Inhabiting the wide world
On the poetry of Marie Howe
Dear friends,
In a week of news and parties and terror, we are with each other again. I have been reading about the poor victims of yet another shooting in Brown University in the US and of the terrorist targeting of Jews at a Hanukkah celebration in Australia. There is so much suffering in the world; it is a terrible thing to bear witness to what we have to endure.
So much of what I think a poem can do is to expand the frame of reference. In an old poem of Marie Howe’s, a speaker is in pain. Next door, the speaker’s brother is planning on how he can be of comfort to the sister in pain. It does not take away the anguish, but it locates it. I asked Marie about that poem once, and she said something like “And now, I think of how, perhaps in the bay, a whale was feeding her calf.” The expanded tableau of the page can be a place where an expanded tableau of the world can meet.
In a similar vein, Nadia Bolz-Weber once said that when she’s in a congregation that is reciting a creed, she doesn’t feel like she has to believe all of everything that’s said. In the room of recitation, somebody believes this bit, somebody believes that bit, and in the patchwork of the world, the most important thing that may be enacted is a loving, supportive, confronting, life-changing “We” of “We Believe …”
This week, we released a podcast episode titled “Poetry Unbound in Conversation with Marie Howe”, where she and I talk about her Pulitzer Prize-winning collection, New and Selected Poems (published in the UK as What the Earth Seemed to Say). It was recorded as part of the online component of Greenbelt, my favourite festival.
There are many ways to enter Marie’s work, but one of them is through a door that leads to a window that leads to the world. Where are we? Who are we? What are the habits of that small animal? How are our past lives alive in us still? Who are our beloved dead that are speaking to us? What can we use our language for? Is the way the elephant mourns for her calf any different to how we mourn for each other? How can we tell the truth — to ourselves, to others? Over and over, her work makes connections: between one person and another; between a speaker and their histories; between the land, the human, and the bird; between heart and ocean; between rage and desire.
Friends, a conversation in the company of Marie Howe is always a balm. If you can make the time in the holy holidays, brew tea, sit where you can see something out of the window, and listen to what happens in you as you listen to Marie and I last August.
And then, tell us what you could see while you listened: What could you see outside the window or inside the room? What noises, what smells, what changes? What was the light doing?
There won’t be a Poetry Unbound newsletter on Sunday, December 28, but I’ll be back in the bright shining new year, on January 4. Our 10th season of Poetry Unbound begins in January.
As 2025 ends, I want to thank my colleagues: Daryl Chen, Carla Zanoni, Sparrow Murray, Chris Heagle, Andrea Provost, Bill Siegmund and all at Digital Island Studios, and the one-and-only Krista Tippett. Thanks, of course, to Marie Howe for her generous time and the delicious Greenbelt Festival for hosting this conversation.
And finally, my deepest thanks to you: for reading, for responding, for responding to the responses, for listening, for keeping things to yourself, for sharing, for folding poetry into your lives. See you in 2026!
The Latest from Poetry Unbound
Bonus Episode: “Poetry Unbound in Conversation — Marie Howe”
You can also listen on Spotify, poetryunbound.org, or wherever podcasts are found.
Poetry in the World
A list of my events: Online and in the US (Minneapolis, MN; Berkeley, CA; Washington, DC; Manhattan, Kingston, and Rhinebeck, NY; Orlando, FL; Notre Dame, IN) and the UK (Iona, Scotland)
Save the date for an online conversation between me and poet and novelist Reshma Ruia. (For more info, click on the date heading.)
January 16, Minneapolis, Minnesota
Come join me at the Hope Arts Center, where I’ll give a reading followed by a conversation with poet G.E. Patterson and a book signing. It all begins at 7 p.m. (For more info and to secure your tickets, click on the date heading.)
January 17, Minneapolis, Minnesota
I’m leading a generative workshop on the space between poetry and prayer at The Loft Literary Center at 10 a.m. (For more info and to secure your tickets, click on the date heading.)
January 29, Berkeley, California
I’ll be presenting an evening keynote at The Center for Faith and Justice. (For more info, click on the date heading.)
February 2, Washington, District of Columbia, and Online
Join poet Marilyn Nelson and me for a conversation at the Washington National Cathedral at 7 p.m ET. (For more info, click on the date heading.)
February 19, Manhattan, New York
I’m giving a lecture on storytelling and narrative poetry at The Morgan Library at 6:30 p.m. (For more info, click on the date heading.)
I’m giving a keynote address at Training Magazine’s annual exposition. (For more info, click on the date heading.)
February 26–March 1, Kingston, New York
I’m leading a weekend retreat workshop called “Poems of Longing”. (For more info, click on the date heading.)
I’ll be giving the keynote for a symposium at the Raclin Murphy Museum of Art. (For more info, click on the date heading.)
May 31–June 5, Rhinebeck, New York
This spring, I’m leading a six-day workshop at the Omega Institute. We’ll read and examine poems and also write and discuss our own. I’d love to see you there. (For more info, click on the date heading.)
June 27–July 3, 2026, Iona, Scotland
Krista and I will be leading a week of conversation (with some musical guests) on Iona, an island off an island off the west coast of Scotland. It is filled, but if you want to be on a waiting list, you can email the Saint Columba hotel by clicking on the title just above here. (For more info, click on the date heading.)
Let me find my grief, my tears, and cry awhile before I continue this comment. I just finished listening to Padraig’s conversation with Marie Howe. A long sigh, then, a joyous out breath, a bit of laughter. Thank you Padraig and Marie. Your conversation expanded my vision. Dare I say that now, at least until my fears, my demons, reassert themselves, I see everything, or at least, feel the willingness to see everything. As a man with a penis I have spent years wishing I was a woman. I was ashamed of this organ. It had a terrible reputation. What humanity has done with this penis. And to this penis. And then Marie’s poem which sings so delightfully, at least to my ears, of a much more well rounded appraisal of this organ. Surely, the penis is not to blame. It is the human mind that orchestrates such harm and damage to us all. Please, no more, blame not the penis. Our thoughts, our attitudes, so thought driven, have raped us all.
So, what do I see? Smell? Each morning now for at least a year I stand at my two living room windows, coffee in cup in hand, and recite Michael Glaser’s poem “The Presence of Trees”. At the end of the poem, recited twice for there are two windows, I glance to the left out my windows to see the actual creek, and finish the poem with the word “home”. And I am, home.
Thank you Padraig and Marie, your conversation has, at least for now, restored my sense of awe and reverence for the Word. Best, David🏮
I sit where I always sit to listen to you, Padraig. The room has three walls of windows, and outside the windows there are bushes where birds land, and five bird feeders - one has suet for the woodpecker. But yesterday as I stood watching the finches at the Nyjer feeder (there was a crowd, and a bit of a feeding frenzy), suddenly a great commotion with birds flying into the windows, into the branches of the bushes, none of them landing. Out of nowhere, out of somewhere. swooped a hawk, and inches from the window plucked a finch out of the air and took off. I was horrified at first, and felt some responsibility for the death of that finch. I thought maybe I should stop feeding the birds, because maybe I was handing them over to a predator that didn’t have to work hard to find food. But the fox that lives in the neighborhood has been eating the squirrels. And I recently ate some turkey soup. And what goes around comes around and someday I’ll be eaten by fire or dirt. Thank you for this listening gift on Solstice Day. My gratitude to you and to Marie Howe.