Is there life after death? This poem says yes: where one life is part of a cycle of life that continues. Michael Kleber-Diggs is a poet, essayist, literary critic, and arts educator. His debut poetry collection, Worldly Things (Milkweed Editions 2021), won the Max Ritvo Poetry Prize, the 2022 Hefner Heitz Kansas Book Award in Poetry, the 2022 Balcones Poetry Prize, and was a finalist for the 2022 Minnesota Book Award. Since 2016, Michael has been an instructor with the Minnesota Prison Writing W...
Sep 30, 2022•14 min•Ep 2•Transcript available on Metacast A person is lost, and in panic. A calm voice says strangely comforting things. David Wagoner is the author of 24 poetry collections and 10 novels. He is the recipient of two Pushcart Prizes (1977 and 1983) and the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize (1991). Wagoner’s final collection of poetry, After the Point of No Return , was published by Copper Canyon Press in 2012. Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org. We’re pleased to offer David Wagoner’s poem, and invite you to connect with Poetry Unboun...
Sep 26, 2022•13 min•Ep 1•Transcript available on Metacast 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....
Sep 19, 2022•2 min•Transcript available on Metacast How far would you go for great love? And what distances would you cross? Yu Xiuhua is a poet from Hengdian, in Hubei, China. She became well known in 2014 with her online poem “Crossing Half of China to Sleep with You.” In 2015, her debut book sold fifteen thousand copies in one day. The New York Times named her one of the eleven most courageous women around the world in 2017. Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org. We’re pleased to offer Yu Xiuhua’s poem, and invite you to sign up her...
Jun 03, 2022•15 min•Ep 16•Transcript available on Metacast When all eyes seem to lock on you, how do you cope with self-consciousness? How do you look back? Andy Jackson is a poet preoccupied with difference and embodiment. His first published book of poems, Among the Regulars , was shortlisted for the 2011 Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry. Andy’s most recent poetry collection is Human Looking (Giramondo, 2021), shortlisted for the Victorian Premier’s Prize for Poetry. As he notes on his website, "these autobiographical and biographical poems speak with...
May 30, 2022•13 min•Ep 15•Transcript available on Metacast Life can feel exhausting sometimes: how do you find rest? Tiana Clark is the author of the poetry collection, I Can’t Talk About the Trees Without the Blood (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2018), winner of the 2017 Agnes Lynch Starrett Prize, and Equilibrium (Bull City Press, 2016), selected by Afaa Michael Weaver for the 2016 Frost Place Chapbook Competition. Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org. We’re pleased to offer Tiana Clark’s poem, and invite you to sign up here for the late...
May 27, 2022•17 min•Ep 14•Transcript available on Metacast Sometimes when your world changes, it seems like everything turns towards you, fresh, new, and curious. Joshua Bennett is the author of The Sobbing School —which was a National Poetry Series selection and a finalist for an NAACP Image Award. He is also the author of Being Property Once Myself , Owed , The Study of Human Life , and Spoken Word: A Cultural History , which is forthcoming from Knopf. He has received fellowships and awards from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Whiting Foundation, the N...
May 23, 2022•14 min•Ep 13•Transcript available on Metacast How would you tell your own creation myth? Who — or what — would be in it? Abigail Chabitnoy is the author of How to Dress a Fish (Wesleyan 2019), winner of the 2020 Colorado Book Award for Poetry and shortlisted in the international category of the 2020 Griffin Prize for Poetry. Most recently, she was the recipient of the Witter Bynner Funded Native Poet Residency at Elsewhere Studios in Paonia, CO, and is a mentor for the Institute of American Indian Arts MFA in Creative Writing. She is a Koni...
May 20, 2022•11 min•Ep 12•Transcript available on Metacast In the face of wonder, we can sometimes lose ourselves. M. Soledad Caballero is Professor of English and chair of the Women’s Gender and Sexuality Studies Program at Allegheny College. Her first collection, titled I Was a Bell , won the 2019 Benjamin Saltman Poetry Award. Her scholarly work focuses on British Romanticism, travel writing, post-colonial literatures, Women’s Gender and Sexuality Studies, and interdisciplinarity. She splits her time between Pittsburgh and Meadville, Pennsylvania. Fi...
May 16, 2022•15 min•Ep 11•Transcript available on Metacast Would you write a letter to a world leader? Do you think they’d listen? What would you say? Rafiq Kathwari is the first Kashmiri recipient of the Patrick Kavanagh Award. He obtained an MFA in Creative Writing at Columbia University and an MA in Political and Social Science from the New School University. Rafiq divides his time between New York City, Dublin, and Kashmir. Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org. We’re pleased to offer Rafiq Kathwari’s poem, and invite you to sign up here ...
May 13, 2022•15 min•Ep 10•Transcript available on Metacast Children’s demands can be high, and their standards can be exacting. It’s a good thing they’re loveable. Caroline Bird grew up in Leeds, the daughter of noted theater director and producer Jude Kelly. Bird’s first collection of poems, Looking Through Letterboxes (2002), was published when she was just 15. Her other collections of poetry include Trouble Came to the Turnip (2006); Watering Can (2009); The Hat-Stand Union (2013); In These Days of Prohibition (2017), which was shortlisted for both t...
May 09, 2022•15 min•Ep 9•Transcript available on Metacast What do we achieve in our fighting? How can we turn to hope and our deepest nature? Marilyn Nelson was born in Cleveland, Ohio, the daughter of a school teacher and a U. S. serviceman, a member of the last graduating class of Tuskegee Airmen. She is the author or translator of more than 20 books and chapbooks for adults and children. A professor emerita of English at the University of Connecticut, Marilyn was Poet Laureate of Connecticut, 2001– 2006, and founding director of Soul Mountain Retrea...
May 06, 2022•14 min•Ep 8•Transcript available on Metacast Is something lost once it’s gone? How do we blend sadness with sweet memory? Richard Blanco practiced civil engineering for more than 20 years. He is now an associate professor of creative writing at his alma mater, Florida International University. His books of nonfiction and poetry include Looking for the Gulf Motel and, most recently, How to Love a Country . Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org. We’re pleased to offer Richard Blanco’s poem, and invite you to sign up here for the l...
May 02, 2022•18 min•Ep 7•Transcript available on Metacast Is the light a comfort and the night disturbing? Yusef Komunyakaa explores the life and brilliance of what’s in shadow and darkness. Yusef Komunyakaa was born in Bogalusa, Louisiana. The son of a carpenter, Komunyakaa has said that he was first alerted to the power of language through his grandparents, who were church people: “the sound of the Old Testament informed the cadences of their speech,” Komunyakaa has stated. “It was my first introduction to poetry.” He has taught at numerous instituti...
Apr 29, 2022•12 min•Ep 6•Transcript available on Metacast A poem inviting us to discover our brilliance and our nothingness. Both true. Both vital. Hannah Emerson is the author of The Kissing of Kissing . She is also the author of a chapbook, You Are Helping This Great Universe Explode . Emerson is a nonspeaking autistic writer whose work has appeared in BOMB Magazine , the Poetry Society of America, Literary Hub, and the Brooklyn Rail . She lives in Lafayette, New York. Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org. We’re pleased to offer Hannah Em...
Apr 25, 2022•14 min•Ep 5•Transcript available on Metacast A song of praise to the crop-top from a crop-top-wearing man who encounters comments in public and sings and swings. Kyle Carrero Lopez was born to Cuban parents in northern New Jersey. He is the author of the chapbook MUSCLE MEMORY , winner of the 2020 [PANK] Books Contest. He is also a founding member of LEGACY, a Brooklyn-based production collective by and for Black queer artists. Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org. We’re pleased to offer Kyle Carrero Lopez’s poem, and invite yo...
Apr 22, 2022•12 min•Ep 4•Transcript available on Metacast 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. Divya Victor is the author of Curb (Nightboat Books, winner of PEN America Open Book Award and the Kinglsey Tufts Poetry Award); Kith (Fence Books/ Book*hug); Scheingleichheit: Drei Essays (Merve Verlag); Natural Subjects (Trembling Pillow), Unsub (Insert Blanc), Things To Do With Your Mouth (Les Figues). She is currently an Associate Professor of English at Michigan State...
Apr 18, 2022•15 min•Ep 3•Transcript available on Metacast 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. Denise Low is the former Kansas Poet Laureate, and an award-winning author of 30 books of prose and poetry. She blogs, reviews, and co-publishes Mammoth Publications, which specializes in Indigenous American authors. Recent poetry books are A Casino Bestiary and Mélange Block , poetry based on geologic structures and mixed-blood experienc...
Apr 15, 2022•12 min•Ep 2•Transcript available on Metacast How do you speak with your mother when she’s forgotten who you are? By turning to myth, it seems, and by holding gentleness with bewilderment, love with patience. Rita Dove lets us overhear a phone call, and in this listening, we hear lifetimes unfold. Rita Dove was U.S. Poet Laureate from 1993–1995 and she served as the Poet Laureate of Virginia from 2004–2006. In 1987 she received the Pulitzer Prize in poetry for her book Thomas and Beulah. She is currently Commonwealth Professor of English at...
Apr 11, 2022•15 min•Ep 1•Transcript available on Metacast 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....
Apr 04, 2022•2 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 . You can also sign up for the latest updates from Poetry Unbound .
Mar 28, 2022•16 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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. Danez Smith is a Black, queer, HIV-positive writer and performer from St. Paul, Minnesota. Th...
Dec 17, 2021•14 min•Ep 24•Transcript available on Metacast 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. Craig Santos Peres is an indigenous Chamoru (Chamorro) from the Pacific Island of Guåhan (Guam). He is a poet, scholar, editor, publ...
Dec 13, 2021•15 min•Ep 23•Transcript available on Metacast 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. Alberto Ríos is Arizona’s inaugural p...
Dec 10, 2021•16 min•Ep 22•Transcript available on Metacast 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. Yehoshua November is the author of two books of poetry, God's Optimism (w...
Dec 06, 2021•15 min•Ep 21•Transcript available on Metacast 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,...
Dec 03, 2021•18 min•Ep 20•Transcript available on Metacast 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 p...
Nov 29, 2021•15 min•Ep 19•Transcript available on Metacast 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 forgiv...
Nov 26, 2021•16 min•Ep 18•Transcript available on Metacast 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 ...
Nov 22, 2021•18 min•Ep 17•Transcript available on Metacast 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? Nico A...
Nov 19, 2021•12 min•Ep 16•Transcript available on Metacast 
