Pádraig Ó Tuama – författare

In the tumult of our contemporary moment, poetry has emerged as an inviting, consoling outlet with a unique power to move and connect us, to inspire fury, tears, joy, laughter, and surprise. This generous anthology pairs fifty illuminating poems with poet and podcast host Padraig O Tuama's appealing, unhurried reflections. With keen insight and warm personal anecdotes, O Tuama considers each poem's artistry and explores how its meaning can reach into our own lives.

Focusing mainly on poets writing today, Ó Tuama engages with a diverse array of voices that includes Ada Limón, Ilya Kaminsky, Margaret Atwood, Ocean Vuong, Layli Long Soldier, and Reginald Dwayne Betts. Natasha Trethewey meditates on miscegenation and Mississippi; Raymond Antrobus makes poetry out of the questions shot at him by an immigration officer; Martín Espada mourns his father; Marie Howe remembers and blesses her mother’s body; Aimee Nezhukumatathil offers comfort to her child-self. Through these wide-ranging poems, Ó Tuama guides us on an inspiring journey to reckon with self-acceptance, history, independence, parenthood, identity, joy, and resilience.

For anyone who has wanted to try their hand at a conversation with poetry but doesn’t know where to start, Poetry Unbound presents a window through which to celebrate the art of being alive.

44 Poems on Being with Each Other is a new volume that offers immersive reflections on the human connection. With an observant eye, Padraig O Tuama shares an enlightening meditation on each poem, revealing the ways we relate to each other, the world around us, and ourselves. Among the selections, O Tuama examines friendship and its loss through Langston Hughes's "I Loved My Friend," changing familial bonds in Rita Dove's "Eurydice, Turning," the relationship with the past in Mary Oliver's "The Uses of Sorrow," the power of declaration in Lucille Clifton's "Won't You Celebrate with Me," and the necessity of connection to land in Joy Harjo's "Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings."

Blending humor with insight, tension with tenderness, complexity with care, 44 Poems on Being with Each Other articulates the power of poetry itself. Through careful and incisive readings, it illuminates aspects of the human condition, particularly the ways we are inextricably linked to each other, and provides inspiration for grounded self-reflection. It is an anthology that will delight readers, just as Pádraig’s podcast has done for millions around the world.

It is in the shelter of each other that the people live.Drawing on this Irish saying, poet, storyteller and theologian Pádraig Ó Tuama relates ideas of shelter and welcome to journeys of life, using poetry, story, biblical refelction and prose to open up gentle ways of living well in a troubled world. The fourth gospel tells of Jesus arriving in the room where the disciples are gathered, full of fear, on Easter Sunday. He does not chide or admonish; instead he says ''Peace be with you'', which, in the Aramaic of his day, was simply a greeting. To people locked in a room of fear he said ''Hello,'' welcoming them to a place of deep encounter: encounter with themselves, with their fear, with each other and with the incarnate one in their midst.Interweaving everyday stories with narrative theology, gospel reflections with mindfulness and Celtic spirituality with poetry, In the Shelter reveals the transformational power of welcome.

Written by the engaging host of the popular show, Poetry Unbound, the poems of Kitchen Hymns are finely honed melodies of survival—shaped with both humor and anger, force and conviction.

Written by the engaging host of the popular show, Poetry Unbound, the poems of Kitchen Hymns are finely honed melodies of survival—shaped with both humor and anger, force and conviction.