Ada Limón is Michael Schmidtmany things: the U.S. Poet Laureate, a recently named MacArthur "Genius," a Latina, a summer-person becoming a fall-person. But underneath all those outer identities, she's still in search for the "original animal at [her] core."

On this episode, Gene talks to Ada about how her identity is always in flux, why she thinks poetry matters right now with the world on fire, and how both grief and freedom are animating this current season of her life.

Ada's most recent poetry collection is The Hurting Kind.