This poem offers critique into a moment of Irish history when Ireland, through independence, was rising to the light. But Irish women were facing lives as constricted in independence as under empire. Decades later, Eavan Boland reads a newspaper of her grandmother’s near-eviction and is consumed both by rage and critique of how history concerns itself with the politics of men, not women. This poem is a corrective, turning the gaze on historians, as well as history. Eavan Boland was an Irish poet...
May 07, 2021•16 min•Season 3Ep. 4
This poem starts off by describing how split the poet — Jónína Kirton — feels between two identities: having both Métis and Icelandic heritage. The poem imagines a bridge between these two places and cultures, and arrives, in the second stanza, at the image of a “living root bridge.”It is in this image that the poem anchors itself: a bridge that is part of the earth, a bridge that lives, that is not torn, but alive and growing. This metaphor speaks to what is possible in a life, and helps Jónína...
May 03, 2021•14 min•Season 3Ep. 3
In Lorna Goodison’s imagined scene, Spain’s Queen Isabella receives the ‘report’ of the discovery of Xamaica from Christopher Columbus, an Italian man who was financed by the Spanish court to ransack foreign lands. Lorna Goodison is the former Poet Laureate of Jamaica, and in this tight, terse poem, she’s the explorer: exploring practices of colonization, finance, power and administration. With pomp and ceremony she describes a scene that was as vacuous as it was dangerous. Lorna Goodison is one...
Apr 30, 2021•13 min•Season 3Ep. 2
Music works a kind of poetry in us. This poem is like a mix-tape of Hanif Abdurraqib’s memories, complete with a soundtrack that’s as roaring as it is tender. An adult now, he remembers moments of grief and growth in the adults of his childhood, and how Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’,” opens up more than just those memories. In a poem that you can almost dance along with, Hanif wraps other people’s griefs — and his own — into language that uplifts. Hanif Abdurraqib is a poet, essayist, and cult...
Apr 26, 2021•17 min•Season 3Ep. 1
Poetry Unbound with host Pádraig Ó Tuama is back on Monday, April 26. Featured poets in this season include Hanif Abdurraqib, Vievee Francis, Ilya Kaminsky, Li-Young Lee, and Eavan Boland. New episodes released every Monday and Friday through June 18. Follow us on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , Google Podcasts , Overcast , or wherever you listen....
Apr 19, 2021•2 min0
Who are the friends that, despite different paths chosen, have remained steadfast in your life? In this poem Christian Wiman recalls the changing beliefs of his friends; this one has a new diet, this one has a new relationship, this one is slipping away, this one is verdant. While doing so, he holds the love for his “beautiful, credible friends” as the thing to hold on to while the planet turns faster. Christian Wiman is the author of numerous works of poetry and prose, including He Held Radical...
Dec 18, 2020•11 min•Season 2Ep. 24
How has becoming a parent — or being a caregiver — changed you? This is a poem of two halves. In the first half, a man questions God — how could a loving Father allow suffering to happen? And in the second half, the man becomes a father himself, filled with fear and love. His questions about fatherhood change; he’s no longer wondering about the beyond, he’s wondering about the right now. Carlos Andrés Gómez is a Colombian American poet from New York City. “Father” appears in his debut full-lengt...
Dec 14, 2020•17 min•Season 2Ep. 23
What pet names have you been called? What are the circumstances and stories behind these pet names? In this poem , a woman considers the pet names to give her female partner; “My beloved” isn’t very convenient when you’re dropping off dry cleaning. And what word to use when speaking of how she annoys you? Written in the time before same-sex marriage was legalized in the U.S., the humor of this poem highlights how policy can steal language from the everyday. Ellen Bass is chancellor of the Academ...
Dec 11, 2020•16 min•Season 2Ep. 22
Who do you trust with your body? In this poem, a man writes about his wife’s life-drawing class. She’s been sketching a naked male model for weeks, and the poet worries, comparing himself, trying to figure out how he feels. This poem moves from anxiety to request to consent to reciprocality. His self-consciousness about sharing his body with someone is transformed into trust and vulnerability. R.A. Villanueva is the author of Reliquaria , winner of the Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Poetry. His ...
Dec 07, 2020•15 min•Season 2Ep. 21
Have you ever projected your own awkwardness onto someone else? How did you do it? And how would you address them now? This poem recalls how, as a young adult, Zaffar Kunial judged his immigrant father’s way of speaking English. A poem that’s filled with adolescence as with awkward parental relationships, it also speaks of his yearning to fit in, to enjoy his own life. Shame features in this poem — the younger poet had been ashamed of his father’s grammar, but now, with time, he seems ashamed to...
Dec 04, 2020•12 min•Season 2Ep. 20
What do you find hard to forgive in yourself? What might help? In this poem , the poet makes a list of all the things she holds against herself: opening fridge doors, fantasies, wilted seedlings, unkempt plants, lost bags, feeling awkward, treating someone poorly. Dilruba Ahmed repeats the line “I forgive you” over and over, like a litany, in a hope to deepen what it means to be in the world, and be a person of love. Dilruba Ahmed – is the author of the collection Bring Now the Angels and poems ...
Nov 30, 2020•16 min•Season 2Ep. 19
When you feel like crying, do you cry? Or do you stifle it? Why? The U.S. Congress 2009 “ Joint resolution to acknowledge a long history of official depredations and ill-conceived policies by the Federal Government regarding Indian tribes ” stated “ Whereas the arrival of Europeans in North America opened a new chapter in the history of Native Peoples.” Layli Long Soldier wrote poems in response to this resolution and its non-consultative process. In this poem , she speaks of the need to let gri...
Nov 27, 2020•17 min•Season 2Ep. 18
In this poem , a son writes to his parents and invites them to a meal, letting them know that his boyfriend will also be there. He gives instruction to his parents on how they should behave, parenting his parents. In all this family tension, the boyfriend’s question “What’s in that recipe again?” offers calm, and builds lines of connection that had otherwise seemed unlikely. Chen Chen – is the author of When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities , which was longlisted for the Na...
Nov 23, 2020•19 min•Season 2Ep. 17
Are there languages that once were spoken in your family that are not anymore? What caused those changes? This poem considers the plight of a language, how it — like the child Moses in the biblical story of the Exodus — is vulnerable, and might be in need of someone like the Pharaoh’s daughter to nurture it. In considering the precarious situation of many lesser-spoken languages, Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill casts a story of language preservation through the archetype of women helping women in ancient te...
Nov 20, 2020•13 min•Season 2Ep. 16
When you’re writing by hand, where is your other hand? What story is the space between your two hands — your dominant hand and non-dominant hand — telling? This poem considers the posture of the body when writing: writing a letter, writing a note, writing a poem. The poet pays attention to hands — when dancing, when speaking from the heart, in prayer. This poem invites the listener to slow down, to listen to the stories the body is telling by how it's held in small moments. Aracelis Girmay is or...
Nov 16, 2020•13 min•Season 2Ep. 15
Who is in your chosen family? This poem considers the lines of loyalty in families and how particular memories, like a grandmother keeping “wishbones from chicken carcasses / in an empty margarine container on top of the fridge,” can be a portal to love. The nan in this poem is a character of generosity and permission, and we imagine her through stories of trips, funerals, and visits. Tayi Tibble – (Te Whānau-ā-Apanui/Ngāti Porou) is a writer and poet who lives in Wellington, New Zealand. In 201...
Nov 13, 2020•14 min•Season 2Ep. 14
What have you had to explore on your own? What, or who, helped? This poem explores the archetype of the cave — a cave that calls, a cave that contains secrets and perhaps even information. “Someone standing at the mouth had / the idea to enter. To go further / than light or language could / go.” The poem manages — at once — to convey the bravery of exploration and the solitude and possibility that can accompany such journeys. Paul Tran – is the recipient of a Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosen...
Nov 10, 2020•12 min•Season 2Ep. 13
What do you notice about how you behave in times of conflict? Do you tend toward avoidance? Or compromise? Or collaboration? Or competition? Or accommodation? This poem describes a conflict between neighbors: a tree hangs over a fence. The owners love this tree; their neighbors don’t. Somebody responds directly, somebody else avoids, a chainsaw appears. Suddenly this conflict becomes a parable for all conflicts, illustrating how deep they can go and how often they cannot be resolved with a quest...
Nov 06, 2020•16 min•Season 2Ep. 12
How do you hold onto hope? And who helped you find it? This poem is about holding onto paradise in the midst of an environment that seeks to steal or quash it. Roger Robinson praises his grandmother who told him to “carry it always / on my person, concealed.” His deft language helps us understand that paradise is a quality of life; and, even deeper than that, paradise is your life. Roger Robinson is a writer and performer who lives between London and Trinidad. His first full poetry collection, T...
Nov 02, 2020•12 min•Season 2Ep. 11
In times of isolation, what stories have you turned to for comfort? This poem is an exploration of isolation as seen through the mythical Irish character, Suibhne. Suibhne was cursed and lived a life on the move, a transitory isolation. In the midst of the sadness at all he’s missed, he also sees beauty — and he holds both sadness and appreciation together. Seán Hewitt was born in 1990 and studied English at the University of Cambridge. He is a fiction reviewer for The Irish Times and a Leverhul...
Oct 30, 2020•13 min•Season 2Ep. 10
What is the story of your name? In this poem , the poet calls on place, ancestors, and history to bear witness to the dignity of their name. They recall how their ancestors “acknowledged my roots grew in two / places” and how their name “is the definition of resilience.” With Black/Indigenous, Pasifika, and West Asian heritage, the poet speaks to those who mispronounce their name: “Say it right or don’t say it at all / for I am Meleika.” Meleika Gesa-Fatafehi is a Black/Indigenous, Pasifika, and...
Oct 26, 2020•14 min•Season 2Ep. 9
In strength and defiance, Lucille Clifton celebrates her Black body and her survival. When have you said or heard words like this? Calling herself “both nonwhite and woman,” Lucille Clifton glories in her shape and fact of her life in these two poems . She invites the reader to witness everything she's lived through, and to celebrate the flourishing life that she has created in spite of everything that has tried to kill her. Lucille Clifton was the author of several books of poetry including Ble...
Oct 23, 2020•13 min•Season 2Ep. 8
How do you speak of — and to — your body? This is a poem dedicated to the body. “The body is a nation I have never known,” Chris Abani writes. Throughout the 21 lines of this work, he describes lungs, skin, bone, touch, smells, sweat, armpits and hunger. For all the embodiedness of the poem, there is disembodiedness too: the poem continues to question how to truly be in your own body. Chris Abani is a novelist, poet, essayist, screenwriter and playwright. Born in Nigeria to an Igbo father and En...
Oct 19, 2020•12 min•Season 2Ep. 7
Are there places you've lived or visited that others would disregard? What do you see in them that others might miss?" This poem takes place at night, describing a scene from a town on the edge of a city. The poet feels at home in a “nowhere” town, with cattle pacing in the fields, boarded houses, and rowdy filling stations. This is a place that through the eyes of some would be considered a “shit town,” but to the poet it is home. Molly McCully Brown is the author of The Virginia State Colony F...
Oct 16, 2020•13 min•Season 2Ep. 6
Is there a character (from history, politics, or literature) whose story you want to tell from a new perspective? This poem is told from the point of view of “Lot’s wife,” a biblical character who was turned into salt because she looked back to see the burning of Sodom, her home city. The poet shows us what Lot’s wife sees: towers swaying, guitars popping, dogs weeping and roosters howling. By mixing the modern with the everlasting, Lot’s wife is humanized and justified. Natalie Diaz is Mojave a...
Oct 12, 2020•15 min•Season 2Ep. 5
Were you born during a time when laws were different? What impact did those laws have on you? In this poem, Natasha Trethewey recalls the story of how her parents crossed state lines to wed because Mississippi forbade interracial marriage at the time. It is written in the form of a ghazal , with birth and belonging, names and death coming together. Natasha Trethewey served as U.S. Poet Laureate from 2012-2014. She is the author of a memoir, Memorial Drive , and five collections of poetry includi...
Oct 09, 2020•11 min•Season 2Ep. 4
Is there a moment of beauty you can recall that’s like a blessing for you? This poem takes place at twilight in a field just off the highway to Rochester, Minnesota, where the poet and a friend encounter two ponies who come “gladly out of the willows / To welcome my friend and me.” James Wright was a fellow of the Academy of American Poets and taught at he University of Minnesota, Macalester College, and New York City's Hunter College. He also served in the U.S. Army, and was stationed in Japan ...
Oct 05, 2020•12 min•Season 2Ep. 3
What’s a chance encounter in a city that’s never left you? In this poem the speaker is asked a question by a stranger while standing near the water outside the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. “Pardon me Old School he / says you know is this a wishing well?” He initially brushes off the stranger, but something happens: a shared coin, a well, a wish that is answered as it is made. Gregory Pardlo won the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his collection Digest . He is poetry editor of ...
Oct 02, 2020•16 min•Season 2Ep. 2
What stories or myths bring you strength? This poem tells the story of a person living with invisible chronic pain who finds unexpected fortitude from a girl dressed as a superhero. Their encounter, “at the swell of the muddy Mississippi,” doesn’t have a fantasy ending, but instead finds strength and glory in bodies and myth. Ada Limón is the author of five books of poetry, including The Carrying , which won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry and was named one of the best poetry b...
Sep 28, 2020•16 min•Season 2Ep. 1
Poetry Unbound with host Pádraig Ó Tuama is back on Monday, Sept. 28. Featured poets in this season include Lucille Clifton, James Wright, Natasha Trethewey, Christian Wiman, Layli Long Soldier and more. New episodes released every Monday and Friday through the fall. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , Google Podcasts, Overcast , or wherever you listen....
Sep 14, 2020•2 min
