Poetry unbound : 50 poems to open your world /

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

In the tumult of our contemporary moment, poetry has emerged as an inviting, consoling outlet with a unique power to move and connect us, to inspire fury, tears, joy, laughter, and surprise. This generous anthology pairs fifty illuminating poems with poet and podcast host Pádraig Ó Tuama's appealing, unhurried reflections. With keen insight and warm personal anecdotes, Ó Tuama considers each poem's artistry and explores how its meaning can reach into our own lives.

Focusing mainly on poets writing today, Ó Tuama engages with a diverse array of voices that includes Ada Limón, Ilya Kaminsky, Margaret Atwood, Ocean Vuong, Layli Long Soldier, and Reginald Dwayne Betts. Natasha Trethewey meditates on miscegenation and Mississippi; Raymond Antrobus makes poetry out of the questions shot at him by an immigration officer; Martín Espada mourns his father; Marie Howe remembers and blesses her mother's body; Aimee Nezhukumatathil offers comfort to her child-self. Through these wide-ranging poems, Ó Tuama guides us on an inspiring journey to reckon with self-acceptance, history, independence, parenthood, identity, joy, and resilience.

For anyone who has wanted to try their hand at a conversation with poetry but doesn't know where to start, Poetry Unbound presents a window through which to celebrate the art of being alive.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• Introduction (p. 1)
• Wonder Woman (p. 9)
• Book of Genesis (p. 15)
• Phase One (p. 21)
• A Portable Paradise (p. 29)
• Worm (p. 35)
• Wishing Well (p. 43)
• All My Friends Are Finding New Beliefs (p. 51)
• Don't Miss Out! Book Right Now for the Journey of a Lifetime! (p. 57)
• A Blessing (p. 63)
• The Word (p. 69)
• Bullshit (p. 75)
• Some Things I Like (p. 81)
• Say My Name (p. 87)
• Miscegenation (p. 93)
• Reporting Back to Queen Isabella (p. 99)
• When You Say 'Protestors' Instead of Protectors (p. 105)
• We Lived Happily during the War (p. 111)
• Writing the camp (p. 117)
• Battlegrounds (p. 123)
• [Whereas my eyes land on the shoreline] (p. 129)
• Miami Airport (p. 135)
• Kulila (p. 143)
• Reconciliation (p. 151)
• All Bread (p. 157)
• Prayer (p. 165)
• From The Book of Hours (p. 171)
• How Prayer Works (p. 177)
• Of Course She Looked Back (p. 185)
• After the Goose that Rose like the God of Geese (p. 193)
• My Mother's Body (p. 199)
• Father (p. 205)
• Man and Boy (p. 213)
• On Receiving Father at JFK after his Long Flight from Kashmir (p. 221)
• Essay on Reentry (p. 227)
• Married Love (p. 233)
• Exorcism / Freeport (p. 241)
• 22: La Bota (p. 247)
• In Leticia's Kitchen Drawer (p. 253)
• When We Were 13, Jeff's Father Left the Needle Down on a Journey Record Before Leaving the House One Morning and Never Coming Back (p. 259)
• Leaving Early (p. 265)
• Seventh Circle of Earth (p. 271)
• Song (p. 277)
• Coconut Oil (p. 283)
• The Place Where We Are Right (p. 289)
• What You Missed that Day You Were Absent from Fourth Grade (p. 297)
• Life Drawing (p. 305)
• Consider the Hands that Write this Letter (p. 311)
• Living in the Past (p. 317)
• On Listening to Your Teacher Take Attendance (p. 325)
• Bioluminescence (p. 331)
• Notes on the Poets (p. 339)
• Acknowledgements (p. 355)
• Permission Credits (p. 359)
• About On Being (p. 367)

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

This fascinating collection began life as a podcast on Krista Tippett's On Being public-radio program; hence its intimate feeling, as if you were listening to a friend recall an interesting experience or a memory shared as a gift. With only 50 poems in 384 pages, the text focuses on Ó Tuama's personal reflections intermingled with personal memories or meditations evoked by something in the poem. With grace and insight, he demonstrates how a poem can become a part of your life, something to feed your soul, bind your wounds, and add as one more tool for your life-support utility belt. The poets are mainly contemporary, including Ada Limón, Marie Howe, and Christian Wiman, but they range back to the likes of James Wright and Rainier Rilke. Some will be familiar, but a great number of these poets will be new to most readers. Ó Tuama does the important work of introducing them to a broader audience as he gives us an opening into their wonderful words. VERDICT With his intimate tone, Ó Tuama takes poetry out of the classroom and puts it back into the hands of the reader. He thereby makes the world a better place. Recommended for poetry collections everywhere.--Herman Sutter

Publishers Weekly Review

"The poems collected in this anthology ask essential questions about how to thrive in a complicated world, about how to love when life hasn't been easy," Ó Tuama writes in his preface to this sensitive anthology that builds on his podcast of the same name. Offering keen reflections on poems by Margaret Atwood, Ilya Kaminsky, Ada Limón, and Ocean Vuong, Ó Tuama juxtaposes critical insights with appealing personal anecdotes ("There are poems I repeat to myself, almost like a hum, or a prayer, or a spell," he writes, elsewhere noting, "The first poem I wrote was an idiotic one about a ten-foot dog. I was twelve."). The book's epigraph borrows lines from "Consider the Hands that Write This Letter" by Aracelis Girmay, a poem also included in the collection: "I pray for this to be my way: sweet/ work alluded to in the body's position to its paper:/ left hand, right hand/ like an open eye, an eye closed:/ one hand flat against the trapdoor,/ the other hand knocking, knocking." Ó Tuama has succeeded in organizing a valuable introduction to poetry for those just familiarizing themselves with the form, and a timely way to renew and deepen that appreciation for seasoned readers. (Dec.)

Booklist Review

For this uniquely intimate anthology, Irish poet and theologian Tuama brings together 50 poems designed to expand the mind and soul, like "fifty little doors to open up the world of a reader." Each entry includes a snapshot anecdote that describes Tuama's personal connection to the selection, as well as a brief essay appending each poem. Tuama's unassuming prose welcomes readers into an unfettered enjoyment of poetry for the sake of introducing new ideas, new lands, and new ways of being in the world. This is evident in the eclectic gathering of poets from a wide range of backgrounds and from a variety of stages in their careers, including current Poet Laureate Ada Limón, Native Hawaiian newcomer No'u Revilla, prolific Ohioan Hanif Abdurraqib, and Vietnamese American wunderkind Ocean Vuong, to name only a few. Besides American writers, Tuama includes poets from England, Israel, Jamaica, Australia, and Iran, as well as "poets from the diaspora, colonized countries, occupied countries, poets in exile," and others. The book is ideal for novices, while poetry devotees will surely find a handful (or two!) of new poets to relish.