The Leash

“The Leash” was written by American poet Ada Limón. It was commissioned by the Academy of American poets for their Poem-a-Day series and appeared on their website on New Year’s Day of 2016. The poem was also included in Limón’s fifth collection, The Carrying (2018), published by Milkweed Editions.

The Carrying won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry and was a finalist for the Pen/Jean Stein Book Award. It earned positive reviews from publications like The Paris Review, Publisher’s Weekly, Guernica, and PANK, and was praised by fellow poets Natasha Trethewey and Ross Gay, among others. The volume explores themes of loss, pain, community, and hope.

“The Leash” is a contemporary lyrical poem. The intimate slice-of-life story of the poet walking her dog melds with a larger scale look at the precarious state of the world. The poem posits that hope and community can sustain and heal even when everything seems to be falling apart.

Poet Biography

Ada Limón was born March 28, 1976, and grew up in Sonoma, California. At age 15 she moved to Stanwood, Washington with her father. Limón graduated from the University of Washington in 1998 with a bachelor’s degree in Drama. She earned her master of fine arts degree in Creative Writing from New York University in 2001. She has received fellowships from the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center, the New York Foundation for the Arts, the Kentucky Foundation for Women, and the Guggenheim Foundation.

She was inspired by the visual arts from an early age—a perhaps unsurprising development for the daughter of an artist. The inspiration seems to be mutual because her mother, Stacia Brady, has created the cover art for each of Limón’s books.

The first collection, Lucky Wreck (2006) was published by Autumn House Press and won the house’s poetry prize. This Big Fake World published by Pearl Editions came out the same year. It won the 2005 Pearl Poetry Prize. Milkweed Editions published her next four collections: Sharks in the Rivers (2010), Bright Dead Things (2015), The Carrying (2018), and The Hurting Kind (May 2022). Bright Dead Things was a finalist for both the National Book Award and the National Books Critics Circle Award.

In 2011 Limón relocated with her husband to Lexington, Kentucky—a move she found challenging. Another challenge occurred in 2015 when she was diagnosed with chronic vestibular neuronitis. Bouts of vertigo often made writing nearly impossible, but she persevered nonetheless. One facet of The Carrying is themes exploring her pain and chronic illness.

Limón is currently a member of the faculty in the low-residency MFA program at Queens University of Charlotte. She also hosts a critically acclaimed poetry podcast, The Slowdown.

Poem Text

Limón, Ada. “The Leash.” 2016. Poets.org

Summary

The poem opens with a question. It asks what is left after “the birthing of bombs of forks and fear” (Line 1), gun violence, and “that brute sky opening in a slate metal maw” (Line 4) that “swallows only the unsayable in each of us” (Line 5). The outlook is bleak as the speaker says, “Even the hidden nowhere river is poisoned / orange and acidic by a coal mine” (Lines 6-7) and wonders “How can / you not fear humanity” (Lines 7-8) so much you give up and consume its pollution.

The speaker offers an encouraging plea: “Reader, I want to / say: Don’t die” (Lines 10-11). She doesn’t know whether goodness can survive the effects of environmental and political toxins, but she nevertheless hangs on to a hope for healing. Being grounded in the world, able to “move / my living limbs . . . without too much / pain,” (Lines 16-18) allows the speaker to experience small moments, like walking her dog.

The dog pulls on the leash, determined to chase down fast-moving pickup trucks because “she thinks she loves them” (Line 20) and is convinced the traffic loves her in return. The speaker wonders at the dog’s pure, unfettered zest for life and pulls on the leash to safeguard her. “I want her to survive forever,” (Line 25) she says.

The pair continues their early winter walk and, in the poem’s final lines, the speaker ponders the interconnections of life. Maybe we, like the dog, are driven to pursue love and engagement with the world despite all terrors—both known and unknown. And maybe, we’ll be able to safeguard one another so we can “walk together / peacefully, at least until the next truck comes” (Lines 32-33).