Animals (Symbol)
In Ada Limón's poetry, animals are a recurring symbol of wildness and power, especially feminine power. They can also represent hope and survival in various ways. The "lady horses" in "How to Triumph Like a Girl" are not wild—they are domesticated and trained—but the speaker nevertheless sees a sort of independent swagger and power in them, which inspires her. Limón's dog in "The Leash" also symbolizes untamed instincts, for good and bad: the speaker admires her dog's pure joy and love, but also has to save her from running into the road. Limón's poetic speaker is generally inspired by animals but maintains her humanity in the ways that she integrates part of their animalistic freedom without the accompanying recklessness.
Suburban domesticity (Motif)
Limón is a full-time poet and a married woman, and many of her poems feature recurring domestic scenes: suburban streets, private life, and sidewalks. "Dead Stars" compares rolling trash and recycling bins to "suburban thunder," and "Instructions on Not Giving Up" and "The Leash" both take place on neighborhood sidewalks during a dog walk. "Wife" describes the speaker at home fixing tea (or rather, failing to do so). The speaker uses these humble backdrops in complex ways: the domestic motifs make her a more vulnerable, human, and realistic narrator, but she also frequently subverts their simplicity by shifting the poems to broad, ambitious topics. By doing this, she shows that anyone can think deep thoughts and feel profound, poetic emotions about the world, even while taking the trash out.
The Leash (Symbol)
The poem "The Leash" only contains its titular phrase once, but the title marks it as a crucial symbol. The speaker uses the leash to stop her dog from running into the street, a very ordinary thing for dog owners. However, the speaker uses this setting to reflect more on the self-destructive impulses she and other humans share with the dog, albeit in different forms. The word "unleashed" in line 2 indicates the death and violence that happens when we let go of our control and give in to a desire for destruction. The poem's final image in lines 32-33 is peaceful because the dog is walking at the speaker's heels again, i.e., the leash is slack and not currently needed. In these ways, "the leash" is used as a metaphor for the restraint and balance that keep us sane, safe, and alive. Reading this metaphor into Limón's other poems, we can see the speaker's bonds with her husband, animals, and plants as "leashes" that keep her safely tethered to life rather than wandering irretrievably into her own despair.
Stars (Symbol)
"Dead Stars" contains both the titular "dead stars"—whose elements comprise our human bodies—and the many constellations above in the night sky. Limón uses them to symbolize humanity's innate power and capacity for good. They connect humanity to our stellar roots and to everything that is larger than us (and within us). For the speaker, this kinship with stars is a reason to set our dreams and sights high in utopic visions of justice and unity. She lists constellations when trying to broaden her mindset beyond her immediate suburban surroundings. By the end of the poem, she imagines us (current humans) becoming like constellations for future people to admire.
The environment (Motif)
Broadly conceived, the natural environment repeatedly shows up in Limón's poems: as trees and flowers in "Instructions for Not Giving Up," as belly-up fish and poisoned rivers in "The Leash," as birds and sprouts in "The End of Poetry" and elsewhere. In each case, these natural images have different meanings, making them more of a motif than a singular symbol. The environment is both a source of hope to the speaker, as in the trees' ability to regrow after winter, and a call to action when they are suffering because of the climate crisis. "The End of Poetry" uses natural imagery in a novel and meta way, dismissing it as a symbol for poetic language itself, showing that Limón is suspicious of the ways that nature gets overused as a "poetic" device. Still, it plays a central role in much of her work as a community of creatures to be a part of, and a delicate balance to protect.
