Against Breaking

Against Breaking investigates the importance of paying attention and the beautiful music of language, both private and public, secret and collective.

This is a passionate case for poetry from one of the most qualified—more importantly, motivated—voices of our current time. This slim volume is the written version of Ada Limón’s 2025 speech given at the Library of Congress as the closing lecture of her tenure as the twenty-fourth Poet Laureate of the United States of America.

We have had writers pen similar essays in the past, like Percy Shelley’s “A Defence of Poetry.” However, contemporary readers are less likely to travel back in time 200 years to read Shelley’s defense, which is a dusty tome compared to Limón’s timely and sharp statement. It’s important to have a present-tense perspective to prompt us toward appreciating poetry’s power.

Limón was invited to be Poet Laureate by Dr. Carla Hayden, who was removed from her position as Librarian of Congress only three weeks after Limón’s speech. Retroactively, this fact makes Against Breaking a condemnation of political ideology as much as it is a defense of the language arts, which are so often the target of power-hungry politicians and totalitarian ideologues.