Filtrer par genre
Short and unhurried, Poetry Unbound is an immersive exploration of a single poem, hosted by Pádraig Ó Tuama. Pádraig Ó Tuama greets you at the doorways of brilliant poems, and invites you to meet them with stories of your world. The poems are eager to meet you, too. For season 8, we have poems about beasts (dung beetles, horses, eagles and ourselves as well); poems with tensions between parents and children; poems about kingdoms and memories of the dead. There is translation, culture, erotica, water, mortality, and morality. Already a listener? There’s also a book (Poetry Unbound: 50 Poems to Open Your World), a Substack newsletter with a vibrant conversation in the comments and occasional gatherings.
- 178 - Thomas Lux — Refrigerator, 1957
If your home were a museum — and they all are, in a way — what would the contents of your refrigerator say about you and those you live with? In his poem “Refrigerator, 1957,” Thomas Lux opens the door to his childhood appliance and oh, does a three-quarters full jar of maraschino cherries speak volumes.
Fri, 23 Feb 2024 - 14min - 177 - Rita Wong — flush
The word “flush” is a verb, as in an activity that we do umpteen times a day. It’s also an adjective that conveys abundance. Fittingly, Rita Wong’s poem “flush” offers a praise song to water’s expansive and unceasing presence in our lives — from our toilets to our teacups, from inside our bodies to outside our buildings, and from our soil to our skies.
Mon, 19 Feb 2024 - 15min - 176 - Maria Dahvana Headley — Beowulf
Bro — this is definitely not the “Beowulf” that you read back in school. Maria Dahvana Headley’s gutsy, swaggering translation brings the Old English epic poem roaring into this century, showing you why this tale of fraught family ties, power plays and posturing, and mighty, imperfect people is as relevant as ever.
Fri, 16 Feb 2024 - 15min - 175 - Michael Klein — Swale
A horse race from the 1980s may not seem like the obvious inspiration for a poem that celebrates so many of the things that make our lives worth living — good company (human and animal), good books, good food, and honest work — and that is just part of the surprise, delight, and surging joy of Michael Klein’s “Swale.”
Mon, 12 Feb 2024 - 14min - 174 - Ray Young Bear — Our Bird Aegis
What holds our bodies together? Yes, there are the biological components, such as the cells, fluids, fibers, but what about the bone-deep stuff, the histories, myths, aches, resolves? In “Our Bird Aegis,” poet Ray Young Bear evokes an adolescent eagle to show how this blend of the visceral, the inherited, and the self-made abides in each of us, no matter our form, wherever we go.
Fri, 9 Feb 2024 - 13min - 173 - Suji Kwock Kim — Search Engine: Notes from the North Korean-Chinese-Russian Border
While disputes over contested lands result in damage that can be seen and documented, they also create countless unseen ruptures in the hearts, minds and souls of the humans caught in the chaos. By giving voice to yearning, Suji Kwock Kim’s poem “Search Engine: Notes from the North Korean-Chinese-Russian Border” shows how bearing witness and asking the impossible are acts of profound courage, creativity, and defiance.
Mon, 5 Feb 2024 - 15min - 172 - Amber McBride — ROLL CALL: NEW TAROT NAMES FOR BLACK GIRLS
In “ROLL CALL: NEW TAROT NAMES FOR BLACK GIRLS,” Amber McBride treats us to a playful litany of language that twists and leaps and never stumbles. Flavored with old-time Christianity, old-time hoodoo, and a modern alchemy all her own, it talks back to prejudice, reclaims the words meant to take people down, and forges new identities that shimmer with strength and strangeness.
Fri, 2 Feb 2024 - 16min - 171 - Carl Dennis — Breath
A fragile and wondrous technology that we all possess, the human breath powers any number of things in our lives — speeches, feats of music, athleticism, and more. Carl Dennis’s powerful and meditative poem “Breath” calls on us to take a moment, give our breath our full attention, and celebrate it.
Mon, 29 Jan 2024 - 15min - 170 - Elisa Gonzalez — To My Twenty-Four-Year-Old Self
Our lives are filled with distances, the physical spans that we travel but also the stranger, vaster expanses between our past and our present or between feeling anchored and connected and feeling terribly alone. A poem can capture all of those in a way that a map can’t, as Elisa Gonzalez superbly demonstrates in “To My Twenty-Four-Year-Old Self.”
Fri, 26 Jan 2024 - 14min - 169 - Ofelia Zepeda — Deer Dance Exhibition
Most of us do our eavesdropping shyly and secretively, but Ofelia Zepeda’s poem “Deer Dance Exhibition” welcomes us to listen in on an exchange between people as they watch a ceremonial dance. Along the way, we get the sense that what we’re witnessing is more than a conversation — it’s the sounds and sensations of life itself.
Mon, 22 Jan 2024 - 15min - 168 - Sandra Cisneros — When in Doubt
Even in the most uneventful of human lives, uncertainty and doubts will inevitably intrude. When faced with those, what can you do to steady yourself? One suggestion: Turn to the poem “When in Doubt” by Sandra Cisneros, where she generously shares some of the wisdom that she’s gleaned over the years.
Fri, 19 Jan 2024 - 14min - 167 - Kandace Siobhan Walker — Three Mangoes, £1
To be alive is to be in conversation with the dead. The ghosts of loved ones are always swirling around us, and sometimes we’re lucky enough to catch a glimpse. In the poem “Three Mangoes, £1,” Kandace Siobhan Walker describes a surprising encounter with her late grandmother at a busy market, and an encounter with a stranger.
Mon, 15 Jan 2024 - 15min - 166 - Francisco Aragón — Asleep You Become a Continent
It is an intimate thing, to watch a lover while they sleep. In Francisco Aragón’s translation of Francisco X. Alarcón’s homoerotic poem, “Asleep You Become a Continent,” a man views his sleeping lover’s body like it’s a landscape: legs underneath sheets become mountains and valleys. The waking lover describes this view like an explorer might an unknown country; wondering what he will find.
Fri, 12 Jan 2024 - 13min - 165 - Conor Kerr — Winter Songs
Conor Kerr’s “Winter Songs” depicts a future scene: coyotes roaming through a rewilded city, digging up the bones of Indigenous ancestors who then regenerate and reclaim what was taken. Power is dismantled, something original is restored.
Mon, 8 Jan 2024 - 14min - 164 - Valencia Robin — The Coup
Valencia Robin’s poem portrays a tense relationship between mother and daughter; perhaps each resembling the other too much. In desperation — and shock — the daughter says the worst thing she can think of to her mother. What follows is like the fall of a dictator, a coup, an end, an opening.
Fri, 5 Jan 2024 - 14min - 163 - Eugenia Leigh — How the Dung Beetle Finds Its Way Home
In a poem about how a small moment can help you make a wise decision, Eugenia Leigh finds the strength to go back home after storming out. No self-pity in the poem, just humor and brilliance. She had every reason to leave, and finds every reason to return.
Mon, 1 Jan 2024 - 15min - 162 - Poetry Unbound — Season 8 Trailer
Poetry Unbound with host Pádraig Ó Tuama is back on Monday, January 1. Featured poets in this season include Amber McBride, Eugenia Leigh, Francisco Aragón, Ray Young Bear, and many more. New episodes released every Monday and Friday through February 23. Follow us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Overcast, or wherever you listen.
Mon, 18 Dec 2023 - 01min - 161 - Clint Smith with Krista Tippett — What We Know in the "Marrow of Our Bones"
Friends, Pádraig here — we are awakening your Poetry Unbound feed to share this brilliant episode from the newest season of On Being, which is well underway. Conversations on love and loss, comedy and ecology, social creativity, poetry, and more all await you in the On Being feed — subscribe now and don’t miss out. And — Poetry Unbound Season 8 is in production and will be arriving this winter.
Mon, 13 Nov 2023 - 1h 05min - 160 - Amanda Gunn — Ordinary Sugar
How can russet potatoes be made to taste of sugar and caramel? By dedication, love, and craft. Amanda Gunn places her poetry in conversation with the farming and culinary skills of her forebears: women who cultivated land, survival, strength, and family bonds.
Mon, 10 Jul 2023 - 17min - 159 - BONUS: Truth-seeking and the Symphony of Language with Henri Cole
A central duality appears in the work of Henri Cole: the revelation of emotional truths in concert with a “symphony of language” — often accompanied by arresting similes. We are excited to offer this conversation between Pádraig and Henri, recorded during the 2022 Dodge Poetry Festival in Newark, New Jersey. Together, they discuss the role of animals in Henri’s work, the pleasure of aesthetics in poetry, and writing as a form of revenge against forgetting.
Fri, 1 Sep 2023 - 1h 04min - 158 - BONUS: Making Space for the Erotic with Aimee Nezhukumatathil
Aimee Nezhukumatathil’s poems are filled with butchery and blood as she carves space for desire, motherhood, and an encyclopedic knowledge of plants to coexist in life and on the page. We are excited to offer this conversation between Pádraig and Aimee, recorded during the 2022 Dodge Poetry Festival in Newark, New Jersey. Together, they explore the beauty of solitude, eroticism in poetry, and a letter writing practice for taking inventory of a life.
Wed, 30 Aug 2023 - 1h 00min - 157 - BONUS: Poetry That Pays Attention with Patricia Smith
Through her poetry, Patricia Smith generously, skillfully puts language around what can be seen both in the present and deliberately looking back at oneself. We are excited to offer this conversation between Pádraig and Patricia, recorded during the 2022 Dodge Poetry Festival in Newark, New Jersey. Together, they explore how memory, persona, and a practice of curiosity inform Patricia’s work, and the ways writing a poem is like writing a piece of music.
Mon, 28 Aug 2023 - 1h 08min - 156 - Maya C. Popa — They Are Building a Hospital
So much of what was once deemed impossible was found — during Covid — to be possible. Here, a poet watches a tent, a huge temporary hospital, be raised up on the green of Central Park, a place she’d previously walked her dog.
Fri, 28 Jul 2023 - 15min - 155 - Jenny Mitchell — A Man in Love with Plants
How to remember a beloved who died tragically, violently? Remember the violence? Sometimes, yes. But also this: remember his love of flowers.
Mon, 24 Jul 2023 - 13min - 154 - Vidyan Ravinthiran — Artist
What self-consciousnesses do artists carry? It can be difficult to know how to hold onto confidence in your work, especially when small jibes from others remain long after apologies have been offered. Art compels and calls, and also complicates.
Fri, 21 Jul 2023 - 13min - 153 - Mark Turcotte — Dear New Blood
A poet reads to a room full of youths who seem to have some residual resentment to the poet. The poet doesn’t mind — he understands, and calls on the listeners to share in the power of focused anger, to make it a motivation for their creativity.
Mon, 17 Jul 2023 - 15min - 152 - Wo Chan — the smiley barista remembers my name
What do sandwiches, laundry, therapy, childhood homes, and forgiveness have to do with each other? Wo Chan weaves a poem that charts the many things a single day can hold.
Fri, 14 Jul 2023 - 12min - 150 - J. Estanislao Lopez — Alternate Ending: The Escape of Jephthah’s Daughter
Old stories — of mythology or religion — have sometimes been depicted as having one narrative and one interpretation. Here, J. Estanislao Lopez takes on the voice of a character whose story ended in violence, inviting listeners to claim their agency as this character claims hers.
Fri, 7 Jul 2023 - 13min - 149 - BONUS: A Conversation with Sasha taqwšəblu LaPointe
We are delighted to offer this extended conversation between host Pádraig Ó Tuama and the poet Sasha taqʷšəblu LaPointe. Together, they take a deep dive into the story and language of her poem "Blue," featured in Season 7 of Poetry Unbound, as well as Sasha's beginnings in poetry.
Mon, 3 Jul 2023 - 38min - 148 - Sasha taqwšəblu LaPointe — Blue
In a poem that explores a story of a name, a story of a color, a story of a sound, a story of an identity, a the story of a person — we hear of ancestors, childhood innocences, exclusions, memories, sensualities, and the way that the dead are not always dead.
Mon, 3 Jul 2023 - 17min - 147 - Charif Shanahan — Present Moment
On one particular day, a poem places events alongside each other, the ordinariness of each event casting the other events into light and shade.
Fri, 30 Jun 2023 - 15min - 146 - Brenda Cárdenas — This Is Why
Why do we do the things we do when we’re young? Brenda Cárdenas recalls nights sneaking out of the house as a teenager, looking for highs, looking for company. “Why would you do that?” is the adult question throughout the poem. “Why wouldn’t I?” is a reply.
Mon, 26 Jun 2023 - 15min - 145 - Nithy Kasa — Blouse
An item of clothing — the blouse of a grandmother — is praised for its artistry, is remembered for how it sits on the body. And then, having been lost, is remade, refined, and reimagined on a new body that recalls the bodies of women of previous generations.
Fri, 23 Jun 2023 - 11min - 144 - Selina Nwulu — Replay
What might have been? A poet recalls flirtations and electric connections that could have led to a different life.
Mon, 19 Jun 2023 - 13min - 143 - John Lee Clark — Self Portrait
If you had to make a self portrait of your daily morning routine through language and sensation, what would you include? John Lee Clark offers memories of a birthday through experiences the body holds.
Fri, 16 Jun 2023 - 13min - 142 - Kay Ulanday Barrett — Pantoum for recital when my mom said, don’t let them see you cry
A memory from childhood is viewed through the lens of the Malaysian poetic form of pantoum. New things emerge when lines break and reform with new associations.
Mon, 12 Jun 2023 - 13min - 141 - dg nanouk okpik — In a Lock of Hair
If you could put a lock of your hair under a microscope, what would it contain? DNA certainly, but here in dg nanouk okpik’s poem, the hair also contains memory, smell, location, disease, dreams, and medicine.
Fri, 9 Jun 2023 - 13min - 140 - On Poetry and Patronage: An Invitation to Love Us
Pádraig reflects on the transformative force of poetry, and Krista joins with an invitation to pay tribute to the ongoing work of Poetry Unbound. Make a gift and learn more at onbeing.org/LoveUs.
Wed, 7 Jun 2023 - 01min - 139 - Benjamin Gucciardi — The Rungs
A social worker holds a group for teenagers at a school. They only half pay attention to him. Then something happens, and they pay attention to each other.
Mon, 5 Jun 2023 - 15min - 138 - Rowan Ricardo Phillips — Never Again Would Birds’ Song Be the Same
Have you ever had a private moment — perhaps in the middle of the night — in a large city? When it just seems like it’s you and the great dreaming metropolis? Rowan Ricardo Phillips brings us into a memory he can’t forget, complete with a Wu-Tang Clan soundtrack.
Fri, 2 Jun 2023 - 12min - 137 - Alexander Posey — The Dew and the Bird
In a poem of strict rhymes and old forms, Alexander Posey (1873-1908), a poet of the Creek Nation, poses challenges to pomposity.
Mon, 29 May 2023 - 11min - 136 - José Olivarez — No Time to Wait
In a church there are liturgies and prayers and statues. But in José Olivarez’s poem, there are more urgent things taking place, things that have “no time to wait.”
Fri, 26 May 2023 - 11min - 135 - Safia Elhillo — Ode to My Homegirls
Friendships deserve praise songs and here’s a praise song — an ode — to friends that have crossed continents for each other, and would go further if needed.
Mon, 22 May 2023 - 12min - 134 - Poetry Unbound — Season 7 Trailer
Poetry Unbound with host Pádraig Ó Tuama is back on Monday, May 22. Featured poets in this season include Selina Nwulu, Wo Chan, Rowan Ricardo Phillips, Mark Turcotte, and many more. New episodes released every Monday and Friday through July 28.
Mon, 15 May 2023 - 01min - 133 - Ada Limón with Krista Tippett — “To Be Made Whole”
Friends, we are awakening your Poetry Unbound feed for a moment to share this episode from the big, beautiful new season of On Being. And Pádraig’s here with a quick hello and a glimpse of what more On Being conversations await you in coming months. You won’t want to miss — subscribe now in the On Being feed and catch each episode as it drops, every Thursday.
Mon, 20 Feb 2023 - 1h 12min - 132 - BONUS: A conversation with Lorna Goodison – and the humans behind Poetry Unbound
As part of a celebratory launch party for the new Poetry Unbound book, Pádraig welcomed Lorna Goodison, former Poet Laureate of Jamaica, into a joyful Zoom room of poetry lovers and listeners of the show, old and new. We draw Season 6 to a close with their conversation on themes explored in Lorna’s poem “Reporting Back to Queen Isabella” (one of the 50 featured in the book): poetry as a “made thing”; poetry as a form of travel. And: Pádraig chats with our wonderful producer and composer Gautam Srikishan on the role of music in the show, with a warm hello from all the humans behind Poetry Unbound.
Thu, 22 Dec 2022 - 28min - 131 - Danusha Laméris — Bonfire Opera
A younger woman looks at an older woman, admiring her beauty, skill, and freedom. Older now, she thinks of how hard-won such freedom is.
Fri, 16 Dec 2022 - 14min - 130 - Rumi — You wake the dead to life
Who brings you to praise? Rumi’s great poem of praise to the “you” is to his great friend Shams, and through that friendship, to God.
Mon, 12 Dec 2022 - 15min - 129 - Naomi Shihab Nye — I Feel Sorry for Jesus
What’s it like to be owned by the world, to have populations claiming you, to have millions speaking on your behalf? Naomi Shihab Nye takes a close look — from a distance — at Jesus, and herself.
Fri, 9 Dec 2022 - 15min - 128 - Victoria Adukwei Bulley — not quiet as in quiet but
Quiet. Shhh. Softly. Don’t make a fuss. Don’t upset the authorities. Victoria Adukwei Bulley unquiets the quiet.
Mon, 5 Dec 2022 - 14min - 127 - Benjamín Naka-Hasebe Kingsley — small talk or in my hand galaxies
On the day you wake to a broken window in your car, what do you do? And what happens when the woman repairing that window offers a glimpse of something new?
Fri, 2 Dec 2022 - 18min - 126 - Dan Vera — Norse Saga
When you move to a new place, everything seems different. Hell’s not hot anymore; it’s freezing. A poem of strangeness and wonder.
Mon, 28 Nov 2022 - 12min - 125 - Solmaz Sharif — Self-Care
Who decides what’s self care and what isn’t? Who benefits? Who pays? Upon whom does the burden of self care rest? Solmaz Sharif excavates.
Fri, 25 Nov 2022 - 14min - 124 - Dunya Mikhail — Eva Whose Shadow Is a Swan
Some friendships are built on small encounters and last a lifetime. Two women — from across culture, location, and age — spend a lifetime in communication.
Mon, 21 Nov 2022 - 14min - 123 - Aaron Caycedo-Kimura — What’s Kept AliveFri, 18 Nov 2022 - 13min
- 122 - Kevin Goodan — We give…
Firefighting pushes the body to breaking point; Kevin Goodan’s poem locates the “ash-dark art” of firefighting not just in the wilderness where the team worked, but in the muscles of the firefighters.
Mon, 14 Nov 2022 - 14min - 121 - David Whyte — Leaving the Island
Sometimes leaving feels like you’re splitting yourself in two, but you leave anyway. What compels us? What holds us together even as we look back? David Whyte’s poem combines pain and promise as someone is both departing and venturing at the same time.
Fri, 11 Nov 2022 - 15min - 120 - Andrés N. Ordorica — Mis raíces
What is the landscape that has most influenced you? When do you go there? In person? Andrés N. Ordorica goes in dreams.
Mon, 7 Nov 2022 - 14min - 119 - Laura Villareal — My Worries Have Worries
If you were to use a metaphor for your worries, what metaphor would you turn to? Here, the worries have worry babies of their own. And they look back at the poet. What do they see?
Fri, 4 Nov 2022 - 12min - 118 - Stephanie Burt — Prayer for Werewolves
The search for authentic love is a powerful hunger in humans and, as Stephanie Burt shares, in werewolves.
Mon, 31 Oct 2022 - 13min - 117 - Fiona Benson — Mama Cockroach, I Love You
Do you experience disgust at the sight of certain insects? Which ones? Fiona Benson teaches us how to see.
Fri, 28 Oct 2022 - 15min - 116 - Saddiq Dzukogi — Learning about Constellations
A man whose baby daughter has died turns to stars, mythology, and imagination for solace. There, he encounters what might help, a little.
Mon, 24 Oct 2022 - 14min - 115 - Adam Zagajewski — Transformation
What do you do when what sustains you no longer sustains you? A poet tries everything he can to reconnect with his art.
Fri, 21 Oct 2022 - 12min - 114 - Carolina Ebeid — Reading Celan in a Subway Station
The sounds of a city can be overwhelming — but in the imagination of this poem, they are made into something new.
Mon, 17 Oct 2022 - 14min - 113 - Molly Twomey — The Drop OffFri, 14 Oct 2022 - 14min
- 112 - Hinemoana Baker — if i had to sing
In the aftermath of disaster, how do you sing a song to mark what’s gone, and praise what’s growing?
Mon, 10 Oct 2022 - 14min - 111 - Jennifer Huang — Departure
What’s a moment when you grew up? When you realized the help you get might not be the help you want?
Fri, 7 Oct 2022 - 14min - 110 - Gabeba Baderoon – The penMon, 3 Oct 2022 - 12min
- 109 - Michael Kleber-Diggs — Gloria Mundi
Is there life after death? This poem says yes: where one life is part of a cycle of life that continues.
Fri, 30 Sep 2022 - 13min - 108 - David Wagoner — LostMon, 26 Sep 2022 - 12min
- 107 - Poetry Unbound — Season 6 Trailer
Poetry Unbound with host Pádraig Ó Tuama is back on Monday, September 26. Featured poets in this season include Rumi, Fiona Benson, Michael Kleber-Diggs, Victoria Adukwei Bulley, and many more. New episodes released every Monday and Friday through December 16. Follow us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Overcast, or wherever you listen.
Mon, 19 Sep 2022 - 02min - 106 - Yu Xiuhua — Crossing Half of China to Sleep with YouFri, 3 Jun 2022 - 14min
- 105 - Andy Jackson — The change roomMon, 30 May 2022 - 13min
- 104 - Tiana Clark — My Therapist Wants to Know about My Relationship to WorkFri, 27 May 2022 - 16min
- 103 - Joshua Bennett — Owed to Your Father’s Gold Chain
Sometimes when your world changes, it seems like everything turns towards you, fresh, new, and curious.
Mon, 23 May 2022 - 14min - 102 - Abigail Chabitnoy — If You’re Going to Look Like a Wolf They Have to Love You More Than They Fear You.Fri, 20 May 2022 - 11min
- 101 - M. Soledad Caballero — Someday I Will Visit Hawk MountainMon, 16 May 2022 - 15min
- 100 - Rafiq Kathwari — Mother Writes to President EisenhowerFri, 13 May 2022 - 15min
- 99 - Caroline Bird — Little Children
Children’s demands can be high, and their standards can be exacting. It’s a good thing they’re loveable.
Mon, 9 May 2022 - 15min - 98 - Marilyn Nelson — The Truceless WarsFri, 6 May 2022 - 14min
- 97 - Richard Blanco — Looking for The Gulf MotelMon, 2 May 2022 - 17min
- 96 - Yusef Komunyakaa — Praising Dark Places
Is the light a comfort and the night disturbing? Yusef Komunyakaa explores the life and brilliance of what’s in shadow and darkness.
Fri, 29 Apr 2022 - 12min - 95 - Hannah Emerson — Keep Yourself at the Beginning of the BeginningMon, 25 Apr 2022 - 14min
- 94 - Kyle Carrero Lopez — Ode to the Crop Top
A song of praise to the crop-top from a crop-top-wearing man who encounters comments in public and sings and swings.
Fri, 22 Apr 2022 - 11min - 93 - Divya Victor — First Petition
A seven-year poem: from the start of the process to bring a mother to live in the US to the time she walks through the gate.
Mon, 18 Apr 2022 - 14min - 92 - Denise Low — Walking with My Delaware Grandfather
We carry memory in our body: memories of our own selves, but memories of our forebears, too — talking with them as we walk, learning from them as they inquire.
Fri, 15 Apr 2022 - 11min - 91 - Rita Dove — Eurydice, TurningMon, 11 Apr 2022 - 14min
- 90 - Poetry Unbound — Season 5 Trailer
Poetry Unbound with host Pádraig Ó Tuama is back on Monday, April 11. Featured poets in this season include Rita Dove, Joshua Bennett, Tiana Clark, Yu Xiuhua, and many more. New episodes released every Monday and Friday through June 3. Follow us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Overcast, or wherever you listen.
Mon, 4 Apr 2022 - 01min - 89 - BONUS: An Invitation from Pádraig and Krista
While preparing for the next season of Poetry Unbound, host Pádraig Ó Tuama sat down with Krista Tippett for a conversation about the power of poetry to find us at the exact moment we need it. Pádraig and Krista also invite listeners to share their experience of Poetry Unbound through our survey at onbeing.org/poetrysurvey You can also sign up for the latest updates from Poetry Unbound at onbeing.org/poetryunbound
Mon, 28 Mar 2022 - 16min - 88 - Danez Smith — i’m going back to Minnesota where sadness makes sense
In a poem brimming with love and nostalgia for winter, a poet leaves California to return to their Minnesotan homeplace, a place where winter makes sense, where sadness makes sense, where the isolation that’s at the heart of humanity can be met with a landscape that can contain it. Here, solitude is looked at with wisdom and necessity. A season can deepen the human experience. Joy finds new expressions.
Fri, 17 Dec 2021 - 14min - 87 - Craig Santos Perez — Rings of Fire
What if the planet were as loved as a child? Taking the story of his daughter’s fever when she was one, Craig Santos Perez reflects on everything he did — and would have done — for his daughter’s health. Her temperature rose and his love and response did, too. The temperature of the world rises, and he wonders who loves the earth enough to respond, and who doesn’t.
Mon, 13 Dec 2021 - 14min - 86 - Alberto Ríos — December Morning in the Desert
Standing at the edge of a desert, surveying the stars on a December morning, the speaker in this poem observes the everything of everything. He is so small; the universe is so loud and so silent. Thinking about the enormity of all this, he thinks of the smallness of the hearts of birds, wasps, moths, bats, and dragonflies — all flying things around him, suspended in space, like the earth is suspended in space. His own heart, too, echoes the universe’s noise.
Fri, 10 Dec 2021 - 15min - 85 - Yehoshua November — 2AM, and the Rabbinical Students Stand in their Bathrobes
Yeshiva students stand around in the middle of the night while firemen find the cause of the alarm. It’s a student — distressed by distressing news at home. The teachers cancel classes for the morning after. A poem can describe one thing, but point to another, and beyond the drama of this 2 a.m. scene is a question about whether the presence of God can dwell among those plagued by sadness, or whether God only dwells there.
Mon, 6 Dec 2021 - 15min - 84 - Aria Aber — The Only Cab Service of Farmington, Maine
In a taxi, a poet speaks to the driver. It’s the only taxi in town. He mentions travel, mentions Afghanistan, that he was there with the forces. She’s from Afghanistan and the conversation continues — awkward; complicated; him trying to say good things, but failing; her feeling like she should rescue him, but deciding not to. War is upended by the point of view of a person in whose country the war was fought. Underneath the action of the poem is a question about whether conversation is possible, and an appreciation for silence.
Fri, 3 Dec 2021 - 18min - 83 - Donika Kelly — In the Chapel of St. Mary’s
Why do empty places sometimes lend themselves to reflection or contemplation? In this poem, a poet — describing herself as a nonbeliever — goes into a chapel to sit. In the corner there are some girls talking, there are stained glass windows, and the poet is at once at home in herself and far from the woman she loves. The high emptiness of the church seems to give a resting place for the emptiness she’s feeling. While there’s no resolution, the larger empty space offers a holding place for the poet.
Mon, 29 Nov 2021 - 14min - 82 - Linda Hogan — Song for the Turtles of the Gulf
In a poem called a “Song,” Linda Hogan crafts a song for turtles and other creatures killed through oil spills in the gulf. At once a praise song for the beauty of the sea, the earth, and its animals, this song also functions as a lament: for the history erased by industrial practices; for the lack of respect and love for living breathing other-than-human lives; for plastic and the plastic containers used to hold the body of a dead sea turtle. The poem veers towards a prayer, too, begging forgiveness for being “thrown off true.”
Fri, 26 Nov 2021 - 15min - 81 - Lory Bedikian — On the Way to Oshagan
The exile’s return to the motherland is the theme around which Lory Bedikian’s poem “On the Way to Oshagan” circles. She, a proud Armenian, stops by a roadside stall on a trip to her home country; and is immediately understood as an Amerigatzi, even though she’s speaking Armenian, not English. The poem could end with this awkward exchange, but instead pushes through, and a connection occurs between the returned-departed and the never-departed: there’s a gift, an invitation, and a bridge across exile.
Mon, 22 Nov 2021 - 17min - 80 - Nico Amador — Flower Wars
Telling some of the story of the Flower Wars of the Aztec era, Nico Amador’s poem pits wars against creation. In a poem that begins by recalling creation myths from multiple cultures, he then poses questions about why: Why would people sacrifice their own people to keep a god happy? Why would any god benefit from people’s deaths? Evoking how the Flower Wars contributed to the Aztec downfall, this poem also wonders about wars today: Who benefits from a war? Who decides who should die? Why?
Fri, 19 Nov 2021 - 12min - 79 - Darrel Alejandro Holnes — Amending Wall
In a poem that directly addresses Robert Frost’s “Mending Wall,” Darrel Alejandro Holnes asks questions: who gets to build walls, or guard borders?. Do good fences really make good neighbors? Taking a poem that’s been part of an American imagination both of poetry and of citizenship, Darrel offers a critique that places contemporary migrant experiences at the center, challenging contemporary ideas of territory, conquest, and expansion.
Mon, 15 Nov 2021 - 17min - 78 - Elizabeth Bishop — Sestina
This sestina poem considers a scene from Elizabeth Bishop’s own childhood through the sounds of six repeating words: house, grandmother, child, stove, almanac, tears. These six words repeat — in different order — as the final words of the poem’s lines, creating a kind of contemplation on how those repeated words informed her childhood: a childhood marked by loss, displacement, and a kind grandmother. “Time to plant tears” the poem states, in one of its most famous lines, as if the scene recalled has information about the future.
Fri, 12 Nov 2021 - 15min
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