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Poetry Unbound

On Being Studios

230 episodes

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

More about the show

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.

Episodes page 1 of 5

  1. Poetry Unbound in Conversation — Peter Coleman

    · 51 min · S10 E24

    This episode isn’t about poetry but about another kind of art: the art of conflict resolution. In a deeply practical conversation, Pádraig Ó Tuama sits down with Columbia University’s Peter Coleman, author of The Way…

  2. Poetry Unbound in Conversation — Martín Espada

    · 56 min · S10 E23

    “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…

  3. Poetry Unbound in Conversation — Amanda Quaid

    · 52 min · S10 E22

    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…

  4. Poetry Unbound in Conversation — Haleh Liza Gafori

    · 58 min · S10 E21

    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…

  5. Poetry Unbound in Conversation — Adrian Matejka

    · 47 min · S10 E20

    “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…

  6. Poetry Unbound in Conversation — Karen Leeder

    · 41 min · S10 E19

    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…

  7. Poetry Unbound in Conversation — Richard Scott

    · 52 min · S10 E18

    “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…

  8. Poetry Unbound in Conversation — Kimberly Campanello part 2 of 2

    · 38 min · S10 E17

    “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…

  9. Poetry Unbound in Conversation — Kimberly Campanello part 1 of 2

    · 50 min · S10 E16

    “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…

  10. Poetry Unbound in Conversation — Rachel Mann and Yomi Ṣode

    · 56 min · S10 E15

    “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…

  11. Poetry Unbound in Conversation — Fady Joudah

    · 47 min · S10 E14

    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…

  12. Poetry Unbound in Conversation — Don McKay

    · 45 min · S10 E13

    “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…

  13. Poetry Unbound Bonus — Walter de la Mare

    · 9:16 · S5 E17

    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…

  14. Leonard Cohen — Book of Mercy “I,8”

    · 17 min · S4 E26

    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…

  15. Billy-Ray Belcourt — Subarctica

    · 18 min · S4 E25

    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…

  16. Ruth Irupé Sanabria — Carne

    · 17 min · S6 E26

    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…

  17. Lena Khalaf Tuffaha — Dukka

    · 16 min · S10 E12

    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…

  18. Rachel Mann — #TDOR

    · 21 min · S7 E25

    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…

  19. Sanah Ahsan — Ramadan’s Greeting

    · 16 min · S10 E11

    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…

  20. Kevin Hart — Prayer

    · 17 min · S10 E10

    “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…

  21. Harryette Mullen — LUVTOFU

    · 15 min · S10 E9

    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,…

  22. Stewart Henderson — How To Speak Love In A Storm?

    · 16 min · S10 E8

    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…

  23. Dante Micheaux — Theologies for Korah

    · 18 min · S10 E7

    Dante Micheaux’s rich and rollicking poem “Theologies for Korah” is written on the occasion of an infant’s baptism, but it’s anything but baby talk or bland instruction. Religious figures, rites, and symbols are…

  24. Oksana Maksymchuk — Arguments for Peace

    · 20 min · S10 E6

    “How could there be a war in this city?” is the plaintive question that starts Oksana Makysymchuk’s “Arguments for Peace”. Like ours, the world of her poem holds both the “goodness of the universe” and “a foreign…

  25. Armen Davoudian — Coming Out of the Shower

    · 16 min · S10 E5

    In Armen Davoudian’s casually intimate poem “Coming Out of the Shower”, mother and son perform their morning routines in the small, shared space of their household’s only bathroom. She chats and puts on her makeup,…

  26. Orlando Ricardo Menes — Grace

    · 15 min · S10 E4

    Some religions and some people have very specific ideas about “grace”, and that includes poet Orlando Ricardo Menes. In the carefully constructed “Grace”, he manages to both demystify and remystify what grace is,…

  27. Cyrus Cassells — Jasmine

    · 14 min · S10 E3

    In fewer than two dozen lines, Cyrus Cassells’s poem “Jasmine” offers readers a multisensory, cinematic immersion into late spring life in Rome. Not only is the “sweet, steady broadcast” of jasmine ever-present amid…

  28. W.S. Merwin — For The Anniversary of My Death

    · 15 min · S10 E2

    W.S. Merwin’s “For The Anniversary of My Death” is a slim, precise poem — just 13 lines made up of 84 words — about the very weightiest of subjects, one’s future death. With it, Merwin has crafted an elegant vessel, a…

  29. Kimblerly Blaeser - my journal records the vestiture of doppelgangers

    · 20 min · S10 E1

    Words can’t quite fully capture the activity, oddity, and awe that is everywhere around us, but poet Kimberly Blaeser makes a gorgeous attempt in her poem “my journal records the vestiture of doppelgangers.” The three…

  30. Poetry Unbound in Conversation — Marie Howe

    · 59 min · S10 E1

    Marie Howe’s poetry shimmers with the keen attention she pays to language: the language of the body (both the human body and “the beautiful body of the world”), of people’s everyday speech, and of religious myth. We…

  31. Poetry Unbound in Conversation — Lorna Goodison

    · 54 min · Bonus

    “Spending time in hell is not my idea of something that one should do,” says poet Lorna Goodison, yet she immersed herself there for years to create her extraordinary modern Jamaican translation of Dante’s Inferno. We…

  32. Denise Duhamel — How It Will End

    · 17 min · S9 E14

    Have you ever gotten consumed by watching a couple argue in public and trying to decipher what’s really going on between them? Denise Duhamel’s deliciously entertaining “How It Will End” offers us that experience. Come…

  33. Fady Joudah — [...]

    · 13 min · S9 E13

    Even though Palestinian-American Fady Joudah’s poem is sparingly titled “[...],” an ellipsis surrounded by brackets, this work itself is psychologically dense. Through crisp lines and language, it wrestles with the…

  34. Benjamin Zephaniah — To Michael Menson

    · 13 min · S9 E12

    Benjamin Zephaniah’s urgent, imperative “To Michael Menson” was written when he was a poet in residence at a human rights barrister in England. His poem resonates with his repeated calls for justice for a murdered…

  35. Carmen Giménez — Ars Poetica

    · 15 min · S9 E11

    Carmen Giménez’s poem “Ars Poetica” is a stunning waterfall of words, a torrent of dozens of short statements that begin with “I” or “I’m.” As you listen to them, let an answering cascade of questions fill up your…

  36. Rick Barot — The Singing

    · 18 min · S9 E10

    Rick Barot’s poem “The Singing” takes place in the humdrum, relatable setting of the waiting room at a car dealership. But the unexpected occurs when one woman’s soft humming builds into strange, full-throated singing.…

  37. Diannely Antigua — Another Poem about God, but Really It’s about Me

    · 16 min · S9 E9

    “You would’ve made a lousy nun.” The narrator of Diannely Antigua’s “Another Poem about God, but Really It’s about Me” overhears these words, and they jolt her into contrasting her life experience with the limited…

  38. Don McKay — Neanderthal Dig

    · 15 min · S9 E8

    Don McKay’s poem “Neanderthal Dig” begins with the discovery of an ancient, child-sized skeleton placed on the wing of a swan and then takes flight, showing us how love and death are riddled with paradoxes — mixing the…

  39. Ernesto Cardenal — Give Ear to My Words (Psalm 5)

    · 17 min · S9 E7

    When dictatorial leaders use talk of peace as a smokescreen to conceal their plans for war and destruction, what are the people to do? Believe in a vision of peace and freedom that is muscular, sturdy, and protective —…

  40. Diego Báez — Inheritance

    · 20 min · S9 E6

    Many people say their experience of time changes after they have children, a phenomenon that Diego Báez captures in “Inheritance.” In this poem, a past, present, and future starring the same child shift ceaselessly in…

  41. Danielle Chapman — Trespassing with Tweens

    · 16 min · S9 E5

    Wonder and strangeness commingle with the commonplace and universal in Danielle Chapman’s “Trespassing with Tweens.” In a not-quite mirroring, a human mother and her children stand and watch together in awe as a great…

  42. Richard Langston — Hill walk

    · 12 min · S9 E4

    In Richard Langston’s poem “Hill walk,” he proffers a handful of things that move us over the course of a day — words said or read, notes played, the sight of halting steps taken by a sibling. We marvel at the sound of…

  43. Robert Hayden — Those Winter Sundays

    · 12 min · S9 E3

    What sacrifices were made by your parents when you were a child? How did you think about them as they were happening? And how do you think about them now? In his poem “Those Winter Sundays,” Robert Hayden holds space…

  44. Taylor Johnson — Pennsylvania Ave. SE

    · 13 min · S9 E2

    When you look at people who are younger than you — particularly teenagers — does your mind ever take you back to yourself at their age? Taylor Johnson’s poem “Pennsylvania Ave. SE” performs this feat of time travel,…

  45. Kinsale Drake — Put on that KTNN

    · 15 min · S9 E1

    In Kinsale Drake’s poem “Put on that KTNN,” she writes about driving to a hometown as a familiar station crackles to life on the car radio. From this corner of America, she creates her own country music — of Navajo…

  46. Poetry Unbound — Season 9 Trailer

    · 1:17 · Trailer

    Poetry Unbound with host Pádraig Ó Tuama is back on Monday, December 2. Featured poets in this season include Robert Hayden, Kinsale Drake, Danielle Chapman, Diannely Antigua, and many more. New episodes every week…

  47. Closing: Poems as Teachers (ft. Kai Cheng Thom) | Ep 7

    · 13 min · Bonus

    In this concluding episode of "Poems as Teachers," our special miniseries on conflict and the human condition, host Pádraig Ó Tuama says the poems discussed in this offering are a different kind of teacher: “not as…

  48. Yehuda Amichai — Poems as Teachers | Ep 6

    · 14 min · Bonus

    Being right may feel good, but what human price do we pay for this feeling of rightness? Yehuda Amichai’s poem “The Place Where We Are Right,” translated by Stephen Mitchell, asks us to answer this question, consider…

  49. Jericho Brown — Poems as Teachers | Ep 5

    · 13 min · Bonus

    In “Hebrews 13” by Jericho Brown, a narrator says: “my lover and my brother both knocked at my door.” The heat is turned on, scalding coffee is offered and hastily swallowed, and silence is the soundtrack. What an…

  50. Mosab Abu Toha — Poems as Teachers | Ep 4

    · 16 min · Bonus

    In Mosab Abu Toha’s “Ibrahim Abu Lughod and brother in Yaffa,” two barefoot siblings on a beach sketch out a map of their former home in the sand and argue about what went where. Their longing for return to a place of…

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