Instructions on Not Giving Up Summary & Analysis
by Ada Limón

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"Instructions on Not Giving Up," by the American poet Ada Limón, offers a message of hope and resilience. Unimpressed by early spring's "display" of bright, beautiful blossoms that quickly fade, the poem's speaker is drawn instead to the "Patient, plodding" green leaves that follow. The poem suggests that while intense joy is fleeting, people can learn from the trees to embrace all parts of life and not give up when things get hard. The poem was originally published in the Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day series in 2017 and later collected in Limon's fifth collection, The Carrying, in 2018.

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