Poetry Unbound

By On Being Studios

What's Poetry Unbound about?

Your new ritual: Immerse in a single poem, guided by Pádraig Ó Tuama. Short and unhurried; contemplative and energizing. Anchor your week by listening to the everyday poetry of your life, with new episodes on Monday and Friday.

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Linda Hogan — Song for the ...

11.26.2021

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 ...

Poetry Unbound episodes:

11.26.2021 Linda Hogan — Song for the Turtles of the Gulf 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 ...
11.22.2021 Lory Bedikian — On the Way to Oshagan 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 ...
11.19.2021 Nico Amador — Flower Wars 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 ...
11.15.2021 Darrel Alejandro Holnes — Amending Wall In a poem that directly addresses Robert Frost’s “Mending Wall,” Darrel Alejandro Holnes asks questions: who gets to build walls, or guard borders?. Do good fences really make good neighbors? Taking a poem that’s been part of an American imagination ...
11.12.2021 Elizabeth Bishop — Sestina This sestina poem considers a scene from Elizabeth Bishop’s own childhood through the sounds of six repeating words: house, grandmother, child, stove, almanac, tears. These six words repeat — in different order — as the final words of the poem’s ...
11.08.2021 Major Jackson — Blunts Some friends gather and smoke at a doorway in a city. There’s Malik, and Johnny Cash, and Lefty, and Jësus. And the poet, Major Jackson. They’ve known each other their whole lives, and they wonder who they’ll turn out to ...
11.05.2021 Andrés Cerpa — Seasonal without Spring: Autumn Andrés Cerpa recollects how his father’s early dementia was an increasing influence on his early years. As he grew, his father diminished. The burden of this was heavy on him — he stayed awake listening for information, and fell asleep ...
11.01.2021 Kaveh Akbar — How Prayer Works A narrative prose poem about two brothers — one on a visit home from college — who are turning to face east in their small shared room. With seven years between them, one is a young man and the other, ...
10.29.2021 Gail McConnell — Worm In a poem that addresses a worm directly as “you,” Gail McConnell considers how these tube-shaped beings live: ingesting the earth, aerating it, digesting it, making its nourishment accessible for all kinds of growth. The worm burrows, knows dead things, ...
10.25.2021 Romeo Oriogun — Pink Club A club is a place for dancing, for abandon, for music, and for meeting strangers. Romeo Oriogun recalls a gay club that was for all those things, but also for escape. Living in a place where queer lives were under ...
10.22.2021 Kathleen Flenniken — Married Love In a poem of extraordinary poise, Kathleen Flenniken recounts her parents’ lively parties, their rich social life, their summer trips, and their friendships: friendships that were not always straightforward. The poem closes with an observation of a moment of sexual ...
10.18.2021 Imtiaz Dharker — Don’t Miss Out! Book Right Now for the Journey of a Lifetime! A love poem with a playful title that sounds like an ad from a travel agent unfolds into a poem about choosing to stay at home. Imtiaz Dharker’s husband died in the years between this poem’s setting and its publishing. ...
10.15.2021 BONUS: A Conversation with No’u Revilla While preparing for this week’s episode of Poetry Unbound, host Pádraig Ó Tuama began an email correspondence with the poet, No‘u Revilla. The exchange was so rich that Pádraig asked No‘u to join him in conversation. Together they talk about ...
10.15.2021 No’u Revilla — Smoke Screen The life of a sugar worker is the center of this poem: a worker whose body and person bear the imprint of that industry, with its demands and smoke and exhaustion. The worker in question is the poet’s father, and ...
10.11.2021 Jake Skeets — Daybreak In a slight change to the normal format, host Pádraig Ó Tuama speaks with the poet Jake Skeets who reads his poem “Daybreak,” a poem combining Diné language with English, a poem rich with observation: of land, of growth, of ...
10.08.2021 Tishani Doshi — Species In a fantastical poem about the future, Tishani Doshi explores the present. She imagines a future where agriculture, forestry, and cultivation are things of the past, distant memories learned by humans existing on other planets, or on intergalactic spaceships. That ...
10.04.2021 Jason Allen-Paisant — Right now I’m Standing In a poem considering trees, Jason Allen-Paisant opens up many associations with trees: in a woodland, there’s a dead tree, from which new forms of life are finding sustenance. He, a Black man in the woods, is aware of people ...
10.01.2021 Jacob Shores-Argüello — Make Believe In a short poem recalling a childhood response to grief, Jacob Shores-Argüello brings us into the fantasy world of a child: leaving an ill adult in a hospital bed, he and his cousin take to the mountains, turn magically into ...
09.27.2021 Margaret Atwood — All Bread 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. ...
09.20.2021 Poetry Unbound — Season 4 Trailer 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. ...
06.18.2021 Katie Manning — What to Expect 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 ...
06.14.2021 Ilya Kaminsky — We Lived Happily during the War 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 ...
06.11.2021 BONUS: A Conversation with Margaret Noodin 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 ...
06.11.2021 Margaret Noodin — Gimaazinibii’amoon (A Message to You) 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 ...
06.07.2021 Martín Espada — After the Goose that Rose Like the God of Geese 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 ...
06.04.2021 Roshni Goyate — Coconut Oil 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 ...
05.31.2021 b: william bearhart — When I Was in Las Vegas and Saw a Warhol Painting of Geronimo 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 ...
05.28.2021 Esteban Rodríguez — 22 La Bota 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, ...
05.24.2021 Reginald Dwayne Betts — Essay on Reentry 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 ...
05.21.2021 Li-Young Lee — From Blossoms 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 ...
05.17.2021 Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo — Battlegrounds 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 ...
05.14.2021 Matthew Olzmann — Mountain Dew Commercial Disguised as a Love Poem 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, ...
05.10.2021 Vievee Francis — How Delicious to Say It 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 ...
05.07.2021 Eavan Boland — Eviction 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 ...
05.03.2021 Jónína Kirton — Reconciliation 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 ...
04.30.2021 Lorna Goodison — Reporting Back to Queen Isabella 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 ...
04.26.2021 Hanif Abdurraqib — When We Were 13, Jeff’s Father Left The Needle Down On A Journey Record Before Leaving The House One Morning And Never Coming Back 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 ...
04.19.2021 Poetry Unbound — Season 3 Trailer 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. ...
12.18.2020 Christian Wiman — All My Friends Are Finding New Beliefs 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 ...
12.14.2020 Carlos Andrés Gómez — Father 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 ...
12.11.2020 Ellen Bass — Bone of My Bone and Flesh of My Flesh 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 ...
12.07.2020 R.A. Villanueva — Life Drawing 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. ...
12.04.2020 Zaffar Kunial — The Word 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. ...
11.30.2020 Dilruba Ahmed — Phase One 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, ...
11.27.2020 Layli Long Soldier — WHEREAS my eyes land on the shoreline 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 ...
11.23.2020 Chen Chen — I Invite My Parents to a Dinner Party 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 ...
11.20.2020 Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill — Ceist na Teangan (The Language Issue) 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 ...
11.16.2020 Aracelis Girmay — Consider the Hands that Write this Letter 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 ...
11.13.2020 Tayi Tibble — Our Nan Lets Us Smoke Inside 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 ...
11.10.2020 Paul Tran — The Cave 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 ...

Older episodes

Poetry Unbound

What's Poetry Unbound about?

Download our free app to listen on your phone

Poetry Unbound episodes:

Linda Hogan — Song for the Turtles of the Gulf

Lory Bedikian — On the Way to Oshagan

Nico Amador — Flower Wars

Darrel Alejandro Holnes — Amending Wall

Elizabeth Bishop — Sestina

Major Jackson — Blunts

Andrés Cerpa — Seasonal without Spring: Autumn

Kaveh Akbar — How Prayer Works

Gail McConnell — Worm

Romeo Oriogun — Pink Club

Kathleen Flenniken — Married Love

Imtiaz Dharker — Don’t Miss Out! Book Right Now for the Journey of a Lifetime!

BONUS: A Conversation with No’u Revilla

No’u Revilla — Smoke Screen

Jake Skeets — Daybreak

Tishani Doshi — Species

Jason Allen-Paisant — Right now I’m Standing

Jacob Shores-Argüello — Make Believe

Margaret Atwood — All Bread

Poetry Unbound — Season 4 Trailer

Katie Manning — What to Expect

Ilya Kaminsky — We Lived Happily during the War

BONUS: A Conversation with Margaret Noodin

Margaret Noodin — Gimaazinibii’amoon (A Message to You)

Martín Espada — After the Goose that Rose Like the God of Geese

Roshni Goyate — Coconut Oil

b: william bearhart — When I Was in Las Vegas and Saw a Warhol Painting of Geronimo

Esteban Rodríguez — 22 La Bota

Reginald Dwayne Betts — Essay on Reentry

Li-Young Lee — From Blossoms

Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo — Battlegrounds

Matthew Olzmann — Mountain Dew Commercial Disguised as a Love Poem

Vievee Francis — How Delicious to Say It

Eavan Boland — Eviction

Jónína Kirton — Reconciliation

Lorna Goodison — Reporting Back to Queen Isabella

Hanif Abdurraqib — When We Were 13, Jeff’s Father Left The Needle Down On A Journey Record Before Leaving The House One Morning And Never Coming Back

Poetry Unbound — Season 3 Trailer

Christian Wiman — All My Friends Are Finding New Beliefs

Carlos Andrés Gómez — Father

Ellen Bass — Bone of My Bone and Flesh of My Flesh

R.A. Villanueva — Life Drawing

Zaffar Kunial — The Word

Dilruba Ahmed — Phase One

Layli Long Soldier — WHEREAS my eyes land on the shoreline

Chen Chen — I Invite My Parents to a Dinner Party

Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill — Ceist na Teangan (The Language Issue)

Aracelis Girmay — Consider the Hands that Write this Letter

Tayi Tibble — Our Nan Lets Us Smoke Inside

Paul Tran — The Cave

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