In a poem of four stanzas, Margaret Atwood traces bread from its growth in bone-nurtured soil, to the warm ovens of baking, to the table, to the mouth of one person, then the hands of someone breaking bread for many. From the cow-dung in the earth to the salt of the hands of the person kneading the bread, this poem is like a meditation on the material reality of what nurtures the body and what nurtures the soul, and is a secular examination of what breaking bread might mean. Margaret Atwood is t...
Sep 27, 2021•15 min•Ep 1•Transcript available on Metacast Poetry Unbound with host Pádraig Ó Tuama is back on Monday, September 27. Featured poets in this season include Margaret Atwood, Kaveh Akbar, Danez Smith, Tishani Doshi, and many more. New episodes released every Monday and Friday through December 17. Follow us on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , Google Podcasts , Overcast , or wherever you listen....
Sep 20, 2021•2 min•Transcript available on Metacast This poem stretches the word ‘expect’ into dozens of formulations. Proceeding alphabetically through the index of the book, “What to Expect When You’re Expecting,” Katie Manning creates an exhausting list of all the expectations created during pregnancy,about rejecting some pressures and embracing others; surviving some, being knocked over by others. The humor and pace of this poem places insight alongside insidiousness. Katie Manning is the founding editor-in-chief of Whale Road Review and a pr...
Jun 18, 2021•19 min•Ep 16•Transcript available on Metacast The opening poem to Ilya Kaminsky’s masterpiece, “Deaf Republic,” is written in the voice of someone who is confessing their complacency during a time of trial. There’s a war going on, but it doesn’t affect the person speaking, so they don’t get involved. Instead they stayed outside and caught the sun. They lived happily during the war, and are now saying (forgive us). This poem leaves us wondering what it would mean to make such a confession, to ask for forgiveness, and whether it’d do any good...
Jun 14, 2021•17 min•Ep 15•Transcript available on Metacast A special bilingual poem in Anishinaabemowin and English by Margaret Noodin, a linguist who writes primarily in Anishinaabemowin. This poem of eight lines is filled with location — the sweet sea, the curved shoreline — and gathers melancholy into its song. And it is a song — sung in both languages for us by Margaret Noodin herself. Margaret Noodin is a poet and the author of Bawaajimo: A Dialect of Dreams in Anishinaabe Language and Literature , Weweni: Poems in Anishinaabemowin and English , an...
Jun 11, 2021•16 min•Ep 14•Transcript available on Metacast After Margaret Noodin recited her poem, “Gimaazinibii'amoon” / “A Message to You,” for this week’s Poetry Unbound episode, she spoke with host, Pádraig Ó Tuama, about the story behind that poem as well as the Anishinaabemowin language, translation, and the importance of language preservation. Margaret Noodin is a poet and the author of Bawaajimo: A Dialect of Dreams in Anishinaabe Language and Literature , Weweni: Poems in Anishinaabemowin and English , and What the Chickadee Knows . She teaches...
Jun 11, 2021•24 min•Transcript available on Metacast Bereavement brings all kinds of pressures. This poem by Martín Espada starts off with a grief-to-do-list: a phone call, a flight, a blizzard, cremations, shipments of ashes, memorial services. After all of this — in a first stanza that builds in intensity — he needs to be reconnected with something tangible. He goes to feed birds at the park, and among the birds is a goose, like a god of the geese, who shrieks with all the emotion stored in him. This goose is like a priest of grief for Martín Es...
Jun 07, 2021•16 min•Ep 13•Transcript available on Metacast In many ways this poem can be analyzed by how it ends: by examining the contents of organic shops. Roshni Goyate looks at one such item — coconut oil for hair — and considers its long line of history in her British-Indian family. As a child, she was shamed by classmates for using coconut oil in her hair, but now it’s double the price in shops. In a cruel irony, her race and culture were both hypervisible to those who taunted her and rendered invisible by those same people who invalidated her pre...
Jun 04, 2021•17 min•Ep 12•Transcript available on Metacast When looking at Andy Warhol’s painting of Geronimo — a leader and medicine man of the Bedonkohe band of the Apache tribe — b: william bearheart wonders who the Geronimo of the painting is looking back at, and who is looking at it. In many ways, this poem reflects on how this piece of art depicting an Indigenous American was painted by a White person for White people. However, the poet finds connections — of pain, occupation and experience — between himself and Geronimo; and the poem challenges t...
May 31, 2021•14 min•Ep 11•Transcript available on Metacast A poet considers his father, and, particularly, his father’s boots. These boots could be a hammer, a prop, a weapon. But Esteban Rodríguez also remembers how his father — a sleepwalker — would walk outside at night in his underwear, wielding his boots, slapping them against each other in a kind of protective ritual. What spirits was his father protecting them from? What was he asserting about land and place, by standing guard, even in his dreams? Esteban Rodríguez is the author of five poetry co...
May 28, 2021•16 min•Ep 10•Transcript available on Metacast This ‘Essay on Reentry’ charts life after prison: and the way that others keep your sentence alive even when you’re wishing to just get on with your own life. It’s about secrets and choice and disclosure. And in the midst of all this, there is also love between a son and his dad, a son like a “straggling angel, / lost from his pack finding a way to fulfill his / duty.” Reginald Dwayne Betts is the author of a memoir and three books of poetry. His memoir, A Question of Freedom: A Memoir of Learni...
May 24, 2021•17 min•Ep 9•Transcript available on Metacast A poem about blossoms that is not only about blossoms. Li-Young Lee remembers a glorious day when he and a companion bought peaches; peaches that had come from blossoms. And in the taste of peaches, the brown paper bag they came in, sold by a boy at a bend in a road, the poem tells us — again and again — that sweetness, yearning and generosity is possible, on all kinds of days. Li-Young Lee is the author of five critically acclaimed books of poetry, most recently The Undressing . His earlier boo...
May 21, 2021•15 min•Ep 8•Transcript available on Metacast This poem takes place on battlegrounds. The poet — Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo — is at Gettysburg National Military Park, where she wanders around the cemetery searching for the graves of Mexican soldiers. Instead she finds KKK books on display in the park’s visitors gift shop. So much of this poem is about unearthing, and making offerings of devotion and life: the poet makes offerings to her ancestors, but she also makes offerings of water bottles to migrants at border crossings. Xochitl-Julisa Berm...
May 17, 2021•16 min•Ep 7•Transcript available on Metacast In this love poem, Matthew Olzmann writes about his wife — the poet Vievee Francis whose poem for Matthew was featured in the previous episode — and the reasons why their marriage might work: her courage, her tenacity, her quirks, her multiplicities. He recounts instances of her generosity and lands on a story of how, when she was down to her “last damn dime,” she still bought a bottle of Mountain Dew for him, because she knew he loved it. This is a cinematic and musical poem, making exquisite u...
May 14, 2021•17 min•Ep 6•Transcript available on Metacast Building up in lists of delicious words — uvular, hibiscus, loquacious, shuttlecock, dollop, chipotles and chocolate — this poem uses sensual language to make a simple point. Vievee Francis moves past these words and all their suggestions by telling us that her favorite word is the name of her husband — the poet Matthew Olzmann — and how she loves it when he says her name. Love, like this poem, can rejoice in many things, and take its own time to unfold its own delight. Vievee Francis is the aut...
May 10, 2021•15 min•Ep 5•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Ep 4•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Ep 3•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Ep 2•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Ep 1•Transcript available on Metacast 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 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Ep 24•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Ep 23•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Ep 22•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Ep 21•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Ep 20•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Ep 19•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Ep 18•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Ep 17•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Ep 16•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Ep 15•Transcript available on Metacast 
