How to Triumph Like a Girl by Ada Limón (Grade 4-6)

In "How to Triumph Like a Girl", the speaker admires the strength of female horses and wishes to have those desirable qualities herself. She challenges the reader to believe that she also has the heart and therefore the features of a lady horse that she so desperately wants. Throughout the poem, the speaker implies that being a female in general makes any animal or person graceful and strong.

California-born Ada Limón is the 24th Poet Laureate of the United States and earned an MFA from New York University, studying alongside several notable poets including Sharon Olds and Philip Levine. The majority of her poems concern subjects such as motherhood, womanhood, and infertility. Currently, Limón teaches at North Carolina's Queens University of Charlotte Low Residency and she also works as a creative consultant and also acts as a host of her critically-acclaimed poetry podcast, The Slowdown.