U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón Encourages "Existing in Wonder" at the Unveiling of Her Poem for Europa

[Photo Credit: Screenshot from Library of Congress video]

As the first Latina poet laureate and the first to be appointed a second term, Ada Limón’s work will reach a historic new high as it is set to travel into space. The Library of Congress celebrated the unveiling of Limon’s commissioned poem for NASA’s Europa Clipper by having Limón read her poem then share a conversation “with Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden; Nicola Fox, associate administrator of the NASA Science Mission Directorate; and Sheri Wells-Jensen, the Baruch S. Blumberg NASA/Library of Congress Chair in Astrobiology, Exploration and Scientific Innovation, about space exploration, poetry and sending inspirational messages into space.” Limón’s poem will be engraved on “the Europa Clipper spacecraft, which will travel 1.8 billion miles to explore Europa, an icy moon of Jupiter” and is set to launch October 2024.

Listen to the reading and conversation here.

Watch a video of the poem here.

Sign up to have your name engraved on NASA’s Europa Clipper here.