A plumber, a pastor, and a pilgrim forge poems out of what’s right in front of them.

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She will keep you like she keeps the Sabbath.    

Did you know that 21 March is World Poetry Day? Do you … care?

In this episode of Life & Faith, we speak to three poets about why they write poetry, and find out how intimately linked to real life their words actually are.

Sit back and enjoy a feast for your ears as Erin Martine Sessions, Drew Jackson, and Jonathan McKeown bring you poems they’ve written about (respectively) an ancient city; about mass incarceration and the fight for justice; about mushrooms and motherhood. 

From very different starting points, all three wrestle to give words to the realities of the world around them - however beautiful, overwhelming, devastating, infuriating, or even repulsive.

“Plumbing has really given me a physical connection to both work and my own body that has forced me to come to some kind of reconciliation between this flighty mental side that just wants to remove itself from all the awkward matter and stuff that you have to deal with in the physical world at times … there's a lot of very physically disgusting stuff plumbers get to deal with on a daily basis. So for me, working out some kind of synthesis, which I think is what selfhood is really about … to do that in your own experience is I think part of the process of becoming the self that you are.”

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Explore:

Read more of Erin’s poetry

Check out Drew’s book God Speaks Through Wombs

Check out Jono’s book Genesis