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Poetry Unbound

On Being Studios

Short and unhurried, Poetry Unbound is an immersive exploration of a single poem, hosted by Pádraig Ó Tuama.

Pádraig Ó Tuama greets you at the doorways of brilliant poems and walks you through — each one has wisdom to offer and questions to ask you.

Already a listener? There’s also a book (Poetry Unbound: 50 Poems to Open Your World), a Substack newsletter with a vibrant conversation in the comments, and occasional gatherings.

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25 episodes
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Avg 30 min
English

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S10 · E23
October 5 · 55 min
Poetry Unbound in Conversation — Martín Espada
“Politics by themselves are necessary but not sufficient … [and] poetry by itself is necessary but not sufficient. We must find a way to bring them together,” says Martín Espada, a poet and professor. With crystalline language, an all-seeing gaze, and innate musicality, he writes poems that show us the world and people as they are — sometimes violent, vicious, unjust, but also tender, tenacious, courageous. In this potent conversation recorded for the 2026 Greenbelt Festival in Kettering, Englan
S10 · E22
September 18 · 51 min
Poetry Unbound in Conversation — Amanda Quaid
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
S10 · E21
September 4 · 57 min
Poetry Unbound in Conversation — Haleh Liza Gafori
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-
S10 · E20
August 21 · 47 min
Poetry Unbound in Conversation — Adrian Matejka
“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 writ
S10 · E19
August 7 · 40 min
Poetry Unbound in Conversation — Karen Leeder
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
S10 · E18
July 24 · 51 min
Poetry Unbound in Conversation — Richard Scott
“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. Ric
S10 · E17
July 10 · 38 min
Poetry Unbound in Conversation — Kimberly Campanello part 2 of 2
“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 betwee
S10 · E16
June 26 · 50 min
Poetry Unbound in Conversation — Kimberly Campanello part 1 of 2
“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 P
S10 · E15
June 12 · 55 min
Poetry Unbound in Conversation — Rachel Mann and Yomi Ṣode
“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-
S10 · E14
May 29 · 46 min
Poetry Unbound in Conversation — Fady Joudah
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 Pa
S10 · E13
May 15 · 45 min
Poetry Unbound in Conversation — Don McKay
“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,
S5 · E17
March 9 · 9 min
Poetry Unbound Bonus — Walter de la Mare
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 an
S4 · E26
March 6 · 16 min
Leonard Cohen — Book of Mercy “I,8”
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
S4 · E25
March 2 · 17 min
Billy-Ray Belcourt — Subarctica
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 yo
S6 · E26
February 27 · 17 min
Ruth Irupé Sanabria — Carne
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 Pá
S10 · E12
February 23 · 15 min
Lena Khalaf Tuffaha — Dukka
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 a
S7 · E25
February 20 · 20 min
Rachel Mann — #TDOR
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 Unboun
S10 · E11
February 16 · 15 min
Sanah Ahsan — Ramadan’s Greeting
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 wor
S10 · E10
February 13 · 16 min
Kevin Hart — Prayer
“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 b
S10 · E9
February 9 · 14 min
Harryette Mullen — LUVTOFU
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 Po

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