I think poetry is a way of carrying grief, but it’s also a way of putting it somewhere so I don’t always have to heave it onto my back or in my body. The more I put grief in a poem, the more l am able to move freely through the world because I have named it, spoken it, and thrown it out into the sky.
Everyone has grief that they carry and sometimes we have anxiety and depression about anticipatory grief.
The thing that I’ve found that helps is knowing we are all in this, someone has gone or is going through the same thing.
Poetry helps us with that too. Writing. Reading. As James Baldwin said, “You think your pain and heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, and then you read.”
Enough of osseous and chickadee and sunflower and snowshoes, maple and seeds, samara and shoot, enough chiaroscuro, enough of thus and prophecy and the stoic farmer and faith and our father and tis of thee, enough of bosom and bud, skin and god not forgetting and star bodies and frozen birds, enough of the will to go on and not go on or how a certain light does a certain thing, enough of the kneeling and the rising and the looking inward and the looking up, enough of the gun, the drama, and the acquaintance’s suicide, the long-lost letter on the dresser, enough of the longing and the ego and the obliteration of ego, enough of the mother and the child and the father and the child and enough of the pointing to the world, weary and desperate, enough of the brutal and the border, enough of can you see me, can you hear me, enough I am human, enough I am alone and I am desperate, enough of the animal saving me, enough of the high water, enough sorrow, enough of the air and its ease, I am asking you to touch me.
KAVEH AKBAR: I read something of yours a long time ago, maybe from an old interview or something, where you talk about how all of your poems can be divided into pleases and thank-yous. I love that. I love that idea. That’s the most basic form of prayer, right? “Help me, help me, help me. Thank you, thank you, thank you.”
ADA LIMÓN: Yes! There is that sense of always being aware of speaking to the universe. […] And a lot of my poems are asking for something and pleading, or they’re looking for some sort of answer. Why has this happened or what does this mean or what can you give me or how can you fix this? And if I present this problem to you, will you heal me? Then I think on the other side of that, those “pleases” are often acts of trying to heal myself and trying to recover from an event or even just the maddening dream buzzing insanity that is our own minds. So I think there’s a lot of that, not necessarily looking for an answer but looking for a peace. With the thank-yous, there is that part where when things have turned around or have steered in the right direction; I do feel a sense that I need to praise. That my job is to sit down and praise and if I don’t then I’ll feel like the greedy child that when given the good day never reflects or enjoys it. I want to remember to praise.
enough of can you see me, can you hear me, enough I am human, enough I am alone and I am desperate, enough of the animal saving me, enough of the high water, enough sorrow, enough of the air and its ease, I am asking you to touch me.
“She cannot decide what she desires, but today it is enough / that she desires and desires. That she is a body / in the world, wanting, the wind itself becoming / her own wild whisper.”
Sharks in the Rivers; ‘The Widening Road’ by Ada Limón
