The Time underneath Time

and what gives life

Dear friends,

I loved reading your poems — and your reflection on each other’s poems — this last week. Thank you for sharing and for the landscapes of green and dark and feeling you shared.

It’s been a week of news in the world of poetry — congrats to Raúl Zirita, winner of the lifetime recognition award from Griffin, and to Marianne Boruch, winner of the Jackson prize. I’ll be interviewing them both for future episodes of Poetry Unbound In Conversation.

Speaking of which, we have a new season of Poetry Unbound In Conversation starting later this week. On Friday, my interview with Don McKay (remember him from the episode “Neanderthal Dig”?), recorded a few years ago, will be released. And then interviews with Fady Joudah, Yomi Ṣode, and Rachel Mann, will follow, along with a two-episode revisiting of hell in the company of the brilliant Kimberly Campanello. They’ll be released every other Friday, and I’ll keep you updated here.

Sunlight on the Rhinecliff train station floor, March 2026. Photo by Pádraig Ó Tuama

So often a good idea for a poem comes at a bad time: you’re in work, or in a conversation, or in a moment of shock or grief. The more you practice making space for these ideas — even in strange moments — the more you’ll find they occur. The first draft is only the first draft, of course, and it is often the later editions and editing where the real writing happens, but the particular moment is potent, like a small seed frozen in frost that will later turn into a snapdragon.

Once, I was infuriated at something someone else did. I felt righteous in my anger — a dangerous energetic stew for me. What could be done with the energy? In that particular moment, I wrote a poem I’m still pleased with, 10 years later. I often do not find the capacity, try as I might, to turn from the enraging to what will engage.

I think I believe that every poem is about time, even its composition is a demonstration of that. What in the writing of a poem could have drawn attention away? What perversion of language is occurring that could be like quicksand for your imagination? What is that attention-giving doing to us? Is there something else possible, even in the midst of crisis? Even in times of distress, can we give our mind and language and landscape to something that might endure rather than decay? It’s not easy. But it feels worthwhile.

The question this week is the following: How can you take the energy of rage and turn it into something creative? A poem is creative, of course. Other things also: a protest; a policy written or promoted. (Things that don’t begin with “p” are permissible as well.) I look forward to your replies.

Here’s the poem I wrote those years ago. These days, I forget what the original anger was because the poem takes me somewhere else.

Makebelieve

And on the first day
God made
something up. 

Then everything came along:
seconds, sex and 
beasts and breath and rabies;
hunger, healing, 
lust and lust’s rejections;
swarming things that swarm
inside the dirt;
girth and grind 
and grit and shit and all shit’s functions;
rings inside the tree trunk 
and branches broken by the snow;
pigs’ hearts and stars, 
mystery, suspense and stingrays;
insects, blood
and interests and death;
eventually, us 
with all our viruses, laments and curiosities;
all our songs and stories;
and our songs about the stories we’ve forgotten;
and all that we’ve forgotten we’ve forgotten.

God looked for something 
to hold it all together. Nothing
came to mind.

From Love Between Men, coming September 2026 from Copper Canyon Press and CHEERIO

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Poetry in the World

A list of my events: Online and in the U.S. (Manhattan and Rhinebeck, NY; Santa Fe, NM) and Scotland (Iona)

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May 11, Manhattan, New York

For those of you in New York City: Join poet, playwright, and actress Amanda Quaid and myself for a live recording of Poetry Unbound In Conversation at The Morgan Library & Museum, beginning at 6 p.m. (For more info, click on the date heading.)

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May 31–June 5, Rhinebeck, New York

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.) And if you can’t join it, you might enjoy Orion’s Environmental Writers’ Workshop, taught by a team that includes past Poetry Unbound poet Michael Kleber-Diggs. Learn more about the Environmental Writers’ Workshop — which takes place at Omega from June 14–19 — here.

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June 27–July 3, 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 the wait list, you can email the Saint Columba hotel by clicking on the title just above here. (For more info, click on the date heading.)

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August 9–13, Santa Fe, New Mexico

I’m leading a four-day intensive workshop at Modern Elder Academy called “Poetry as a Common Language”. We’ll read, write, and discuss poems on finding and deepening connection. (For more information, click on the date heading.)

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October 13, Online

I’ll be leading a virtual craft intensive on poetry and desire through Poets House, beginning at 6 p.m. ET. (For more info, click on the date heading.)