The natural world has always spoken to Ada Limón. As a young student, she took frequent nature walks around Northern California where she memorized bird and plant species and counted newts in the creek. In her own family, she witnessed her mom care for a 40-acre horse ranch near her home and nurture emotional connections between the four-legged trotters. Snippets of nature — everything from a bundle of rattlesnake grass to Emily Dickinson’s dog — have woven themselves into her critically acclaimed poetry.