Former U.S. poet laureate Ada Limón urges artists to band together in 'dangerous times'

Former U.S. poet laureate Ada Limón said artists must band together as funding and institutional support for the arts face new pressures, calling the moment "dangerous" and urging creators to protect their moral center and one another.

Limón, who served three years as the 24th poet laureate and completed her term in April, described a tenure that included placing poems in seven national parks, contributing a poem engraved on a spacecraft bound for Jupiter’s moon Europa and encountering what she called countless "secret poets" during travels around the country. Her new book, Startlement: New and Selected Poems, is due Sept. 30.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Limón said her initiatives were affected by administrative changes and funding shortfalls. She singled out the abrupt dismissal of Librarian of Congress Dr. Carla Hayden as a sign of broader trouble, saying Hayden had worked to open the Library of Congress to the public and that her firing was "emblematic of the trouble that is here and the trouble that’s coming." Limón also said the parks poetry project, conceived to expand into every national park, is on pause because of funding issues and what she described as an administration "attack on national parks."

Limón noted the poet laureate is technically an employee of the Library of Congress and that the post is supported by donations rather than direct government funding. She said that, like other federal employees, laureates are asked not to speak about policy, though she said she experienced no direct consequences personally beyond the broader institutional shifts.

Limón emphasized the importance of presence and attention in the creation of art. She described a tension between digital devices and the practice of noticing: wanting to share a reading on social media, then feeling tethered to a phone. "My job as a poet is to not lose the amazement, not lose the wonderment at the world," she said, adding that putting devices away and attending to human strangeness fuels poems.

Beyond institutional concerns, Limón voiced strong reservations about artificial intelligence in creative work. She said she is "morally opposed" to using AI for art or essays and worries it risks eroding critical thought. She suggested that AI may be better directed toward addressing the climate crisis or aiding medicine, saying, "we are in grave danger of losing critical thought," and questioning what it means to ask a machine to make art when it lacks a soul.

Asked about assembling her new collection, Limón described the process as unexpectedly difficult. She said she typically conceives a book as "one poem" and had to decide how to build a new, coherent work from older pieces. "Once I really sat down and did it and listened to the poems and tried to figure out which poem wanted to have this new life, it shifted," she said.

Limón also said she is writing prose about returning to her hometown after buying her childhood home, which has prompted reflections on time, identity and belonging. She said the varied work of artists — from activist poets on the front lines to people who write privately — sustains a creative community that must now rely on mutual support.

Her comments reflect wider anxieties among artists and cultural workers about public support for the arts and the impact of political change on cultural institutions. Limón urged colleagues to "remember where our power comes from" and to keep producing art that preserves the soul of their work, even as resources tighten and public debates over institutions and technology intensify.