The Contract Says: We’d Like the Conversation to Be Bilingual

Limón’s identity as a Latinx female poet is essential in understanding her motivation for writing “The Contract Says...” The relationship between an author and their text has been the subject of much debate among literary critics for decades. However, for Limón, autobiographical concerns are at the center of her work. In a 2014 interview with Suzannah Windsor, journalist for Compose, Limón confesses, “most of my poems are autobiographical. The strange, twisty narrative of the inner voice, the voice underneath the voice, is always what fascinates me and keeps me writing” (Windsor, Suzannah. “An Interview with Poet Ada Limón.” Compose, 2014). Limón makes it very clear to her audience that her work must be considered in relation to her discrete identity categories and personal experiences in order to be fully understood.

Limón subscribes to a contemporary version of Confessional poetry: the American tradition of writing that emerged in the late 1950s and early 1960s, discussing an author’s deeply personal experiences with trauma (“An Introduction to Confessional Poetry,” The Editors of the Poetry Foundation, Poetry Foundation). Confessional poetry dealt with vulnerable subject matter that had previously never been discussed in publication.