Latest news with #AdaLimón
Associated Press
09-05-2025
- Politics
- Associated Press
US poets laureate criticize Trump's firing of Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden
NEW YORK (AP) — Outgoing U.S. poet laureate Ada Limón and her two immediate predecessors, Joy Harjo and Tracy K. Smith, are condemning President Donald Trump's firing of Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden, who had appointed each of them to their positions. 'Dr. Carla Hayden is the kindest, brightest, most generous Librarian of Congress we could have hoped for as a nation,' Limón, who last month completed a three-year run as poet laureate, said in a statement on Friday. 'She promoted books, libraries, and curiosity while dedicating herself to serving both sides of the aisle with genuine grace. I am heartbroken as the cruelty of this administration continues with seemingly no end in sight. She is the best of us and deserves the utmost respect. I hope people are paying attention. What we once feared is already happening.' The library, an outgrowth of Thomas Jefferson's personal book collection, holds a vast archive of the nation's books and history. Hayden, whose 10-year term was scheduled to end next year, was notified late Thursday that she had been fired, according to an email obtained by The Associated Press. On Friday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said that Hayden 'did not meet the needs of the American people.' 'There were quite concerning things at the Library of Congress in the pursuit of DEI, and putting inappropriate books in the library for children,' Leavitt told reporters during a briefing. 'And we don't believe she was serving the interest of the American taxpayer well, so she has been removed from her position, and the president is well within his rights to do that.' Confirmed by the Senate in 2016, Hayden was the first woman and the first African American to be the librarian of Congress. U.S. poets laureate are employees of the Library of Congress, generally serve one to three years in the role and may not 'take political positions in their official capacity while serving as laureate,' according to the library's website. Hayden had been expected to announce a new poet laureate over the summer. Hayden, appointed by President Barack Obama, had been labeled by the conservative American Accountability Foundation as 'woke' and 'anti-Trump.' Her ouster continues the Trump administration's wave of actions against Washington cultural institutions, from the Kennedy Center to the National Endowment for the Arts. Harjo, the laureate from 2019 to 2022, called her firing 'shocking news' and added that she 'found her to be steadfast with good humor as she took excellent care of an institution established close to the founding of the country as a resource for all of its citizens.' 'Her reputation will stand through time,' Harjo wrote in an email to the AP. Smith, who served from 2017 to 2019, told the AP in an email that Hayden had sought poets such as herself who 'engage communities nationwide with the joys and the power of poetry in all its forms.' 'Her abrupt firing suggests a desire to tamp down the ceiling on our collective remembering and deprive the collective imagination of vital resources,' Smith wrote. ___ Associated Press writer Chris Megerian in Washington contributed to this report.
New York Times
09-04-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
‘Modern Love' Podcast: Let Yourself Rage With Ada Limón
'I think we'd all be better off if we encountered poetry on a regular basis, because it reminds us to feel, that we're not supposed to numb out, that the weeping and the rage and the grief leads to feeling alive.' 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. Here's how to submit a Modern Love essay to The New York Times Here's how to submit a Tiny Love Story
New York Times
09-04-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
‘Modern Love' Podcast: Let Yourself Rage With Poet Laureate Ada Limón
'I think we'd all be better off if we encountered poetry on a regular basis, because it reminds us to feel, that we're not supposed to numb out, that the weeping and the rage and the grief leads to feeling alive.' 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. Here's how to submit a Modern Love essay to The New York Times Here's how to submit a Tiny Love Story
