How I Write: Ada Limón & Joy Harjo – Everything I Learned From The World's Greatest Poets

Episode Overview

This episode of How I Write features a heartfelt, wide-ranging conversation between host David Perell and two former U.S. Poets Laureate: Ada Limón and Joy Harjo. Together, they explore the mystique of poetry—the act of listening beyond words, the role of rhythm and silence, the spiritual roots of language, the meaning of poetic voice, and the enduring power of metaphor. For anyone enchanted by how great poems are made—or curious about how to write with more depth, resonance, and presence—this episode is a masterclass in the hidden mechanics and lifestyle of poets.

Deep Listening: Writing as Receiving (01:11–10:49)

Key Points:

• Both Limón and Harjo stress that genuine art comes from receiving the world rather than forcing meaning onto it.
• “So much of writing is receiving. I think we have a misconception that making art is always about making... In reality, much of what we do as artists is to receive the world...” – Ada Limón [01:11]
• Joy Harjo compares the earth’s resonance to music, asserting that every being and element carries its own unique rhythm.
• The influence of media and the loss of immersive attention due to technology.
• Silence is revealed not as emptiness but as alive with ambient sound and presence.

Memorable Quotes:

• “If you look at the Earth from a spaceship... Earth is one being, and it has its own song and its own vibration...” – Joy Harjo [01:59]
• “For me, it feels like there’s so much about... we don’t have a lot of silence in the world... I have to listen to my own music or the music that is present.” – Ada Limón [05:52]
• “Silence can feel like it’s whitewashing, right? ... But really it’s about hearing the music that is constantly alive in the world.” – Ada Limón [10:21]

Notable Moments:

• Joy Harjo on media and attention: “When my dreams started flipping quickly by, like videos, like reels or TikToks, I knew that was the end of that for me, because... it was interfering with my thought process and lengthy thought process.” [03:12]
• Both poets on needing solitude and time away from noise to write meaningfully.

Rhythm, Silence, and the Body: Poetry’s Musical Roots (08:10–14:16)

Key Points:

• The rhythm of a poem is an organic force, sometimes pre-existing the words themselves.
• Both poets cannot listen to music while writing (it hijacks their inner music), though they acknowledge some writers can create with musical background as a shield or scaffold.
• Harjo draws metaphors between bodily rhythms, natural rhythms, and poetic rhythm.
• Practicing solitude is essential for both poets.

Memorable Quotes:

• “Rhythm is crucial to error. It’s everything. It’s behind everything—your organs, even every cell...” – Joy Harjo [09:05]
• “To lose track of time is such a gift and difficult.” – Ada Limón [20:34]

Notable Moments:

• Perell’s story about “super loud” silence in Patagonia [11:03], highlighting how awareness transforms perception.

Finding and Honing One's "Voice" (13:03–19:00)

Key Points:

• Joy Harjo contends, “Maybe my voice cultivated me because I feel like it’s the same voice... whether it’s the saxophone or speaking or singing, it’s the same voice.” [13:20]
• Voice, for both poets, is a deep, essential quality—less about style and more about discovering who you truly are.
• Learning to listen deeply to the self is as important as listening to the world.
• Mere trends or literary fashions don't define or constrain their work.

Memorable Quotes:

• “I’m not super comfortable with the word soul, but it is in that realm... the usness, the isness of this material body at this time and space.” – Ada Limón [14:40]
• “I always wrote the way I wrote, which didn’t always make it easy to be seen or to be understood even. But that was just why I was doing what I needed to do.” – Joy Harjo [17:51]

Clock Time vs. Eternal Time: Poetic Presence (18:08–20:56)

Key Points:

• Both poets reflect on the constrictions of “clock time” versus the timeless perspective present in traditional and indigenous cultures.
• Limón expresses how sacred it feels to lose track of time while writing; Harjo mourns the way technology eats human attention.

Memorable Quotes:

• “Clock time is so recent. It’s so small.” – Joy Harjo [18:17]
• “To lose track of time is such a gift and difficult.” – Ada Limón [20:34]

The Reader’s Experience: Approaching and Appreciating a Poem (20:56–26:16)

Key Points:

• Reading poetry requires revisiting, repeated listening, and openness. Meaning and resonance deepen over time, like with a beloved song.
• The modern attention economy makes it harder to give poems the space and time they need.
• Contemporary poetry, read aloud or performed, connects powerfully—even as print poetry sections shrink.

Memorable Quotes:

• “Poetry takes repetition... Even now, I can read a poem and sort of wonder about it and then read it again... and it opens up more.” – Ada Limón [21:30]
• “It’s like listening to jazz... It works best the more you have in your pocket, you know—the more skill, the more craft you have, because you’re listening to...” – Joy Harjo [22:49]
• “Just listen to this poem. The way you listen to a song. This is song on paper… Who knows what [Hotel California] means and who cares? It’s really about the experience.” – Joy Harjo [25:36]

Form, Syntax, and the Physicality of Poetry (26:16–30:23)

Key Points:

• Limón and Harjo break down how poems work on the page—the line break, punctuation, and the smallest units of sound.
• A poem’s instructions for reading are embedded in its structure.
• The line, more than the sentence, guides rhythm and meaning.

Memorable Quotes:

• “You don’t read poetry to get the meaning of the sentence… It’s for the music, for the experience…” – Ada Limón [26:16]
• “Everything has to be on the page. It’s not waiting for music to join it, you know—it's not waiting for the percussion to come in. The percussion has to be the periods or the ellipses…” – Ada Limón [30:04]
• “That’s the rhythm section.” – Joy Harjo [30:19]

Poetry as Embodied Art: Reading, Sound, and Memory (30:35–37:49)

Key Points:

• Poetry’s oldest roots are in community and ritual—poetry is sung, danced, embodied.
• The experience of hearing or reciting poems aloud is transformative; embodiment intensifies their effect.
• Cross-cultural and even non-verbal forms (like ASL poetry) show poetry’s sensory dimension.

Memorable Quotes:

• “Poetry is connected to land places in the earth. You could have star patterns in it... but you’re dancing it, you know, you’re also singing it...” – Joy Harjo [30:47]
• “When people like poetry, but they've never heard it out loud, I think, no, no, no. You need to hear it, you know, or you need to experience in a sensorial way.” – Ada Limón [32:30]
• “It’s this experience of looking at someone as they have a thought in their head of, whoa, I didn’t know language could do that.” – Interviewer/David Perell [34:16]

The Spell of Language: Metaphor, Lushness, and Mystery (37:49–45:08)

Key Points:

• Poetic language offers mystery and lushness, transforming the mundane into revelation.
• The essential function of metaphor and the limitations of utilitarian everyday language.
• Poems can make familiar language magical through arrangement, sound, and image.

Memorable Quotes:

• “To reimagine [language] as an ecstatic, ethereal, you know, transitory thing that occurs in a moment, more like spell or magic...” – Ada Limón [37:27]
• “Poetry is essentially metaphor… It’s like the real world, but it’s this or it’s this, and it’s also this. And here’s one contradiction. And here’s one. And yet we can hold it all right here.” – Joy Harjo [38:11]
• “It’s a beautiful reminder that language can be used for good.” – Ada Limón [40:35]
• “To see the world in a grain of sand and heaven in a wildflower, to hold infinity in the palm of your hand and eternity in an hour...” – William Blake, quoted by Interviewer [40:35]

Inspiration, Influence, and Process: The Poet’s Toolkit (42:52–45:08)

Key Points:

• Remaining curious and open is the heart of creativity; gratitude toward poetic ancestors sustains the work.
• Both poets reflect on poetic influences shaping their writing, naming Galway Kinnell and John Ashbery among others.
• Editors often want to “flatten” poetic language, but poets defend sound and sense over grammar.

Memorable Quotes:

• “The trick is the word curious. Is to remain curious.” – Joy Harjo [42:52]
• “And that’s… sound sense. Because it’s not. It will flatten the sentence out… it has a sound sense that works with the perception.” – Joy Harjo [44:17]
• “Poetry sometimes resists the same kind of copy editing.” – Ada Limón [45:08]

Emotion, Trust, and Awareness: The Depths of Poetic Experience (45:08–47:12)

Key Points:

• Writing poetry is like a trust fall into emotion (Perell), but Limón complicates this by suggesting it’s a process of recognizing the deep emotions you already carry.
• Awareness, solitude, and honesty with oneself are essential.

Notable Quotes:

• “It’s not always just a trust fall… sometimes it’s just realizing you are in it.” – Ada Limón [46:08]
• “There’s a way in which we move through the world and someone says, how are you? And we say, fine. And that’s the contract… And then there’s a way that when you are alone… you will recognize what you are grieving and that it is there and that it is part of you...” – Ada Limón [46:22]

Closing Reflection

This conversation demystifies poetry without diminishing its magic—revealing the lived, felt processes behind artful language. Limón and Harjo invite listeners to slow down, listen deeply, stay curious, and let poetry (their own and others’) shape the way they move through the world.

Selected Further Reading:

• Joy Harjo’s poem “Shapeshifter”
• Ada Limón’s recent collections
• Poems by Galway Kinnell, John Ashbery, Emily Dickinson, and William Blake

For Listeners Who Want More:

• Read poems aloud.
• Return to old favorites; let meaning change over time.
• Stay curious, honest, and gently attentive—to yourself, to language, to the world.