Poetry Unbound

Is there life after death? This poem says yes: where one life is part of a cycle of life that continues. Michael Kleber-Diggs is a poet, essayist, literary critic, and arts educator. His debut poetry collection, Worldly Things (Milkweed Editions 2021), won the Max Ritvo Poetry Prize, the 2022 Hefner Heitz Kansas Book Award in Poetry, the 2022 Balcones Poetry Prize, and was a finalist for the 2022 Minnesota Book Award. Since 2016, Michael has been an instructor with the Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop. He also teaches Creative Writing in Augsburg University’s low-res MFA program and at Saint Paul Conservatory for Performing Artists. Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.We’re pleased to offer Michael Kleber-Diggs's poem, and invite you to connect with Poetry Unbound throughout this season.Pre-order the forthcoming book Poetry Unbound: 50 Poems to Open Your World and join us in our new conversational space on Substack.

A person is lost, and in panic. A calm voice says strangely comforting things. David Wagoner is the author of 24 poetry collections and 10 novels. He is the recipient of two Pushcart Prizes (1977 and 1983) and the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize (1991). Wagoner’s final collection of poetry, After the Point of No Return, was published by Copper Canyon Press in 2012.Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.We’re pleased to offer David Wagoner’s poem, and invite you to connect with Poetry Unbound throughout this season.Pre-order the forthcoming book Poetry Unbound: 50 Poems to Open Your World and join us in our new conversational space on Substack.

Poetry Unbound with host Pádraig Ó Tuama is back on Monday, September 26. Featured poets in this season include Rumi, Fiona Benson, Michael Kleber-Diggs, Victoria Adukwei Bulley, and many more. New episodes released every Monday and Friday through December 16.Follow us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Overcast, or wherever you listen.

How far would you go for great love? And what distances would you cross? Yu Xiuhua is a poet from Hengdian, in Hubei, China. She became well known in 2014 with her online poem “Crossing Half of China to Sleep with You.” In 2015, her debut book sold fifteen thousand copies in one day. The New York Times named her one of the eleven most courageous women around the world in 2017.Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.We’re pleased to offer Yu Xiuhua’s poem, and invite you to sign up here for the latest from Poetry Unbound.

When all eyes seem to lock on you, how do you cope with self-consciousness? How do you look back? Andy Jackson is a poet preoccupied with difference and embodiment. His first published book of poems, Among the Regulars, was shortlisted for the 2011 Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry. Andy’s most recent poetry collection is Human Looking (Giramondo, 2021), shortlisted for the Victorian Premier’s Prize for Poetry. As he notes on his website, "these autobiographical and biographical poems speak with the voices of the disabled and disfigured, in myth, art, history and the present moment."Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.We’re pleased to offer Andy Jackson’s poem, and invite you to sign up here for the latest from Poetry Unbound.

Life can feel exhausting sometimes: how do you find rest? Tiana Clark is the author of the poetry collection, I Can’t Talk About the Trees Without the Blood (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2018), winner of the 2017 Agnes Lynch Starrett Prize, and Equilibrium (Bull City Press, 2016), selected by Afaa Michael Weaver for the 2016 Frost Place Chapbook Competition.Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.We’re pleased to offer Tiana Clark’s poem, and invite you to sign up here for the latest from Poetry Unbound.

Sometimes when your world changes, it seems like everything turns towards you, fresh, new, and curious. Joshua Bennett is the author of The Sobbing School—which was a National Poetry Series selection and a finalist for an NAACP Image Award. He is also the author of Being Property Once Myself, Owed, The Study of Human Life, and Spoken Word: A Cultural History, which is forthcoming from Knopf. He has received fellowships and awards from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Whiting Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Society of Fellows at Harvard University. He is a Professor of English at Dartmouth College.Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.We’re pleased to offer Joshua Bennett’s poem, and invite you to sign up here for the latest from Poetry Unbound.

How would you tell your own creation myth? Who — or what — would be in it? Abigail Chabitnoy is the author of How to Dress a Fish (Wesleyan 2019), winner of the 2020 Colorado Book Award for Poetry and shortlisted in the international category of the 2020 Griffin Prize for Poetry. Most recently, she was the recipient of the Witter Bynner Funded Native Poet Residency at Elsewhere Studios in Paonia, CO, and is a mentor for the Institute of American Indian Arts MFA in Creative Writing. She is a Koniag descendant and member of the Tangirnaq Native Village in Kodiak. Her upcoming collection, In the Current Where Drowning Is Beautiful, will be out in Fall 2022.Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.We’re pleased to offer Abigail Chabitnoy’s poem, and invite you to sign up here for the latest from Poetry Unbound. 

In the face of wonder, we can sometimes lose ourselves. M. Soledad Caballero is Professor of English and chair of the Women’s Gender and Sexuality Studies Program at Allegheny College. Her first collection, titled I Was a Bell, won the 2019 Benjamin Saltman Poetry Award. Her scholarly work focuses on British Romanticism, travel writing, post-colonial literatures, Women’s Gender and Sexuality Studies, and interdisciplinarity. She splits her time between Pittsburgh and Meadville, Pennsylvania.Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.We’re pleased to offer M. Soledad Caballero’s poem, and invite you to sign up here for the latest from Poetry Unbound.

Rafiq Kathwari, recipient of the Patrick Kavanagh Award and author of a poem, discusses the significance of letters, explores a poem about the partition of India and his mother's experience, and delves into the mental health effects of partition on his family.