Poetry Unbound

Epizode

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  Poetry Unbound in Conversation — Amanda Quaid 18.09.2026 51min

  After actor, dialect coach, and teacher Amanda Quaid was diagnosed with a serious illness in 2021, she responded by trying something new — she wrote poetry. She says, “I was looking for an art form that allowed me to be with uncertainty in a beautiful way.” The result is a captivating memoir-in-poetry, No Obvious Distress, that uses words and phrases from her medical charts to create verse that rings with laughter, tears, and truth. In this conversation recorded at New York City’s Morgan Library & Museum, Amanda reads from her book, and she and Pádraig Ó Tuama talk about the three principles that guided her through illness, her parenting a young child through this time, and her work with medical students, actors, and CEOs. We invite you to subscribe to Pádraig’s weekly Poetry Unbound Substack, read the Poetry Unbound books and his newest work, Kitchen Hymns, or listen to all our Poetry Unbound episodes.
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  Poetry Unbound in Conversation — Haleh Liza Gafori 04.09.2026 57min

  Poet, translator, and musician Haleh Liza Gafori describes the revered 13th-century Persian poet Rumi as “a good pal to humanity”. As she puts it, “He's rooting for our liberation.” In this exuberant conversation recorded for the 2025 Greenbelt Festival, she reads some of her translations, and she and Pádraig Ó Tuama illuminate the life of the man known as Rumi — his intense love of all things earthly and divine, the Islamic faith and universalist vision that flow through his work, and his life-changing connection with Shams, a Sufi mystic who catalyzed Rumi’s transformation from preacher to poet. We invite you to subscribe to Pádraig’s weekly Poetry Unbound Substack, read the Poetry Unbound books and his newest work, Kitchen Hymns, or listen to all our Poetry Unbound episodes.
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  Poetry Unbound in Conversation — Adrian Matejka 21.08.2026 47min

  “For me, if a poem doesn't swing, it's really not much of a poem,” says Adrian Matejka, author of the collection Be Easy: New and Selected Poems. His work hums with music, from its references to David Bowie, Miles Davis, and others to its infectious rhythms, repetitions, and rhymes. In this lively conversation recorded in 2024 at the Wick Poetry Center in Ohio, he reads several poems, and he and Pádraig Ó Tuama talk about “the imaginary discotheque” that takes place in Adrian’s head when he writes, how metaphor and simile offer a third space for his ideas to reach people, and his intense interest in exploring “masculinities” in all their expressions and emotions. We invite you to subscribe to Pádraig’s weekly Poetry Unbound Substack, read the Poetry Unbound books and his newest work, Kitchen Hymns, or listen to all our Poetry Unbound episodes.
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  Poetry Unbound in Conversation — Karen Leeder 07.08.2026 40min

  After listening to this exuberant interview, you’ll retire the phrase “lost in translation” from your vocabulary. Instead, writer and scholar Karen Leeder believes poetry can expand when translated, reaching new audiences and gaining new layers of meaning. Karen joins Pádraig Ó Tuama in an interview recorded in 2025 after she and Durs Grünbein were co-awarded the Griffin Poetry Prize for her translation of Psyche Running, which Durs wrote. In addition to reading from her work, she explains what it’s like to translate a poet who is very much alive and why she thinks translation can help “explode” insularity and xenophobia. We invite you to subscribe to Pádraig’s weekly Poetry Unbound Substack, read the Poetry Unbound books and his newest work, Kitchen Hymns, or listen to all our Poetry Unbound episodes.
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  Poetry Unbound in Conversation — Richard Scott 24.07.2026 51min

  “Poetry means paying attention in a different way to the world and seeing what wisdom you're given back in return for that attention,” says Richard Scott in this conversation with Pádraig Ó Tuama, recorded during the 2025 Collective Trauma Summit. Richard’s second collection, That Broke Into Shining Crystals, features sequences that focus on two hypnotically compelling subjects: still-life paintings and crystals. From them, he’s created poems that thrum with music, memory, harm, and healing. Richard reads from his book, and he and Pádraig discuss the “surprising life” to be found in still lifes, the difference between the speaker vs. the poet, and how crystals — the beautiful result of “unimaginable” pressure and breakage — can offer us a way to think about trauma. We invite you to subscribe to Pádraig’s weekly Poetry Unbound Substack, read the Poetry Unbound books and his newest work, Kitchen Hymns, or listen to all our Poetry Unbound episodes.
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  Poetry Unbound in Conversation — Kimberly Campanello part 2 of 2 10.07.2026 38min

  “It had to involve more than just a slim volume of verse,” says Kimberly Campanello about MOTHERBABYHOME, her ongoing visual poetry project which centers the 796 infants and children who died at the St. Mary's Mother and Baby Home in Tuam, in the west of Ireland, between 1926 and 1961. So it consists of 796 sheets of vellum with text from archival and contemporary sources that she’s shaped into a work that blends documentation and lamentation, reportage and rite. In this Zoom conversation between Kimberly and Pádraig Ó Tuama — part two of two — recorded in 2025, Kimberly reads an excerpt from MOTHERBABYHOME, and then she and Pádraig discuss whether all poets want to be priests and how poetry is the ultimate DIY activity. Or, as Kimberly puts it, “You don't have to learn an instrument to be a poet.” We invite you to subscribe to Pádraig’s weekly Poetry Unbound Substack, read the Poetry Unbound books and his newest work, Kitchen Hymns, or listen to all our Poetry Unbound episodes.
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  Poetry Unbound in Conversation — Kimberly Campanello part 1 of 2 26.06.2026 50min

  “It's about seeing, through reading, whether where you are going has been or is now or will be written, or not.” This deliciously twisty line is from Kimberly Campanello’s ongoing versioning of Dante’s Inferno, and as in that sentence, she is translating and reconfiguring the 700-year-old work of poetry to reflect her life, her family’s lives, your life, our life, and, indeed, our lives today. We are delighted to bring you this exhilarating conversation — part one of two — between Kimberly and Pádraig Ó Tuama that was recorded over Zoom in 2025. In addition to reading excerpts from her redone Dante, she and Pádraig talk about the English teacher who made an indelible impression on her, the roles of love and time in the Inferno, and how an early-onset Parkinson’s diagnosis has shaped her thinking and writing. We invite you to subscribe to Pádraig’s weekly Poetry Unbound Substack, read the Poetry Unbound books and his newest work, Kitchen Hymns, or listen to all our Poetry Unbound episodes.
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  Poetry Unbound in Conversation — Rachel Mann and Yomi Ṣode 12.06.2026 55min

  “Poetry should be horrifying,” says Rachel Mann. “It should be … on the edge of the edge of what could be said.” We are delighted to bring you this vibrant conversation featuring Rachel and Yomi Ṣode speaking with Pádraig Ó Tuama at the 2024 StAnza Poetry Festival in Scotland. Rachel and Yomi each read poems, and then go on to discuss grace, who receives it, and who deserves it; the place of grief and remembrance in their work; and how writing about historical figures is a way to disrupt and re-vision both the past and the present. We invite you to subscribe to Pádraig’s weekly Poetry Unbound Substack, read the Poetry Unbound books and his newest work, Kitchen Hymns, or listen to all our Poetry Unbound episodes.
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  Poetry Unbound in Conversation — Fady Joudah 29.05.2026 46min

  From a young age, says Palestinian American poet and physician Fady Joudah, “I had such a fascination with the way the alphabet makes music in the mind.” We are thrilled to offer this thoughtful conversation between Pádraig and Fady, recorded when Fady received the 2024 Jackson Poetry Prize. Fady reads several poems — including two with the same name! — and speaks of how memory, time, history, faith, love, violence, and difference figure in his work. He says, “Ultimately for my existence as a Palestinian in the 20th or 21st century … I am also always, particularly in English, bridging a gap.” We invite you to subscribe to Pádraig’s weekly Poetry Unbound Substack, read the Poetry Unbound books and his newest work, Kitchen Hymns, or listen to all our Poetry Unbound episodes.
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  Poetry Unbound in Conversation — Don McKay 15.05.2026 45min

  “I still have the best three-point shot of any Canadian poet born before 1943” is one of the first things that acclaimed poet Don McKay says in this expansive and intimate exchange. We are thrilled to offer this conversation between Padraig and Don, recorded from a virtual interview held on the occasion of Don receiving the 2024 Lifetime Achievement Award from the Griffin Poetry Prizes. After touching on his early devotion to basketball, Don speaks of his lifelong passion for geology and birds, how Newfoundland is considered “opera for geologists”, and why he favors membership over mastery when it comes to relating to Earth’s other living creatures. We invite you to subscribe to Pádraig’s weekly Poetry Unbound Substack, read the Poetry Unbound books and his newest work, Kitchen Hymns, or listen to all our Poetry Unbound episodes.
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  Poetry Unbound Bonus — Walter de la Mare 09.03.2026 9min

  Host Pádraig Ó Tuama shares “The Listeners” by Walter de la Mare, a favorite childhood poem of his, and offers an audio postscript to Season 10 of Poetry Unbound. Later in 2026, he will bring us more Poetry Unbound to look forward to — find out what and when here. In the meantime, you can listen to past episodes of Poetry Unbound or to new episodes of On Being with Krista Tippett, out now. We invite you to subscribe to Pádraig’s weekly Poetry Unbound Substack, read the Poetry Unbound books and his newest work, Kitchen Hymns, or listen to all our Poetry Unbound episodes.
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  Leonard Cohen — Book of Mercy “I,8” 06.03.2026 16min

  Have you ever watched, in awe, as a skilled gymnast or skater lifts off and completes a dizzying number of revolutions in less than a second before landing safely back down? That’s how you may feel upon reading the great Leonard Cohen’s urgent, dreamlike poem “I, 8” from Book of Mercy. In his telling of a man’s fall “from his high place” into “disgrace”, Cohen sends us on a short, 206-word journey that seamlessly weaves together narration, fiction, meditation, devotion, and prayer. We invite you to subscribe to Pádraig’s weekly Poetry Unbound Substack, read the Poetry Unbound books and his newest work, Kitchen Hymns, or listen to all our Poetry Unbound episodes.
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  Billy-Ray Belcourt — Subarctica 02.03.2026 17min

  Will you leave this episode feeling uplifted, envious, curious, or something else entirely? Yes. Billy-Ray Belcourt’s poem “Subarctica” transports you to a vividly specific time — “the coldest December / on record, I haven’t left my mother’s / house in over a week” — where the primary view is of poplars in “a tiny schoolyard”. Amid the simplicity and snow, the speaker shifts their perspective, seeing beyond their past and towards the wonder in their present and in what is to come. We invite you to subscribe to Pádraig’s weekly Poetry Unbound Substack, read the Poetry Unbound books and his newest work, Kitchen Hymns, or listen to all our Poetry Unbound episodes.
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  Ruth Irupé Sanabria — Carne 27.02.2026 17min

  Ruth Irupé Sanabria’s delicious and dexterous “Carne” begins with these lines: “I've eaten pork from / pernil to chuletas to chitterlings.” And just in case you were wondering — and even if you’re not — the speaker goes on to list much more of the seafood, poultry, and animal parts that have been consumed and how they were cooked. Lest you think this poem is simply a meat-eater’s manifesto, savor its final turn towards what else the speaker is really hungry for. We invite you to subscribe to Pádraig’s weekly Poetry Unbound Substack, read the Poetry Unbound books and his newest work, Kitchen Hymns, or listen to all our Poetry Unbound episodes.
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  Lena Khalaf Tuffaha — Dukka 23.02.2026 15min

  Loving in the face of violence, danger, and distress is an act of defiance, as demonstrated in Lena Khalaf Tuffaha’s achingly beautiful poem “Dukka”. The Palestinian American writer spotlights seven aspects of love in action — between father and newborn, for example, a journalist and her audience, a pair of intimates dining out. She shows us the “million ways to love” flowing through her community and cascading through generations, centuries, millennia, as inexorable and constant as the ocean and as bright and surprising as a rare meteor shower. We invite you to subscribe to Pádraig’s weekly Poetry Unbound Substack, read the Poetry Unbound books and his newest work, Kitchen Hymns, or listen to all our Poetry Unbound episodes.
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  Rachel Mann — #TDOR 20.02.2026 20min

  Rachel Mann’s “#TDOR” manages to turn a depiction of one side of a conversation about marking Trans Day of Remembrance into a poem that is both empathic and uncompromising. Mann captures the verbal stammers and stumbles of the well-meaning but leaves us to reckon whether the words land as mirror, mockery, or cry for action. We invite you to subscribe to Pádraig’s weekly Poetry Unbound Substack, read the Poetry Unbound books and his newest work, Kitchen Hymns, or listen to all our Poetry Unbound episodes.
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  Sanah Ahsan — Ramadan’s Greeting 16.02.2026 15min

  Sanah Ahsan’s evocative “Ramadan’s Greeting” brings us into the thoughts and experiences of a person observing the holiest month in Islam. In nine brief couplets, the poet deftly directs our attention towards some of the rich contrasts that emerge at this time — between light and dark, desire and abstinence, self and community — as well as the abiding satisfactions and joys. We invite you to subscribe to Pádraig’s weekly Poetry Unbound Substack, read the Poetry Unbound books and his newest work, Kitchen Hymns, or listen to all our Poetry Unbound episodes.
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  Kevin Hart — Prayer 13.02.2026 16min

  “O come, in any way you want” is the first line in Kevin Hart’s marvelous, mystical “Prayer”. So come to this poem — whether for its deliciously sensual language (“bouts of rain”, “wind that wraps”, “raw and ragged smells / [o]f gumleaves”, and more), its air of mystery, or its unabashed aching for a “you” — and then linger for a while. Stay with it, or let it stay with you, and see what emerges. We invite you to subscribe to Pádraig’s weekly Poetry Unbound Substack, read the Poetry Unbound books and his newest work, Kitchen Hymns, or listen to all our Poetry Unbound episodes.
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  Harryette Mullen — LUVTOFU 09.02.2026 14min

  Too many of us left high school thinking that a poem could be taken seriously only if it was difficult to understand, subdued in its use of rhyme and alliteration, and addressed lofty topics. Harryette Mullen’s saucy, suggestive “LVTOFU” bulldozes through convention, all the while revelling in its own rhythms, references, and humor. We invite you to subscribe to Pádraig’s weekly Poetry Unbound Substack, read the Poetry Unbound books and his newest work, Kitchen Hymns, or listen to all our Poetry Unbound episodes.
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  Stewart Henderson — How To Speak Love In A Storm? 06.02.2026 15min

  What is there to say or do when the life of a loved one has been upended and devastated? Stewart Henderson’s poem “How To Speak Love In A Storm?” offers a tender masterclass in how you can accompany someone — or even just yourself — through a time of tumult and pain. We invite you to subscribe to Pádraig’s weekly Poetry Unbound Substack, read the Poetry Unbound books and his newest work, Kitchen Hymns, or listen to all our Poetry Unbound episodes.