#pádraig ó tuama

[firstfullmoon]

Pádraig Ó Tuama, “The Lifeline”

[luthienne]

Pádraig Ó Tuama, on Rita Dove's poem "Eurydice, Turning" as featured in On Being: Poetry Unbound

[iscariotapologist]

pádraig ó tuama

[kitchen-light]

[Paul] Celan, whose parents were murdered at a camp in the Transnistria Governorate, translated Shakespeare while interned in a ghetto. For him, language was a project to be wrestled with. He believed it was possible for language to make something happen; and even if it didn’t make something happen, then at least it was worthwhile trying. He held people to account for loose language (his short correspondence with Heidegger, that phenomenologist, are extraordinary in their critique), and demanded that attention be paid to the impact that words can have in public.

Pádraig Ó Tuama, from his essay “The possibilities of language”, published at the Poetry Unbound substack, March 26, 2023

[lunchboxpoems]

THE LIFELINE

Here is what I know: when 

that bell tolls again, I 

need to go and make something,

anything: a poem, a pie, a terrible

scarf with my terrible knitting, I 

need to write a letter, remind myself

of any little lifeline around me.

When death sounds, I forget most

of what I learnt before. I go below. 

I compare my echoes with other people’s 

happiness. I carve that hole in my own 

chest again, pull out all my organs once

again, wonder if they’ll ever work again

stuff them back again. Begin. Again.

PÁDRAIG Ó TUAMA

[dk-thrive]

So much lurking in the silence of a poem and so much present in the text of it.

Desire, I think, is a portal where we look at the thing we want, but we also look at the other things that are gathered around that. And I don’t think I know of any better vehicle for holding all that together than poetry. In the lines of poetry, there’s so much said and so much implied, so much lurking in the silence of a poem and so much present in the text of it.

— Pádraig Ó Tuama, from the Poetry Unbound Podcast, “Yu Xiuhua | Crossing Half of China to Sleep with You” (via Poetry of Witness and Provocation)

[trenchandwhite]

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Someone for everyone in Brooklyn’s holy shop.

[Pádraig Ó Tuama]

* * * *

“Because here's something else that's weird but true: in the day-to day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship—be it JC or Allah, be it YHWH or the Wiccan Mother Goddess, or the Four Noble Truths, or some inviolable set of ethical principles—is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough. It's the truth. Worship your body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly. And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally grieve you. On one level, we all know this stuff already. It's been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, epigrams, parables; the skeleton of every great story. The whole trick is keeping the truth up front in daily consciousness.” ― David Foster Wallace , This Is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered on a Significant Occasion, about Living a Compassionate Life

+

“Never touch your idols: the gilding will stick to your fingers."

(Il ne faut pas toucher aux idoles: la dorure en reste aux mains.)” ― Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary

[womancorpse]

“It can be difficult to be kind to yourself. Even writing those words, I feel awkward, as if kindness towards myself is a luxury. Sometimes a poem helps me to step outside myself and let some wiser voice speak back to me, looking at my own failures with clear eyes, offering understanding and compassion. This, too, is a certain kind of bravery.” Poetry Unbound: 50 Poems to Open Your World, Pádraig Ó Tuama

[rustbeltjessie]

Pádraig Ó Tuama, from Poetry Unbound: 50 Poems to Open Your World (W.W. Norton & Company, 2023)

If I’m ever editing a poem - of mine, or someone else’s - I start by stripping out words. All the adjectives go, and the adverbs. Then any section where the poem’s telling me what to feel...they go too. I want to see the structure of the poem, to know what its intelligence is, to know its hunger. Only then, seeing its bones, can I know what needs to go back in. Sometimes it’s nothing: a poem can tell you many things by showing you only a few.

[gender0bender]

The poem “Jesus Desiring” by Pádraig Ó Tuama over pictures of Russian Orthodox worship.

Image descriptions:

A black and white halftone of a photograph of a Russian Orthodox nun lighting a candle in front of a large ikona of the crucifixion. There is white text on the image reading “It’s the desexing that bothers me- as if I never had a boner or some lust.”

A black and white halftone of a photograph of a woman wearing a platochik kissing a crucifix held up by a priest. There is white text on the image reading “as if I had so much of God’s business to consider that I never wanted kisses“

A black and white halftone of a photograph of a Russian Orthodox priest stroking a wooden icon depicting Mary holding Jesus, with white on it reading “ or a nail run down my back.”

A black and white halftone of a photograph of a Russian Orthodox priest entering the sanctuary at the back of a church, with an ikona of Christ on the right side. There is white text over the image reading “I woke every morning the way men wake every morning.”

A black and white halftone of a photograph of a woman kissing the base of a crucifix, with white text on the image reading “I sought some comfort in some touch and thought that much could be achieved if people made more love more often.“

A black and white halftone of a photograph of a woman leaning her forehead against an ikona in a church, there is white text on the image reading “I think I’d have made a pretty average father, by which I meanokay,”

A black and white halftone of a photograph of a woman wearing a platochik standing in front of the ikon covered wall seperating the sanctuary from the rest of the church. There is white text above her that reads “by which I mean I wish.”

A black and white halftone of a photograph of a man holding up an icon in a jewelled case. There is white text above him that reads “I would like to age and watch my children grow.”

A black and white halftone of a photograph of an ikona of the crucifixion with white text on it reading “I would like to hold on to my body.” End description.

[firstfullmoon]

twin peaks “there is a sadness in this world” / richard jackson “sometimes I don’t know how to live in the world. why is there always this scent of sorrow?” / hayden carruth “I had always been aware that the universe is sad; everything in it, animate or inanimate, the wild creatures, the stones, the stars, was enveloped in the great sadness, pervaded by it” / pádraig ó tuama “not all sadness comes from you, but sometimes you are just wearing the world’s sadness for a while and trying to figure out what to do with that” / ada limón “there is a solitude in this world I cannot pierce” / rainer maria rilke “don’t be afraid to suffer—take your heaviness and give it back to the earth’s own weight; the mountains are heavy, the oceans are heavy”

[milkboydotnet]

In the first shock of sadness after someone’s death, I often need poems that remind me of what it is to be alive, or poems that echo the physical sensation of loss. The more I’ve loved someone the more empty life feels without them. But eventually, grief makes space for other feelings too. Gratitude returns: the gift of having loved someone – and having been loved back – doesn’t replace grief, but it does accompany it. Some poems help me as I mix gratitude in with grief; I’ll treasure those poems forever.

Pádraig Ó Tuama, Poetry Unbound: 50 Poems to Open Your World

[therumpus]

Sketch Book Reviews: Poetry Unbound by Pádraig Ó Tuama

Written and illustrated by Kateri Kramer

"This book is so ridiculously good and is perfect for National Poetry Month! Poetry Unbound: 50 Poems to Open Your World is a collection of poems by 50 different writers and accompanying interpretation. It covers a wide range of topics, forms, and writing styles making it a fantastic read for poetry-lovers and reluctant poetry-readers alike."

[kitchen-light]

It can be hard to know, sometimes, what to do with experiences that are a burden. (Safety is the first destination to seek, though; art can wait.) Art does not promise solutions, but art can be one of the ways for reflecting on what time, memory, feeling, craft, creativity, change, and endings are doing in the psyche of the maker. 

Pádraig Ó Tuama, from "Turning to Art", on the Poetry Unbound substack, published January 7, 2024

[ukdamo]

[ t h e ] n o r t h [ e r n ] [ o f ] i r e l a n d

Padraig Ó Tuama

It is both a dignity and

a difficulty

to live between these

names,

perceiving politics

in the syntax of

the state.

And at the end of the day,

the reality is

that whether we

change

or whether we stay

the same

these questions will

remain.

Who are we

to be

with one

another?

and

How are we

to be

with one

another?

and

What to do

with all those memories

of all those funerals?

and

What about those present

whose past was blasted

far beyond their

future?

I wake.

You wake.

She wakes.

He wakes.

They wake.

We Wake

and take

this troubled beauty forward.