
SHARE THIS EMAIL
Dear friends,
When I was 13, a teacher announced to us that our Irish class would
be visited by a poet. Full of poetry as our curriculum was, I hadn’t
ever really imagined that a poet could be alive. Anyway, I was 13, and
happy to have a distraction. That Thursday, into the class swept Nuala
Ní Dhomhnaill. I remember her clearly. She was dressed in greens and
blues and silvers with scarves and layers. Her hair was long and deep
red. She only spoke in Irish — she committed never to publish in
English — and told us about how her poems started, and a little bit
about editing. This was a living poet. I was transfixed.
It was the late 1980s, and the education authorities had decided
there needed to be more gender representation in literature. Nuala Ní
Dhomhnaill’s face was on the front cover of our poetry textbook. I
loved that book. As a poet, Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill is committed to
reminding people about the memories they carry in themselves: of
ancestors, languages, homes, exiles, and places.
Krista’s interview
with Richard Blanco this week is, in many ways, a consideration of
the homes we carry in us. Homes: plural, not singular. Blanco
is a Cuban American poet who was born in Spain while his family was in
exile. By the time he was 45 days old, he had stories of Cuba, Spain,
and America in him. As a civil engineer and a poet, he is also fluent
in the work of art and the work of industry. Elections can force
populations to consider their belonging as a singular, but this
beautiful interview with Richard Blanco reminds us of how many stories
form us and hold us.
Our stories of belonging are not just about our own personal
experience, they are also about place. Richard Blanco’s poem “Complaint
of El Río Grande” is a meditation — spoken in the voice of that
great river that forms the border between the U.S. and Mexico — on how
a river knows its own belonging, and how it should be a place of
nurture and life, not division and death. The poem featured in this
week’s Poetry Unbound episode “Ceist na Teangan (The Language
Issue)" from Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill echoes this too. In
this poem — a reflection on how Moses’ mother placed him in a
basket in a river, hoping that someone would save him — it is the
daughter of the oppressor Pharaoh who saves the baby. Nuala Ní
Dhomhnaill considers the Irish language like that baby — in need of
saving, perhaps by strangers and strange ways.
Our home is also in our body, as Aracelis Girmay reminds us. In her
poem “Consider
the Hands that Write this Letter,” she thinks of her two hands —
one hand pushing a pen, the other hand still. Or one hand leading a
dance, another hand resting on a shoulder. One hand opening a door,
the other hand keeping it closed. Our bodies are a home with many
functions: opening, closing, accepting, resisting, dancing, working.
Our bodies' languages are plural; our belongings too.

Beir
bua,
Pádraig Ó Tuama host of Poetry
Unbound
SHARE THIS EMAIL
This Week at The On Being Project
Our Latest Episode

On Being with Krista
Tippett
Richard Blanco “How
to Love a Country”
Declaration of Interdependence: “We’re
the promise of one people, one breath declaring to one another: I see
you. I need you. I am you.”
Listen on: Apple
Podcasts Google
Podcasts Spotify Our
Website

Poetry Unbound
Monday Aracelis
Girmay Consider
the Hands that Write this Letter
A poem that asks us to slow down and
pay attention to the way that we hold our body as we move.
Friday Nuala Ní
Dhomhnaill Ceist
na Teangan (The Language Issue)
A poem considering the Irish language
and how its continuity and survival depends on help and kindness from
unexpected allies.
Listen on: Apple
Podcasts Google
Podcasts Spotify Our
Website
Lucas Johnson Named Civil
Society Fellow
We’re thrilled that Lucas Johnson,
executive director of The On Being Project’s Civil Conversations &
Social Healing team, was named as a 2021
Civil Society Fellow. The fellowship, part of the Aspen Global
Leadership Network, aims to prepare and engage the next generation of
community and civic leaders, activists and problem-solvers from across
the political spectrum. Congrats, Lucas!
Poetry Film: Ars Poetica #100:
I Believe

Watch this short film by Jocie Juritz featuring Elizabeth
Alexander’s poem "Ars
Poetica #100: I Believe."
Staff Recommendations

Listen | Home
Cooking Podcast Samin Nosrat and
Hrishikesh Hirway started this podcast at the beginning of the
pandemic and it has been a wonderful companion throughout. Each
episode is a mix of recipe ideas, cooking lessons, and a lot (I mean,
a lot) of puns. It’s the perfect thing to listen to if you need to
smile for an hour. — Serri Graslie, Executive Director
C&D
Watch | The
Queen's Gambit In this Netflix mini series, a genius
woman chess player struggles with addiction while trying to become the
greatest chess player in the world. I can’t stop watching! —
Suzette Burley, Hospitality Coordinator
Read | When
the Light of the World was Subdued, Our Songs Came
Through WW Norton has just released this book, an
anthology of Native Nations poetry, gathering over 160 poets,
representing almost 100 indigenous nations. Edited by Joy Harjo,
LeAnne Howe and Jennifer Elise Foerster, this remarkable anthology
features poems from traditional oral literatures and emerging poets. —
Pádraig Ó Tuama, host of Poetry Unbound
|