Instructions on Not Giving Up

“Instructions on Not Giving Up” (2017) is a 14-line Contemporary poem written by Ada Limón. It was first published online for the “Poem-a-Day” series by the Academy of American Poets and later appeared in Limón’s award-winning fifth collection, The Carrying (2018). Limón confirmed the autobiographical nature of the poem in an essay she wrote about its construction, saying she wrote it while struggling after a “particularly hard winter” (See: Further Reading & Resources). This poem is typical of many of Limón’s poems, which are well known for their themes of grappling with how life offers up the beautiful while at the same time confronting us with the difficult aspects of our mortality. “Instructions on Not Giving Up” is like the poet’s other free verse lyrics, where nature imagery conveys human emotions. The poem employs Limón’s usual technique of balancing detailed, vivid description with matter-of-fact speech. Limón has been widely lauded for her sense of honesty and her ability to convey emotion without excessive sentiment or subterfuge.

Poet Biography

Ada Limón was born on March 28, 1976, in Sonoma, California to working-class parents Kenneth Limón (a schoolteacher and principal) and the artist Stacia Brady. Limón’s grandfather was of Mexican heritage and crossed the border to the United States to escape the Mexican Revolution of 1916, and Limón identifies as Latin.