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Last week, a message from U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón blasted beyond Earth’s atmosphere, where it will sail for the next several years in pursuit of Europa, Jupiter’s (potentially habitable) fourth-largest moon. This message—a poem of Limón’s titled “In Praise of Mystery”—was engraved on the outside of the Europa Clipper spacecraft, announcing its intentions in Limón’s hypnotic stanzas:
“O second moon, we, too, are made
of water, of vast and beckoning seas.
We, too, are made of wonders, of great
and ordinary loves, of small invisible worlds,
of a need to call out through the dark.”
Ahead of the Europa Clipper journey, which intends to probe Europa and understand whether the moon’s underground ocean might support life, NASA asked Limón if she would write something to commemorate the mission and communicate its purpose. The poet laureate agreed, but the resulting poem—which has since been turned into a children’s picture book, illustrated by Peter Sís—took as much inspiration from Earth itself as from Europa. Ahead, Limón discusses the particular challenge of writing a poem intended for outer space, and why it felt important that the art speak as much to our own planet as to whatever lies beyond.
What was your initial reaction to being asked to write this poem?
I generally say no to any kind of commission or asks for occasional poems. I’ve never thought of myself as someone who’s great at occasional poems. Some people are remarkable at it. It always has to feel like something I really believe in, in order for me to say yes. And I’ve always been a person fascinated by the planets, the stars. I grew up on watching Star Wars and Star Trek, and for me, it’s a place to really lean into the idea of wonder. So I was incredibly pleased to be asked. And then I said yes, excitedly, because I do really care about exploration and what it means to be a part of an entire universe. And then, of course, I was terrified and frightened.
What most frightened you about writing a poem like this?
I’m not one that can make a poem that has a specific mission, or has a specific message, unless I feel connected to that message. Poems are complicated things, and I was frightened that this one would need to be one-note, that it would need to be too simple, and that it would have to convey facts. And I don’t think of poetry as ever conveying facts.
I realized very quickly that, in order for me to appreciate the poem and for me to send in the poem, it had to be a poem that I would write anyway. So I went to the themes of what I believe in: our interconnectedness and the true preciousness of this planet.
What did the actual process of creating the poem look like?
I’ve been writing poems now for 25 years, and there are poems that just come out and they maybe need a few edits, but they’re primarily done. That’s very rare. For the most part, it takes a lot of work. It takes a lot of draft after draft.
[For “In Praise of Mystery,”] I was writing many drafts, and my husband was like, “You need to stop writing a NASA poem and start writing a poem that you would write.” We were staying at the home of W.S. Merwin, who was a past poet laureate and, since his death, his home has become a conservancy. You can go and write and stay on the island of Maui in his palm forest. And I kept thinking, Okay, throw away all the ideas of where this is going to go, what this is going to do, who it’s connected with, and start trying to connect with the universe. How does Ada Limón try to connect with the universe?
Where I get any kind of poetic power is generally from reminding myself that I belong to this planet, I belong to this earth, and no part of me can be un-belonged. That’s where the poem really began to gain traction. I probably went through—I don’t know for certain—but I would say probably 19, 20 drafts. And some of them are very terrible.
I doubt that, but I understand.
When I finally landed on this draft—or at least close to it—I was like, “Oh, this is what it is. It’s pointing back to the Earth, talking about our collective need to not only feel seen in our own wonders and our own glory of nature, but also to know that we spend our lives calling out to the universe.”
I’m always scared of the “we” because I don’t want to speak for others. So I think that I had to really surrender to the “we” in this poem, and that’s when the poem became a different engine. It’s a poem for the collective, by the collective. I also realized that, if I was going to harness the idea of the collective, I wasn’t just speaking for humans. I was speaking for every living being on Earth.
No pressure.
Or, at least, I was trying to have a voice that goes outward and speaks for our collective need to survive and our collective need for safety. When I got that, when I finally felt like that [the poem was right]—I don’t want to say that it came from elsewhere, but it immediately didn’t feel like it belonged to me. It immediately felt like it belonged to everyone. It was a very different feeling than most of the times when I finish a poem, and I think, Oh, this is my poem.
For those who might not have the strongest idea of what a U.S. poet laureate does, can you walk me through, perhaps, an average day in the life?
I would say there is no average day. Would that there were. It’s a lot of travel: speaking at universities, colleges, libraries across the country. Aside from the speaking and the reading, I also launched a national project this last April, and have now gone to five different national parks as part of the project called “You Are Here: Poetry In Parks.” Not every poet laureate wants to do a national project, or needs to do a national project, but I wanted to do something.
It’s a lot of travel, a lot of meetings, and this might sound strange, but it’s a lot of receiving. One of the things I don’t think everyone gets the opportunity to witness the work that’s already being done in the world, whether it’s to preserve and steward land; to bring literacy to schools through poetry; a collective poetry movement; poetry readings in small towns or in bars. It’s been incredible because, not only do I feel like an advocate for poetry, but I also feel like a witness for what people are already doing and the great work that’s already being done by artists and activists to make sure that poetry is alive and well.
I think that’s an important pursuit: showing what’s being done and, hopefully, encouraging more of it.
In a spiral of chaos and catastrophe, one thing after another on the news, I feel like sometimes we lose sight of all of the really incredible people doing incredible work. There’s a lot that’s happening that you can feel much better. In that way, the Laureateship has been such a gift to my soul.
That brings me back to what originally touched me so deeply about this poem: It is a poem “for” Europa, but the focus is ultimately on Earth. Tell me about how you landed on the conclusion that you needed to write not of outer space but of our own planet.
Even when I went to the Jet Propulsion Lab and met with NASA scientists and people who have been working on the Europa Clipper mission for years…every NASA scientist will tell you that this is the best planet. We’re on it. This is it. This is the best planet. And so, for me, what was just so clear was that the messages that go outward are really for us. I thought, If I could send something outward and it could boomerang back, what would it be? And if it went out and shined its light back on us, it would be that the wonders of this earth are overwhelming and worth saving.
I think, in many ways, it’s a nature poem. It’s a poem about the climate. The poem is about the stewardship of the earth, and I think that when we talk about wonder and awe, we sometimes have to do it in an urgent way.
How have your thoughts on the role of poetry in society evolved or otherwise shifted since you first started this job?
I’ve doubled down on the fact that poetry can actually be a tool to help you get through the day. I used to think that poetry had to always be shared in order for it to be complete. But I think one of the biggest things I’ve learned is that private poems are really necessary. There’s a lot of people out there writing private poems, and those poems, they can feel like prayers or notes of praise, or notes of rage, or they can feel like puzzles that the brain is working through. I find it so fascinating and useful to use poetry to connect ourselves to the world. It’s not always to another human being. It can just be that, if I write about the dawn in a very private and personal way, I am more connected to the dawn.
And that might sound ethereal, but what you’ve done is deepen your attention, and therefore deepen your love to the world that you exist in. And I think the last two years, serving in this role, has made it all the more clear how much we need that—and how much people are doing it. Secret poems are being written all around the world. They don’t always have to be shared on Instagram. They don’t always have to be shared with another person. Sometimes, they only need to be shared with your lover, or your best friend, or your parents that you wrote it for.
I really believe that poetry can be a way to remind yourself that there’s no way to be lonely here. You’re surrounded by all of these living things, every moment, a tree inhaling your breath and letting out its own. A beautiful, intimate exchange.
Read “In Praise of Mystery: A Poem for Europa”
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Lauren Puckett-Pope is a staff culture writer at ELLE, where she primarily covers film, television and books. She was previously an associate editor at ELLE.