“I used to think I wrote poems in order to help readers recommit to the world. I wanted to believe I was using my intense attention to nature, to beauty, to language in order to offer proof that we should keep surviving. But through the years, I’ve realized the person I am writing for the most is myself. I am the one who needs to be reminded that this life holds all sorts of goodness even when it is often shoved to the edges by the enormity of ugliness or fear. The poems I write, the ones that offer shreds of hope or gratitude, are written because I need that hope or gratitude desperately in that moment—I need it the way plants need light.” ~ Ada Limón
“Poetry isn’t a place of answers and easy solutions. It’s a place where we can admit to an unknowing, own our private despair, and still, sometimes, practice beauty.” ~ Ada Limón
With gratitude to Paul of Paul’s Poetry Playground for his lovely curated collection of quotes. A blessing.
How to Triumph Like a Girl by Ada Limón
I like the lady horses best,
how they make it all look easy,
like running 40 miles per hour
is as fun as taking a nap, or grass.
I like their lady horse swagger,
after winning. Ears up, girls, ears up!
But mainly, let’s be honest, I like
that they’re ladies. As if this big
dangerous animal is also a part of me,
that somewhere inside the delicate
skin of my body, there pumps
an 8-pound female horse heart,
giant with power, heavy with blood.
Don’t you want to believe it?
Don’t you want to lift my shirt and see
the huge beating genius machine
that thinks, no, it knows,
it’s going to come in first.
~ Poem by Ada Limón
* * *
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Thank you for shsring Selma 🤗
👍🏽
she’s wonderful with her words
Imaginative and empowering, Ada! 💕 Thank you for posting, Selma!🌹
I enjoyed reading this again with a new set of eyes. We read it in a writing group I participated in, and I was not a fan. I think it grew on me a bit more today, although I’m still not interested in lifting her shirt and seeing a big, beating horse’s heart today.😅
Beautiful words written you , Selma ❤️
Appreciate you reading 🙇🏻♀️ Beautiful word. 👏🏽
Beautiful poem.
Great share! Love this one! I recited this after she became the U.S. Poet Laureate. 👏🏻 Thank you for sharing, Selma.
A lovely share Selma.