Dear friends,
Well, this week marked the final episodes of the seventh season of Poetry Unbound (we’ll be back in the winter with season eight). Our first poem this week was from Jenny Mitchell’s brilliant book, Resurrection of a Black Man, a book I found utterly captivating and infuriating and moving. In art and precision and language and insight, it’s extraordinary. And on Friday, we finished the season with a poem — “They Are Building A Hospital” — from the mighty
. I wrote to Maya a few weeks ago, asking if she’d kindly give some thoughts about the poem from herself: about the meadow where the temporary Covid hospital was built; about Covid-art; about teaching poetry… and her replies are below. Her books of poetry are fantastic, with this poem being in her most recent, Wound Is the Origin of Wonder. She’s got a Substack I read regularly too, where she explores the work of a poet.I am giving a talk tomorrow about poetry to a group of psychologists and therapists about the Why of poetry. While there are a lot of ways to explore it, it is also unexplorable. I turn to poetry because I need to. I turn to songwriter-poet Sinéad O’Connor (more about her below) because there is no other choice. I turn to the work of wonder that art is — in rage and making and unmaking and remaking — because it feels as fundamental as breathing is. Maya C. Popa does, too: just have a read of her responses to these brief questions:
Pádraig Ó Tuama: You live near Central Park, and your poem “They Are Building A Hospital” was about that exact event: a temporary Covid hospital being built in that great park, where you could see it from your home. What’s there now?
Maya C. Popa: For a time after the park was reopened, I found it very difficult to visit the meadow. The grass had been partitioned and razed to accommodate the medical tents, and there was caution tape everywhere, leaving the field in disuse as it grew back. In that condition, it was impossible to look at the field without being reminded of what had been there, and why.
Today, it looks, rather remarkably, like nothing ever happened. The grass has grown back, and families, lovers, children, sunbathers, and dogs frolic in it. I very gratefully spend a portion of each day there. It’s a tremendous reminder of perseverance, of the possibility of a return to gentleness and joy, even when such return seems impossible.
P: Did you have reluctance about writing Covid poems? Or a desire to do it? Or something else? Why might that have been?
M: I had to write about the circumstances. I did not, of course, have to publish the four of five poems that allude to the pandemic, never by name. I didn’t use the word “virus,” either. I didn’t feel drawn to that language; what most interested me in all of this was the tension between a forced stillness and restlessness. The duress and anxiety of a standstill. I wanted to track how it felt to a mind (my own) experiencing those conditions. These feelings — restlessness, paralyzing fear, dread — always existed within us; they were not altogether particular to the pandemic, but they were widespread and pronounced at the height of it, particularly before the availability of a vaccine. A long poem in the book about those months called “Pestilence” refers to “the unimaginable repeatedly imagined.” That was the basis of my interest, imagining the unimaginable in all the ways it seemed to present itself.
P: You teach poetry, as well as review it, as well as write it. Poetry, poetry, poetry. What other forms of art do you turn to, or make?
M: I don’t formally practice any other art form, except for music. I sang in church choirs, then school choirs, then chamber choruses from my early school years through college. I don’t sing with a group now, but as many writers do, I turn to and depend on music. I also love looking at paintings — the more idiosyncratic the better. An exhibit in D.C. on the Little Ice Age in Dutch 17th century painting inspired a number of poems. It is also where I learned about medlars, a fruit cultivated since Roman times (and often found in Dutch painting) that can only be eaten after a frost.
P: In this week’s edition of the Poetry Unbound Substack, I mention Sinéad O’Connor, whose work I’ve loved for decades. I’m wondering who the songwriter-poets were for you?
M: I discovered Rufus Wainwright’s music in high school, and many of my earliest poems were inspired by the cadence of his lyrics in his early albums. I still feel tremendously grateful for that education.
P: Making a Poetry Unbound episode is always a small experiment in point of view… I try to read carefully, and witness to what the poem is doing (in me, on the page, in audio). But I don’t try to get the poem “right” — because even the poet may not know exactly why they needed to write the poem. All of this is a long way of saying: is there anything else you want to add to what was said about your poem in the episode?
M: Just my profound gratitude to be read as closely, compassionately, cleverly, and generously as you have done here.
That was the basis of my interest, imagining the unimaginable in all the ways it seemed to present itself.
Thanks to Maya for her replies. Before finishing, it’s hard not to say something in honour of Sinéad O’Connor, whose untimely death this week is somewhat of a National Mourning in Ireland. I’ve been listening since her first album, and my teenage years were influenced by her artistry, courage, skill, voice, and brilliance. When she ripped up the picture of the Pope on an American television programme in 1992, it was clear why: revelations about the Catholic Church’s complicity in covering up stories of abuse were already in the media. It always amazed me that it was controversial, even as a (then) very devout Catholic. She was simply telling the truth. Sinéad wasn’t just someone who wrote, she was an artist: her life — in complicated and cathartic and captivating ways — was art. She bore that, with the burden and the responsibility of it, and I have never stopped admiring her. While the poets of Ireland — Patrick Kavanagh, W.B. Yeats, Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill, Máire Mhac An tSaoí — were huge influences on my interest in poetry during those growing years, songwriters were, too: Sinéad high among them. I copied her lyrics into notebooks and figured them out on the guitar.
So, in honour of poets who see, who write to make their life a witness to the strange work of making and wonder in us, I offer this question:
What songwriters have been the poets of your life?
You already have one of my answers to that question (there are others, too: The Waterboys, Liam Ó Maonlaoí, Tanita Tikaram, Michelle Shocked, Leonard Cohen, Annie Lennox, Joan Armatrading, Paul Simon, Tracy Chapman, Del Amitri… the list goes on). I’ll look forward to reading your answers! — and my deepest thanks for your listening to this season, and your gorgeous responses in the comments.
Pádraig
PS: This Poetry Unbound season is over, but this Substack continues! There’ll be a few Poetry Unbound extras in your podcast feed in August: interviews from last year’s brilliant Dodge Poetry Festival. And On Being is back with a new season this autumn. Poetry Unbound will be back for our eighth season in the winter.
The Latest from Poetry Unbound
Episodes 19 & 20
You can also listen on Spotify, poetryunbound.org, or wherever podcasts are found.
Poetry In the World
ONLINE
I’ll be teaching a five-part online course this autumn — 5pm EST, on Sunday nights: Oct 8, 15, 22, 20, and Nov 5 — on literary readings of peculiar biblical texts. I approach the art of these stories in deep respect for the artistry of the — mostly anonymous — original writers. This will be an exploration of art, and it’s mostly for those who wish to enjoy a small safari through powerful literature (and come out alive). Registration and details here.
U.S.A.
Printers Row Literary Festival | Chicago, IL
While the exact time isn’t on the website yet, I’ll be interviewing Charif Shanahan on the 9th of September at the Printers Row Lit Fest in Chicago. Keep an eye on their website for the time and location.
Open Your World with Poetry | Rhinebeck, NY
I’ll be back at the Omega Institute in New York leading another weeklong retreat October 1-6. Discussions, readings, and writing sessions exploring the place of poetry, craft, language, and form in our lives. Details, registration, and information about scholarships here.
SCOTLAND
“Poetry, Spirit and Survival” | Island of Iona, Scotland
I’ll be leading a retreat March 13-18, 2024. Send a note through the event page to indicate your initial interest here, with a more detailed schedule to come.
Sinéad, Sinéad, Sinéad, Sinéad, Sinéad. Ooooooof. So sad. At this very moment, I only want to respond with - Sinéad. I could only listen to her all week, and listening to each song, I found myself back in a memory (playing "Troy" over and over again in my HS days - connecting with rage, identifying with the phoenix from that very time, later to discover it's association with my zodiac sign.
You will rise / You'll return / The Phoenix from the flame / You will learn / You will rise / You'll return/ Being what you are .... l return / The Phoenix from the flame / I have learned / I will rise / And you'll see me return / Being what I am ...
And unsure what "Drink Before the War" did in me, but something like going to the depths of the ocean that it touched into, like reaching in and touching a combination of keys on a piano, a chord, that created such a sound of beauty and depth and melancholy and comfort too, that I didn't even realize was there in me. I suppose this is what her songs, the lyrics, and my god, my god, her voice, did in me).
From "Black Boys on Mopeds" - Remember what I told you / If they hated me they will hate you... / These are dangerous days / To say what you feel is to dig your own grave," I felt validated. When the "Gulf War" started, I was in HS, conservative, flag-waving, largely ignorant of the world outside, and I began to speak out against the war and was called a "commie bitch." When I refused to stand up for or say the pledge of allegiance, which was a ritual at the start of each day, I was called down to the principal's office to be questioned, I took comfort and felt kinship with Sinéad - even if my HS classmates couldn't tolerate or understand my views, Sinéad helped me feel part of something larger.
So many many of her songs... the lyrics, but also the movement of her voice, all poetry!
I don't know no pain / I feel no shame, from "Mandinka"
Help me to help you to behold you, from "Feel So Different"
And later - I have a universe inside me / Where I can go and spirit guides me / There I can ask oh any question / I get the answers if I listen / I have a healing room inside me / The loving healers there they feed me / They make me happy with their laughter / They kiss and tell me I'm their daughter / I'm their daughter, from "Healing Room"
All the pain that you have known / All the violence in your soul / All the wrong things you have done / I will take from you when I come / All mistakes made in distress / All your unhappiness / I will take away with my kiss, yes / I will give you tenderness / For child I am so glad I found you / Although my arms have always been around you / Sweet bird although you did not see me / I saw you / And / I'm here to mother you, from "This is to Mother You"
And - I wanted to change the world / But I could not even change my underwear, from "Queen of Denmark."
Ohh, Sinéad O'Connor. Brave, brilliant, tender, fierce. Thank you thank you thank you thank you... for through your music, "thank you for loving me... thank you for hearing me... thank you for seeing me... thank you for helping me." May you be held in the arms of boundless love and compassion as you journey on... I am imagining you now dancing and singing with kindred spirits who have loved you, admired you, stood with you - who were not afraid to say so - all along.
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Thank you so much Pádraig for both poems this week, and for this incredible podcast. I will mention one more songwriter poet. When my dad was taken to the emergency room on June 11th of this year, with a life threatening heart rate, and I was with him in the hospital, by day 3, losing my own mind due to lack of sleep and the circumstances, I decided to see if maybe there was an interview or talk by you, that might soothe me as I tried to get a little sleep but also still be alert, on the chair beside my Dad's hospital bed. And I guess angels exist, as I found this song, and these words - yours - from your song, "Maranatha" and this literally, literally became the soothing balm that helped keep me going that night, and in the following days. The first time I listened, I sobbed, full body sobs, a needed catharsis. And then a balm, more release, a balm again, and release, a 'real sea'... a balm.
"You are my strength and I am weak.
Maranatha.
I've given up sometimes when I've been tired.
Does it move you?
I've fucked it up so many times.
Alleluia. "
I’m responding from my hotel bed after two days of the Newport Folk Festival (and have the aching legs and back to show for it). I so appreciate you asking this and Maya’s reflection that so many writers turn to music. That certainly is true for me.
I love so many of the artists you mention. To your list of brilliance, I would add: Joni Mitchell, Laura Marling, Patty Griffin, John Prine, Joy Oladokun (a young addition, wonderful), The Indigo Girls, Hurray for the Riff Raff/Alynda Segarra, and must double-click on Joan Armatrading and Tracy Chapman from your list. I feel like I could go on for days, so that’s merely a sampling. I am generally most appreciative of the poetic lyricism of women, which I don’t realize until I write out a list like this. I’m looking forward to reading others’ responses and am wishing you a beautiful Sunday.