Hi, you're listening to the New Yorker Poetry Podcast. I'm Kevin Young, poetry editor of the New Yorker magazine.

On this program, we invited poets to select a poem from the New Yorker archive to read and discuss.

Then, they read a poem of their own that's been published in the magazine. My guest today is Ada Limon,

the current United States Poet Laureate,

and the recipient of a MacArthur Genius Fellowship.

She's the author of six books, including The Carrying,

which won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry,

and the editor of the forthcoming Anthology, You Are Here, Poetry in the Natural World.

Welcome, Ada. Thanks for joining. Thank you so much for having me.

It's so great to be with you. It's good to be with you, as always. And the first poem you've chosen

to read today is You Belong to the World by Carrie Fountain, which I know appears in the anthology

you edited. You Are Here. What drew you to this poem in particular?

This poem in particular by Carrie Fountain, it really speaks to the idea of allowing yourself

to give yourself permission to be. And I feel like every time we're moving through the world quick at a super fast pace,

we have the lists, all of these things on the to-do list.

And I feel like Carrie Fountain is a wonderful poet of returning to a reason for being.

And this poem in particular feels like a reason to a reason for being. And this poem in particular feels like a reason to allow yourself and give

yourself permission to be on this planet, which I feel like sometimes is difficult. In some ways,

I feel like it's a spell. It's a spell to ground yourself, center yourself on the earth.

Let's listen to the poem. This is Edel Liman reading, You Belong to the World by Carrie Fountain.

You belong to the world. As do your children. As does your husband. It's strange even now to understand that

you are a mother and a wife, that these gifts were given to you and that you received them,

...