The City of Sonoma and the Cultural and Fine Arts Commission are honored to announce that acclaimed poet Ada Limón has been selected as the 2026 Sonoma Treasure Artist. Limón is the first poet and only the second writer to receive this distinction since the program began in 1983.
Limón’s connection to Sonoma is longstanding and deeply rooted. She grew up in Sonoma Valley, attended Dunbar Elementary School, Altimira Middle School, and Sonoma Valley High School, and worked at Readers’ Books as a teenager. Over the past decade, she has become one of the most widely recognized poets in the nation and abroad. She recently returned to Sonoma Valley, bringing her creative work and community involvement back to the place that shaped her early life.
Limón is the twenty fourth Poet Laureate of the United States, appointed for two terms. She is the author of seven books of poetry including The Carrying which won the National Book Critics Circle Award. Her other major honors include the Griffin Prize, the PEN Jean Stein Book Award, the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a MacArthur Fellowship, and recognition as a 2024 Time Magazine Woman of the Year. Her poem In Praise of Mystery is currently traveling into space aboard a NASA mission to explore one of Jupiter’s moons. Her poetry is celebrated for its clarity, emotional depth, and reflections on nature, belonging, memory, and the living world. Her newest collection, Startlement, is currently on book tour…