Places With Terrible Wi-Fi by J. Estanislao Lopez. The Slowdown is currently taking a break. We'll be back soon with new episodes from a new host. This week, we're going back into the archive to revisit Ada Limón's time as host. Today's episode was originally released on February 23, 2022. In this episode, former host Ada Limón writes… “Hiding has gotten so much harder these days. Growing up, I could hide by the creek or in the branches of a shrub. In high school, I could hide behind the dumpsters, or in the creek, or by the tennis courts. In college, I could hide by Greenlake or by Gasworks Park, or in the arboretum.But now, there is a little machine in my pocket that is always on. And you can always find me. How can we ever hide if we attach ourselves to these little machines that are hellbent on finding us? Today's poem ponders what it is to be without the internet, and what it means to not have access to the constant buzz of the world. What comes is a reminder of what's sacred.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Today's poem is Acknowledgments by Nkosi Nkululeko. The Slowdown is currently taking a break. We'll be back soon with new episodes from a new host. This week, we're going back into the archive to revisit Ada Limón's time as host. Today's episode was originally released on July 4, 2022. In this episode, former host Ada Limón writes… “Today's poem is an exploration of shouting out ourselves and our community. I love how this poem makes room for complicated praise.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Today's poem is I Would Do Anything For Love, But I Won't by Traci Brimhall.The Slowdown is currently taking a break. We'll be back soon with new episodes from a new host. This week, we're going back into the archive to revisit Ada Limón's time as host. Today's episode was originally released on May 27 2022. In this episode, former host Ada Limón writes… “I am often laughing with my husband about our own idiosyncrasies. The part of us that only we know, the things that could never be said to anyone else but each other. I love that private language. That lexicon. My private moments, his private moments. I have it with good friends too, the things that don't require explanation. That's the real history of us.”Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Today's poem is anti-immigration by Evie Shockley. The Slowdown is currently taking a break. We'll be back soon with new episodes from a new host. This week, we're going back into the archive to revisit Ada Limón's time as host. Today's episode was originally released on October 26 2021. In this episode, former host Ada Limón writes… “In today's complex poem, we see what hateful stereotypes might do. Poet Evie Shockley reimagines what would happen if everyone packed up and left this country, took with them every stereotype, every oversimplified image, and left.”Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Today's poem is Last Sundays at Bootleggers by Carlos Andrés Gómez.The Slowdown is currently taking a break. We'll be back soon with new episodes from a new host. This week, we're going back into the archive to revisit Ada Limón's time as host. Today's episode was originally released on May 17 2022. In this episode, former host Ada Limón writes… “Sometimes when I am nostalgic for my past, I'm not actually nostalgic for my youth, but for what I thought was my wisdom, for what I thought was my beautiful righteousness. I knew so much about life. I knew the problems with the world, and I even knew some of the answers. I knew that when you were too down to want to leave the apartment, you should actually leave the apartment, or blast music as loud as you can to change your brain waves.”Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Today's poem is In Response to Feeling Alone by t. liem. The Slowdown is currently taking a break. We'll be back soon with new episodes from a new host. This week, we're going back into the archive to revisit Ada Limón's time as host. Today's episode was originally released on October 5 2021. In this episode, former host Ada Limón writes… “I spend a lot of time alone during the days. Though the dog would like to assure you I am not alone. And the cat sleeping in the upstairs bathroom would also beg to differ. Still, many of my days are spent in my office, or on the back porch, or at the kitchen table alone with my thoughts.”Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Today's poem is Sligo Abbey by Rebecca Lindenberg. The Slowdown is currently taking a break. We'll be back soon with new episodes from a new host. This week, we're going back into the archive to revisit Ada Limón's time as host. Today's episode was originally released on February 3 2022. In this episode, former host Ada Limón writes… “In today's gorgeous poem of honoring, we see how the speaker transforms the story of her mother's illness into something that feels like an offering. Sometimes the job of the poet is simply to listen, and sometimes it is to become the unburied voice.”Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Today's poem is I Imagine the Butches' Stripper Bar by Jill McDonough.The Slowdown is currently taking a break. We'll be back soon with new episodes from a new host. This week, we're going back into the archive to revisit Ada Limón's time as host. Today's episode was originally released on January 31, 2022. In this episode, former host Ada Limón writes… “One of my favorite mysteries of the universe is what turns us on and why? When I talk with anyone about crushes and sensual pleasures and desires, what always impresses me is that everyone is different. We desire different things. Different attributes turn us on and make us ready to rip our clothes off and run through the streets. It makes sense that that's the case. Everyone is so unique. Every crush is so unique. In today's irreverent poem, we see an exploration of what the speaker finds sexy. It blooms into a whole new imaginary world, all in the service of desire.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Delving deeper into the matter of spirituality in poetry, we begin this episode by hearing Dick Westheimer read his poem, “Perhaps Prayer is Thinly Scattered Matter,” and are treated to more poetry by special guest Deacon Chris Anderson, as well as poems by Ada Limón, Rhina Espaillat, and José A. Alcántara.At the table:Katie DozierTimothy GreenChris AndersonDick WestheimerJoe BarcaNate Jacob Brian O'Sullivan

Today's poem is Song by Charif Shanahan. The Slowdown is currently taking a break. We'll be back soon with new episodes from a new host. This week, we're going back into the archive to revisit Ada Limón's time as host. Today's episode was originally released on September 12, 2022. In this episode, former host Ada Limón writes… “When I am really writing, really working on poems, which is often as alive as I ever feel, as present as I ever feel, I am not just speaking to the world... I am listening to it. Listening to my body, my blood, my ever-changing pulse that slows and quickens depending on the emotionality of the subject.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Today's poem is Walking Across Fire Island by Shelley Wong.The Slowdown is currently taking a break. We'll be back soon with new episodes from a new host. This week, we're going back into the archive to revisit Ada Limón's time as host. Today's episode was originally released on April 6, 2022. In this episode, former host Ada Limón writes… “I love to walk, when I'm healthy and mobile enough to walk, it's one of my favorite things to do to recenter myself, or rather decenter myself. For me, it's a solution to many things. When in doubt, hit the road, get out of yourself. Of course it doesn't always work, and there were whole years where I was too sick with vertigo to properly go for a walk, but when it works, it really does work. You don't have to have a plan. You don't have to go fast or go slow. You don't have to know the names of all the fauna and flora. You simply have to put your body into the world and something happens.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Today's poem is Golden Age by Chris Santiago.The Slowdown is currently taking a break. We'll be back soon with new episodes from a new host. This week, we're going back into the archive to revisit Ada Limón's time as host. Today's episode was originally released on December 21, 2021. In this episode, former host Ada Limón writes… “When I was a kid, I loved falling asleep to the sound of the television in the living room. I liked it most because it meant someone was up watching the world so I didn't have to. The trouble of the world was unfolding on the news and I could sleep through it. There was something both comforting and eerie about it. A world that never shuts off. In today's tender poem, we watch how the tv becomes almost another character in a multigenerational family.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Today's poem is Bruised Peaches by Bronwen Tate. The Slowdown is currently taking a break. We'll be back soon with new episodes from a new host. This week, we're going back into the archive to revisit Ada Limón's time as host. Today's episode was originally released on June 30, 2022. In this episode, former host Ada Limón writes… “Every Thursday when I take out the trash, I think about how I quantify the value of my life. Every laundry day. Every time I check the mail. It feels like this is how I know time has passed, we roll out the recycling, we mow the lawn, we watch as the seasons change. The day is broken up into the hours in which I feed the dog. Morning, noon, and evenings. Yes, she gets lunch. I give myself lunch, so the dog gets lunch too. There is safety and security in these routines. And yet, I'm sometimes scared that the whole routine of life might swallow me whole.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Today's poem is hoop snake by Rebecca Wee. The Slowdown is currently taking a break. We'll be back soon with new episodes from a new host. This week, we're going back into the archive to revisit Ada Limón's time as host. Today's episode was originally released on October 21, 2022. In this episode, former host Ada Limón writes… “A few days ago, a friend told me that Spanish Moss, a moss I love, the way it droops down over the water oaks like mint-colored lace draping the world in a gauzy dappled light, was actually killing the trees. But this myth is gratefully not true. We investigated further, and it turns out Spanish moss gets no nutrients from the trees, but rather takes the moisture and sunlight out of the air. It's also not a moss. It's a bromeliad. It's also not Spanish, but native to the U.S. and Mexico and South America. I like that I can still love Spanish moss and can still think of those beautiful fabric-like threads floating through the canopy as benevolent. I want all the good myths to be true. Because I want to believe in wonder.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Today's poem is Travel by Edna St. Vincent Millay. The Slowdown is currently taking a break. We'll be back soon with new episodes from a new host. This week, we're going back into the archive to revisit Ada Limón's time as host. Today's episode was originally released on November 17, 2021. In this episode, former host Ada Limón writes… “In today's poem by the iconic Edna St. Vincent Millay, we look at the wanderlust that so many of us have been experiencing during this strange time. How, even if we love where we are right now, love the friends, the landscape, the company, how sometimes escaping even only for a little while, is the thing we desire the most.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Today's poem is The Field by Rick Barot. The Slowdown is currently taking a break. We'll be back soon with new episodes from a new host. This week, we're going back into the archive to revisit Ada Limón's time as host. Today's episode was originally released on April 26, 2022. In this episode, former host Ada Limón writes… “I am prone to making up stories about strangers I see from a distance. Even as a kid, I'd delight in giving someone I didn't know a whole invented backstory. It was a way of imagining that I could be them in another life, that somehow if I could allow them a complex narrative, we might not be strangers after all.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Today's poem is a fishing story. by Mia S. Willis. The Slowdown is currently taking a break. We'll be back soon with new episodes from a new host. This week, we're going back into the archive to revisit Ada Limón's time as host. Today's episode was originally released on September 19, 2022. In this episode, former host Ada Limón writes… “Today's poem is about imagining oneself as the wild and untamed thing, and how someone else might hold you up to the light.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Today's poem is Divorce by José A. Alcantara. The Slowdown is currently taking a break. We'll be back soon with new episodes from a new host. This week, we're going back into the archive to revisit Ada Limón's time as host. Today's episode was originally released on July 21, 2022. In this episode, former host Ada Limón writes… “Today's poem takes the metaphor of a bird visitation and transforms it into a symbol of resilience.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

As U.S. poet laureate, Ada Limón has had a far-reaching impact. She has visited readers and writers across the country, installed poems at majestic sites in national parks, and she even wrote a poem that's engraved inside a NASA spacecraft on its way to Jupiter.Today on the show, though, our host Anna Martin talks with Limón about something more personal and intimate: What happens when writers fall hopelessly in love. She reads a Modern Love essay about a novelist whose debilitating crush on a poet gives her a bad case of writer's block (before leaving her with a badly broken heart). Limón also tells Anna why feeling anger and grief when we're despairing can be the path to feeling more alive, and she explains why a pair of old sweatpants belong in a love poem as much as bees and flowers do.Ada Limón's recent book, “You Are Here: Poetry in the Natural World” can be found here.Lily King's Modern Love essay, “An Empty Heart Is One That Can Be Filled” can be found here. Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

We're joined by the amazing poet and essayist Elisa Gabbert to discuss some of the books that we think about all the time. We each share three books that are always on our minds and discuss the many reasons some works become such and important part of who we are.Which ones would you pick?ShownotesBooks* Any Person Is the Only Self, by Elisa Gabbert* The Unreality of Memory, by Elisa Gabbert* The Word Pretty, by Elisa Gabbert* The Hurting Kind, by Ada Limón* 77 Dream Songs, by John Berryman* The Price of Salt, by Patricia Highsmith* A Passage to India, by E.M. Forster* Patricia Highsmith: Her Diaries and Notebooks* Strangers on a Train, by Patricia Highsmith* Miss MacIntosh, My Darling, by Marguerite Young* Lies and Sorcery, by Elsa Morante, translated by Jenny McPhee* Middlemarch, by George Eliot* Slow Productivity: The Lost Art of Accomplishment Without Burnout, by Cal Newport* An Attempt at Exhausting a Place in Paris, by George Perec, translated by Marc Lowenthal* A Month in Sienna, by Hisham Matar* How to Cook a Wolf, by M.F.K. Fisher* A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction, by Christopher Alexander, Sara Ishikawa, and Murray Silverstein* Train Dreams, by Denis Johnson* Ducks, Newburyport, by Lucy Ellmann* The Brothers Karamazov, by Fyodor Dostoevsky* Notes from Underground, by Fyodor Dostoevsky* Too Serious Ladies, by Jane Bowles* Sabrina, by Nick Drnaso* Emma, by Jane Austen* The Wild Iris, by Louise Glück* Survey Says, by Nathan Austin* The World Without Us, by Alan Weisman* So Long, See You Tomorrow, by William Maxwell* Atonement, by Ian McEwan* The Invention of Morel, by Adolfo Bioy Casares, translated by Ruth L.C. SimmsOther* Elisa Gabbert's Poetry Column in The New York Times* Every book I read in 2024, with commentary, by Elisa Gabbert* Lost Highway, d. David Lynch* Mulholland Dr., d. David Lynch* Episode 36: Epic Books* Backlisted Podcast on Notes from Underground* Episode 25: Jane AustenThe Mookse and the Gripes Podcast is a book chat podcast. Every other week Paul and Trevor get together to talk about some bookish topic or another. We hope you'll continue to join us!Many thanks to those who helped make this possible! If you'd like to donate as well, you can do so on Substack or on our Patreon page. These subscribers get periodic bonus episode and early access to all episodes! Every supporter has their own feed that he or she can use in their podcast app of choice to download our episodes a few days early. Please go check it out! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mookse.substack.com/subscribe

Our guest is Ada Limón, the current United States Poet Laureate. Limon has published six books of poetry, including The Carrying, The Hurting Kind, and Bright Dead Things. Limon says that poetry isn't just meant to be read – it's meant to be read out loud - and this program also includes her reading several poems. On February 22, 2024, Limón came to The Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk to Alexis Madrigal about the ways in which the natural world inspires her work – from the landscape of her youth in Sonoma County, California, to Kentucky, where she lives today.  This program originally aired in March 2024. 

Each American poet laureate is expected to carry out at least one project, and the 24th, Ada Limón, created this anthology of poems about humans in nature. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile's Emily Connelly discuss Kim Ramirez's narration of this collection that includes a range of exemplary contemporary poets. Ramirez gives each of the 50 poems its due, acting but never overdramatizing, allowing rather than forcing the emotions to emerge. This is an exploration of our changing relationship to the natural world, and an invitation to share in it. Read our review of the audiobook at our website. Published by Tantor Media. Discover thousands of audiobook reviews and more at AudioFile's website. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This was my favorite 2024 episode of First Edition, so I thought I'd repost it for you this holiday week. Join me to explore the reading life of U.S. National Poet Laureate Ada Limón. This content contains affiliate links. When you buy through these links, we may earn an affiliate commission. Discussed in this episode: You Are Here: Poetry in the Natural World, edited by Ada Limón In Praise of Mystery by Ada Limón, illustrated by Peter Sis. Subscribe to First Edition via RSS, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. For episode extras, subscribe to the First Edition Substack. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This holiday season, in a special holiday drop, we want to take you on a trip around the heavens.First, Latif, with the help of Nour Raouafi, of NASA, and an edge-cutting piece of equipment, will explain how we may finally be making good on Icarus's promise. Then, Lulu and Ada Limón talk about how a poet laureate goes about writing an ode to one of Jupiter's moons.We have some exciting news! In the “Zoozve” episode, Radiolab named its first-ever quasi-moon, and now it's your turn! Radiolab has teamed up with The International Astronomical Union to launch a global naming contest for one of Earth's quasi-moons. This is your chance to make your mark on the heavens. Vote on your favorites here: https://radiolab.org/moonEPISODE CREDITS: Reported by - Latif Nasser, Lulu MillerProduced by - Matt Kielty, Ana GonzalezFact-checking by - Diane KellySignup for our newsletter!! It includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show. Sign up (https://radiolab.org/newsletter)!Radiolab is supported by listeners like you. Support Radiolab by becoming a member of The Lab (https://members.radiolab.org/) today.Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @radiolab, and share your thoughts with us by emailing radiolab@wnyc.org.Leadership support for Radiolab's science programming is provided by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Science Sandbox, a Simons Foundation Initiative, and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

Trevor and Paul are back with the fourth annual best of the year extravaganza! In Part I, we count down the first half of our en favorite reads of 2024—and we are once again joined by a cast of friends and listeners who share some of their top books and best reading experiences of the year! Another great chance to grow your TBR pile for 2025!ShownotesBooks* The Postcard, by Anne Berest, translated by Tina Kover* Gabriëlle, by Anne Berest and Claire Berest, translated by Tina Kover* Two Hours, by Alba Arikha* Crooked Seeds, by Karen Jennings* Fathers and Fugitives, by S.J. Naudé, translated by Michiel Heyns* Not Even the Dead, by Juan Gómez Bárcena, translated by Katie Whittemore* Not a River, by Selva Almada, translated by Annie McDermott* The Wind That Lays Waste, by Selva Almada, translated by Chris Andrews* Dead Girls, by Selva Almada, translated by Annie McDermott* Brickmakers, by Selva Almada, translated by Annie McDermott* Any Person Is the Only Self, by Elisa Gabbert* The Unreality of Memory, by Elisa Gabbert* Ex Libris, by Anne Fadiman* Rhine Journey, by Anne Schlee* About Looking, by John Berger* The Inkal, by Alejandro Jodorowsky and Moebius* Pedro Páramo, by Juan Rulfo, translated by Douglas J. Weatherford* The Man Who Liked Slow Tomatoes, by K.C. Constantine* The Premier, by Georges Simenon* Two Thousand Million Man-Power, by Gertrude Trevelyan* Horror Movie, by Paul Tremblay* A County Doctor, by Franz Kafka* Kalpa Imperial: The Greatest Empire That Never Was, by Angélica Gorodischer, translated by Ursula K. Le Guin* Sons, by Robert De Maria* Brothers, by Robert De Maria* Fletch, by Gregory McDonald* Bedlam, by Charlene Elsby* Quarry, by Max Allan Collins* A Tiler's Afternoon, by Lars Gustfsson, translated by Tom Geddes* One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel Garcia Márquez, translated by * Lonesome Dove, by Larry McMurtry* The Carrying, by Ada Limón* Picnic, Lighting, by Billy Collins* The Peregrine, by J.A. Baker* Bright Dead Things, by Ada Limón* The Hurting King, by Ada Limón* You Are Here: Poetry in the Natural World, compiled by Ada Limón* Black Lamb and Grey Falcon, by Rebecca West* Clear, by Carys Davies* Malena, by Ingeborg Bachmann, translated by Philip Boehm* It Lasts Forever and Then It's Over, by Anne de Marcken* Last Words from Montmartre, by Qin Miaojin, translated by Ari Larissa Heinrich* The Preparation of the Novel, by Roland Barthes, translated by Kate Briggs* Earthly Signs: Moscow Diaries, 1917 - 1922, by Marina Tsvetaeva, translated by Jamey Gambrell* The Power of Gentleness: Meditation on the Risk of Living, by Anne Dufourmantelle, translated by Katherine Payne and Vincent Sallé* Matrescence: On Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Motherhood, by Lucy Jones* Question 7, by Richard Flanagan* The Narrow Road to the Deep North, by Richard Flanagan* Thunderclap: A Memoir of Art and Life and Sudden Death, by Laura Cumming* H Is for Hawk, by Helen Macdonald* The Goshawk, by T.H. White* The Vanishing Velázquez: A 19th Century Bookseller's Obsession with a Lost Masterpiece, by Laura Cumming* The Ice Palace, by Tarjei Vesaas, translated by Elizabeth Rokkan* The Birds, by Tarjei Vesaas, translated by Michael Barnes and Torbjørn Støverud* James, by Percival Everett* The Trees, by Percival EverettThe Mookse and the Gripes Podcast is a book chat podcast. Every other week Paul and Trevor get together to talk about some bookish topic or another. We hope you'll continue to join us!Many thanks to those who helped make this possible! If you'd like to donate as well, you can do so on Substack or on our Patreon page. These subscribers get periodic bonus episode and early access to all episodes! Every supporter has their own feed that he or she can use in their podcast app of choice to download our episodes a few days early. Please go check it out! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mookse.substack.com/subscribe

In today's short episode of “Highly Recommended”, I'm here to tell you it's time to try a poetry video project! Harness students' excitement over the creator economy and the survival of TikTok and get them interpreting poetry through a medium that only keeps getting MORE relevant to communication today.  First things first, let's talk mentor texts. There are some VERY cool poetry videos online that take their interpretation in wildly different directions. I suggest taking a look at Amanda Gorman's “Earthrise,” Ada Limón's “A Poem for Europa,” and Rudy Francisco's “Complainers,” which I'll link for you in the show notes. As students watch, have them sketchnote ideas for CRAFT moves. What do they notice about the combination of talking head shots vs. B-Roll? Is their background music? How did the producer make cuts and transitions? How does the video bring out the meaning of the poem? How about the audio? Once students have started to warm up to this idea of interpreting poems through video, it's time for them to choose a poem of their own to interpret. Now you could easily make this a project to help them dig deep into a famous poem of their choice, OR you could let them record and create around an original piece of their own, depending on your goals. They should print up a script of their poem which they can annotate with ideas for visuals and how they will want to read the poem aloud. Parallel to their written script, they'll want to do some storyboarding, sketching out the order of their film clip videos. Now there are two free platforms I'd recommend for this project. Vocaroo, which we've discussed many times, is perfect for recording the audio easily and snagging the MP3 file. Then they can upload it to Canva, which will allow them to combine photos, videos, and audio of their own with photos, videos, and audio available on Canva. This is the most technical part of the project, so I've made you a little tutorial video for how to put together a video in Canva (which I'll link in the show notes). While there will be a learning curve on learning to put together a video, it's a learning curve well worth trekking. This would be a great starter project leading toward video options on future choice boards, documentary projects, PSA projects, and other types of video projects in your class or department arc.  Inside Canva, your students will be able to sequence text slides, video clips, and photos to create a visual sequence that represents their interpretation of the poem, and overlay it with their audio recording of their script. They can even add music at a low level behind their voice in different sections if they wish.  If you've been waiting for the right moment to get your feet wet with video, let this be your sign that YOU CAN DO IT! It's OK to launch a project without total confidence in the tech. Your students may just know a lot about this and be able to help each other and you, and there are not many tech problems out there that a quick tutorial search on YouTube won't fix. I've seen some wonderful student work from the poetry video project, and so can you!  Links Mentioned: "Earthrise," by Amanda Gorman: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwOvBv8RLmo "Complainers," by Rudy Francisco: https://youtu.be/nrh1JlP8R2E?si=8BvEmi0mIr8NCAEJ  "A Poem for Europa," by Ada Limón: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EgWbeDNPD6o How to Create a Video in Canva: https://sparkcreativity.kartra.com/videopage/createavideo  Go Further:  Explore alllll the Episodes of The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast. Launch your choice reading program with all my favorite tools and recs, and grab the free toolkit. Join our community, Creative High School English, on Facebook. Come hang out on Instagram. Enjoying the podcast? Please consider sharing it with a friend, snagging a screenshot to share on the ‘gram, or tapping those ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ to help others discover the show. Thank you!

This episode explores the enduring power of storytelling to shape our world and illuminate the human experience. Writers Neil Gaiman, Ada Limón, Jericho Brown, E.J. Koh, Marge Piercy, and Max Stossel discuss creativity, resilience, and the power of words to heal and bring people together.Neil Gaiman (Writer, Producer, Showrunner · The Sandman, American Gods, Good Omens, Coraline) explores the secret lives of writers, reflecting on the masks they wear in the pursuit of truth and beauty.Jericho Brown (Pulitzer Prize-winning Poet: The Tradition · Editor of How We Do It: Black Writers on Craft, Practice, and Skill) shares “Foreday in the Morning”, highlighting the hard work and resilience in Black America. He examines the vernacular of his poetry and how it intertwines themes of race, nationality, and familial love.Ada Limón (U.S. Poet Laureate · The Hurting Kind, The Carrying) presents an "apocalyptic love poem" that questions the intersection of despair and hope in today's changing world. She reflects deeply on the personal and universal struggles of finding beauty amidst environmental and existential crises.Marge Piercy (Award-winning Novelist, Poet & Activist) delves into the emotional weight of words and memories, the terror of child separation, and the impending doom facing our world due to environmental destruction and political negligence.E.J. Koh (Award-Winning Memoirist & Poet · The Magical Language of Others · A Lesser Love) recounts a haunting family history from Jeju Island in Korea, emphasizing the lasting impacts of trauma and the collective memory of ancestral sufferings.Max Stossel (Award-winning Poet, Filmmaker, Speaker, Creator of Words That Move) uses the metaphor of a boxing ring to discuss the complexities of human conflict and connection, encouraging a shift from adversarial relationships to collaborative problem-solving.To hear more from each guest, listen to their full interviews.Dive Deeper with Feature Article & Story Highlightswww.creativeprocess.info/podInstagram:@creativeprocesspodcast

This episode explores the enduring power of storytelling to shape our world and illuminate the human experience. Writers Neil Gaiman, Ada Limón, Jericho Brown, E.J. Koh, Marge Piercy, and Max Stossel discuss creativity, resilience, and the power of words to heal and bring people together.Neil Gaiman (Writer, Producer, Showrunner · The Sandman, American Gods, Good Omens, Coraline) explores the secret lives of writers, reflecting on the masks they wear in the pursuit of truth and beauty.Jericho Brown (Pulitzer Prize-winning Poet: The Tradition · Editor of How We Do It: Black Writers on Craft, Practice, and Skill) shares “Foreday in the Morning”, highlighting the hard work and resilience in Black America. He examines the vernacular of his poetry and how it intertwines themes of race, nationality, and familial love.Ada Limón (U.S. Poet Laureate · The Hurting Kind, The Carrying) presents an "apocalyptic love poem" that questions the intersection of despair and hope in today's changing world. She reflects deeply on the personal and universal struggles of finding beauty amidst environmental and existential crises.Marge Piercy (Award-winning Novelist, Poet & Activist) delves into the emotional weight of words and memories, the terror of child separation, and the impending doom facing our world due to environmental destruction and political negligence.E.J. Koh (Award-Winning Memoirist & Poet · The Magical Language of Others · A Lesser Love) recounts a haunting family history from Jeju Island in Korea, emphasizing the lasting impacts of trauma and the collective memory of ancestral sufferings.Max Stossel (Award-winning Poet, Filmmaker, Speaker, Creator of Words That Move) uses the metaphor of a boxing ring to discuss the complexities of human conflict and connection, encouraging a shift from adversarial relationships to collaborative problem-solving.To hear more from each guest, listen to their full interviews.Episode Websitewww.creativeprocess.info/podInstagram:@creativeprocesspodcast

This episode explores the enduring power of storytelling to shape our world and illuminate the human experience. Writers Neil Gaiman, Ada Limón, Jericho Brown, E.J. Koh, Marge Piercy, and Max Stossel discuss creativity, resilience, and the power of words to heal and bring people together.Neil Gaiman (Writer, Producer, Showrunner · The Sandman, American Gods, Good Omens, Coraline) explores the secret lives of writers, reflecting on the masks they wear in the pursuit of truth and beauty.Jericho Brown (Pulitzer Prize-winning Poet: The Tradition · Editor of How We Do It: Black Writers on Craft, Practice, and Skill) shares “Foreday in the Morning”, highlighting the hard work and resilience in Black America. He examines the vernacular of his poetry and how it intertwines themes of race, nationality, and familial love.Ada Limón (U.S. Poet Laureate · The Hurting Kind, The Carrying) presents an "apocalyptic love poem" that questions the intersection of despair and hope in today's changing world. She reflects deeply on the personal and universal struggles of finding beauty amidst environmental and existential crises.Marge Piercy (Award-winning Novelist, Poet & Activist) delves into the emotional weight of words and memories, the terror of child separation, and the impending doom facing our world due to environmental destruction and political negligence.E.J. Koh (Award-Winning Memoirist & Poet · The Magical Language of Others · A Lesser Love) recounts a haunting family history from Jeju Island in Korea, emphasizing the lasting impacts of trauma and the collective memory of ancestral sufferings.Max Stossel (Award-winning Poet, Filmmaker, Speaker, Creator of Words That Move) uses the metaphor of a boxing ring to discuss the complexities of human conflict and connection, encouraging a shift from adversarial relationships to collaborative problem-solving.To hear more from each guest, listen to their full interviews.Episode Websitewww.creativeprocess.info/podInstagram:@creativeprocesspodcast

This episode explores the enduring power of storytelling to shape our world and illuminate the human experience. Writers Neil Gaiman, Ada Limón, Jericho Brown, E.J. Koh, Marge Piercy, and Max Stossel discuss creativity, resilience, and the power of words to heal and bring people together.Neil Gaiman (Writer, Producer, Showrunner · The Sandman, American Gods, Good Omens, Coraline) explores the secret lives of writers, reflecting on the masks they wear in the pursuit of truth and beauty.Jericho Brown (Pulitzer Prize-winning Poet: The Tradition · Editor of How We Do It: Black Writers on Craft, Practice, and Skill) shares “Foreday in the Morning”, highlighting the hard work and resilience in Black America. He examines the vernacular of his poetry and how it intertwines themes of race, nationality, and familial love.Ada Limón (U.S. Poet Laureate · The Hurting Kind, The Carrying) presents an "apocalyptic love poem" that questions the intersection of despair and hope in today's changing world. She reflects deeply on the personal and universal struggles of finding beauty amidst environmental and existential crises.Marge Piercy (Award-winning Novelist, Poet & Activist) delves into the emotional weight of words and memories, the terror of child separation, and the impending doom facing our world due to environmental destruction and political negligence.E.J. Koh (Award-Winning Memoirist & Poet · The Magical Language of Others · A Lesser Love) recounts a haunting family history from Jeju Island in Korea, emphasizing the lasting impacts of trauma and the collective memory of ancestral sufferings.Max Stossel (Award-winning Poet, Filmmaker, Speaker, Creator of Words That Move) uses the metaphor of a boxing ring to discuss the complexities of human conflict and connection, encouraging a shift from adversarial relationships to collaborative problem-solving.To hear more from each guest, listen to their full interviews.Episode Websitewww.creativeprocess.info/podInstagram:@creativeprocesspodcast

This week, Liberty and Vanessa discuss Beanie the Bansheenie, Cabinet of Curiosities, The Magnificent Ruins, and more great books! Subscribe to All the Books! using RSS, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify and never miss a book. Sign up for the weekly New Books! newsletter for even more new book news. Keep up to date with the world of books and reading with Today in Books, Book Riot's daily round-up of literary headlines at the intersection of politics, culture, media, and more. Our editors offer commentary, context, and the occasional clap-back to keep you informed and entertained. Visit bookriot.com/todayinbooks to subscribe for free, or become an All Access member starting at $6 per month or $60 per year and get unlimited access to members-only content in 20+ newsletters, community features, and the warm fuzzies knowing you are supporting independent media. This content contains affiliate links. When you buy through these links, we may earn an affiliate commission. Books Discussed On the Show: Beanie the Bansheenie by Eoin Colfer, Steve McCarthy Cabinet of Curiosities: A Historical Tour of the Unbelievable, the Unsettling, and the Bizarre by Aaron Mahnke The Love Interest by Helen Comerford The Magnificent Ruins by Nayantara Roy She's Always Hungry: Stories by Eliza Clark  Thorns, Lust, and Glory: The Betrayal of Anne Boleyn by Estelle Paranque Toto by A.J. Hackwith Fortune's Kiss by Amber Clement The Husbands by Holly Gramazio The Wedding People by Alison Elspach Anne Boleyn & Elizabeth I: The Mother and Daughter Who Forever Changed British History by Tracy Borman  You Are Here: Poetry in the Natural World by Ada Limón ​​When We Make It by Elisabet Velasquez  A Pinecone! by Helen Yoon Check, Please! by Ngozi Ukazu Phoebe and Her Unicorn by Dana Simpson Wonder Cat Kyuu-chan by Sasami Nitori Delicious in Dungeon by Ryoko Kui, Taylor Engel (translator) For a complete list of books discussed in this episode, visit our website. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For Ada Limón, the 24th U.S. Poet Laureate, poetry is her way of connecting — to others, to ourselves, to our natural world.  Ada's work is deeply personal, inspired by gratitude for loved ones, awe and nature, and her struggles with scoliosis and infertility. In this conversation with the Surgeon General, she reflects on her process for writing, which she says often starts with the simple act of seeing what's around her. When Ada shares her poems, she finds joy in other people seeing their own feelings and life experiences in her writing.In the course of this conversation she beautifully recites two of her poems. “The Raincoat” was written for her mother. The other, “In Praise of Mystery,” is shooting through outer space right now on a NASA aircraft bound for Jupiter's moon Europa. (07:36)  Can poetry help keep us grounded?(10:33) How does poetry help when language fails us?(12:35)  Ada shares her poem "The Raincoat”(17:50)  What are some unexpected ways poetry opens people up?(22:40)  What if we don't "get" poetry?(26:42)  What is it like to live the life of a poet?(31:38)  How Ada gets herself in the mindset to write(38:08)  On staying present(44:02)  How life challenges shaped her creativity(52:14)  How does Ada define success at this point in her life?(59:36)  A reading of her poem "In Praise of Mystery."(01:03:08)  What gives Ada Limón hope? We'd love to hear from you! Send us a note at housecalls@hhs.gov with your feedback & ideas. For more episodes, visit www.surgeongeneral.gov/housecalls.  Ada Limón, 24th U.S. Poet Laureate Instagram: @adalimonwriter Facebook: @poetadalimon About Ada Limón Ada Limón is the author of six books of poetry, including “The Carrying,” which won the National Book Critics Circle Award. Her book “Bright Dead Things” was nominated for the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award. Her most recent book of poetry, “The Hurting Kind,” was shortlisted for the Griffin Poetry Prize. She is also the author of two children's books: “In Praise of Mystery,” with illustrations by Peter Sís; and “And, Too, The Fox,” which will be released in 2025. In October of 2023 she was awarded a MacArthur "Genius" Fellowship, and she was named a TIME magazine woman of the year in 2024. She is the recipient of a Guggenheim fellowship and wrote a poem that will be engraved on NASA's Europa Clipper Spacecraft that will be launched to the second moon of Jupiter in October 2024. As the 24th Poet Laureate of The United States, her signature project is called “You Are Here” and focuses on how poetry can help connect us to the natural world. She will serve as Poet Laureate until the spring of 2025.

NASA's Europa Clipper took off earlier this week, headed for Jupiter's fourth-largest moon. Etched on the outside of the spacecraft is a poem by U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón called "In Praise of Mystery." Now, that poem, which celebrates human curiosity, has been adapted into a picture book by the same name, illustrated by Peter Sís. In today's episode, Limón speaks with NPR's Mary Louise Kelley about her collaboration with Sís and how to write a poem with staying power across time and space. Finally, Limón reads her poem out loud.To listen to Book of the Day sponsor-free and support NPR's book coverage, sign up for Book of the Day+ at plus.npr.org/bookofthedayLearn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

An impassioned plea, a yearning for connection — the poem U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón wrote when she says all language failed her. Take in Ada's reading of her piece, “The End of Poetry” — and hear her read more of her work in the On Being episode, “To Be Made Whole.”Ada Limón is the 24th Poet Laureate of the United States. She's written six books of poetry, including The Carrying, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry, and Bright Dead Things, which was a finalist for the National Book Award. Her most recent volume is The Hurting Kind. As poet laureate, she edited the collection You Are Here, part of her signature project focusing on how poetry can connect us to the natural world. She is a 2023 MacArthur Fellow, a former host of the poetry podcast The Slowdown, and an instructor in the MFA program at Queens University of Charlotte, in North Carolina.