Ada Limón

She is married to Lucas Marquardt.

Ada Limón studied at University of Washington and New York University. The recorded working language is English. The field of work recorded is literary activity and poetry. Residence is recorded at Lexington. Positions recorded include United States Poet Laureate. Distinctions recorded are Guggenheim Fellowship, National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry, MacArthur Fellows Program and Women of the Year.

• Name — Ada Limón • Born — 28 March 1976 • Birthplace — Sonoma, California, U.S. • Education — University of Washington (BFA) New York University (MFA) • Genre — Poetry • Spouse — Lucas Marquardt • Awards — National Book Critics Circle Award • Website — adalimon.com

Limón, who is Mexican-American, grew up in Sonoma, California. She is the daughter of Ken Limón and Stacia Brady; Brady often provides the cover art for Limón's books. Limón says she developed a love for poetry in high school, despite dedicating her extracurricular activities to theatrical productions. She attended the drama school at the University of Washington. After taking writing courses from professors including Colleen J. McElroy, she went on to receive her MFA from New York University in 2001, where she studied with Sharon Olds, Philip Levine, Marie Howe, Mark Doty, Agha Shahid Ali, and Tom Sleigh. Upon graduation, Limón received a fellowship to live and write at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Massachusetts. In 2003, she received a grant from the New York Foundation for the Arts, and in the same year won the Chicago Literary Award for Poetry. To support her writing career, Limón began working in marketing for Condé Nast. She quit this job following her stepmother's untimely death, which was a catalyst for Limón to decide to pursue her writing career before it was too late.

• Illustration — Limón at SXSW Interactive in 2024, talking about her work with NASA After 12 years in New York City, where she worked for various magazines such as Martha Stewart Living, GQ, and Travel + Leisure, Limón now lives in both Lexington, Kentucky and Sonoma, California, where she writes and teaches. Limón's first book, Lucky Wreck, was chosen by Jean Valentine as the winner of the Autumn House Poetry Prize in 2005, while her second book, This Big Fake World, was the winner of the Pearl Poetry Prize in 2006. The two books came out within less than a year of each other. In a 2014 article in Compose magazine, she stated: "I went from having no books at all, to having two in the span of a year. I felt like I had won the lottery, well, without the money. I suppose, in my life, I've never done things the ordinary way. I'm either deep in the bottom of the well or nowhere near water." She serves on the faculty of Queens University of Charlotte low-residency M.F.A. program, and the "24 Pearl Street" online program for the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center. When her third book, Sharks in the Rivers (Milkweed Editions, 2010) was released, a reviewer writing in The Brooklyn Rail observed: "Unlike much contemporary poetry, Limón's work isn't text-derivative or deconstructivist. She personalizes her homilies, stamping them with the authenticity of invention and self-discovery." Limón's fourth book, Bright Dead Things, was released in 2015. She was shortlisted as a finalist for the 2015 National Book Award for Poetry. Her 2018 book, The Carrying, subsequently won a National Book Critics Circle Award. • Illustration — Limón in 2019 Her poem "State Bird" appeared in the June 2, 2014, issue of The New Yorker, and her poem "How to Triumph Like a Girl" (2013), which portrays different aspects of female horses, was awarded the 2015 Pushcart Prize. Her work has also appeared in the Harvard Review and the Pleiades. Limón was appointed 24th Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry by Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden in 2022 and reappointed for a second, two-year term in 2023. As part of her laureateship, she wrote an original poem, "In Praise of Mystery: A Poem for Europa," dedicated to NASA's Europa Clipper mission, which debuted on June 1, 2023. The poem is engraved in her own handwriting on a metal plate affixed to the Europa Clipper spacecraft. The Europa Clipper launched on October 14, 2024, and is expected to arrive in the Jupiter system in 2030, where it will perform flybys of Jupiter's Galilean moon, Europa. Her project as poet laureate was the "You Are Here" project which consisted of a poetry collection (You Are Here: Poetry and the Natural World), an installation of picnic tables in cooperation with the National Park Service (You Are Here: Poetry in Parks), and a call for responses to the question "What would you write in response to the landscape around you?" via the hashtag #youareherepoetry. She stated, "In conceiving of the project, I wanted something that could both praise our sacred and natural wonders and also speak the complex truths of this urgent time." She has been a beneficiary of the Kentucky Foundation for Women.

• 99¢ Heart, Big Game Books, 2007 • What Sucks Us In Will Surely Swallow Us Whole, Cinematheque Press, 2009

• |Year — Title — |First published — |Reprinted/collected • 2009 — Crush • 2010 — Overjoyed • Sharks in the rivers • 2014 — State Bird • 2017 — data-sort-value="burying beetle" |The Burying Beetle • Overpass • 2021 — Privacy

Ada Limón worked in literary activity and poetry. Recorded position is United States Poet Laureate. She worked at Lexington.

Ada Limón is recorded as having received Guggenheim Fellowship, National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry and MacArthur Fellows Program.

• Lucky Wreck, Autumn House Press, 2006, • This Big Fake World, Pearl Editions, 2006, • Sharks in the Rivers, Milkweed Editions, 2010, • Bright Dead Things, Milkweed Editions, 2015, • The Carrying, Milkweed Editions, 2018, • The Hurting Kind, Milkweed Editions, 2022, • Shelter: A Love Letter To Trees, Scribd Originals, 2022, • You Are Here, Milkweed Editions, 2024,