Radio and PodcastRadio and PodcastLive Radio & Podcasts
Poetry Unbound cover
Arts

Poetry Unbound

On Being Studios

Your poetry ritual: An immersive reading of a single poem, guided by Pádraig Ó Tuama. Unhurried, contemplative and energizing. New episodes on Monday and Friday, about 15 minutes each. Two s...

Episodes

20 of 231 episodes

Poetry Unbound Season 11 Announcement + “The Raven”

A new season of Poetry Unbound — its 11th! — will begin one month from now on Monday, November 30; episodes will be released on Mondays and...

00:11:31Oct 30, 2026

Poetry Unbound in Conversation — Peter Coleman

This episode isn’t about poetry but about another kind of art: the art of conflict resolution. In a deeply practical conversation, Pádraig Ó...

00:50:31Oct 16, 2026

Poetry Unbound in Conversation — Martín Espada

“Politics by themselves are necessary but not sufficient … [and] poetry by itself is necessary but not sufficient. We must find a way to bri...

00:55:40Oct 5, 2026

Poetry Unbound in Conversation — Amanda Quaid

After actor, dialect coach, and teacher Amanda Quaid was diagnosed with a serious illness in 2021, she responded by trying something new — s...

00:51:38Sep 18, 2026

Poetry Unbound in Conversation — Haleh Liza Gafori

Poet, translator, and musician Haleh Liza Gafori describes the revered 13th-century Persian poet Rumi as “a good pal to humanity”. As she pu...

00:57:32Sep 4, 2026

Poetry Unbound in Conversation — Adrian Matejka

“For me, if a poem doesn't swing, it's really not much of a poem,” says Adrian Matejka, author of the collection Be Easy: New and Selected P...

00:47:26Aug 21, 2026

Poetry Unbound in Conversation — Karen Leeder

After listening to this exuberant interview, you’ll retire the phrase “lost in translation” from your vocabulary. Instead, writer and schola...

00:40:41Aug 7, 2026

Poetry Unbound in Conversation — Richard Scott

“Poetry means paying attention in a different way to the world and seeing what wisdom you're given back in return for that attention,” says...

00:51:37Jul 24, 2026

Poetry Unbound in Conversation — Kimberly Campanello part 2 of 2

“It had to involve more than just a slim volume of verse,” says Kimberly Campanello about MOTHERBABYHOME, her ongoing visual poetry project...

00:38:16Jul 10, 2026

Poetry Unbound in Conversation — Kimberly Campanello part 1 of 2

“It's about seeing, through reading, whether where you are going has been or is now or will be written, or not.” This deliciously twisty lin...

00:50:12Jun 26, 2026

Poetry Unbound in Conversation — Rachel Mann and Yomi Ṣode

“Poetry should be horrifying,” says Rachel Mann. “It should be … on the edge of the edge of what could be said.” We are delighted to bring y...

00:55:31Jun 12, 2026

Poetry Unbound in Conversation — Fady Joudah

From a young age, says Palestinian American poet and physician Fady Joudah, “I had such a fascination with the way the alphabet makes music...

00:46:30May 29, 2026

Poetry Unbound in Conversation — Don McKay

“I still have the best three-point shot of any Canadian poet born before 1943” is one of the first things that acclaimed poet Don McKay says...

00:45:20May 15, 2026

Poetry Unbound Bonus — Walter de la Mare

Host Pádraig Ó Tuama shares “The Listeners” by Walter de la Mare, a favorite childhood poem of his, and offers an audio postscript to Season...

00:09:16Mar 9, 2026

Leonard Cohen — Book of Mercy “I,8”

Have you ever watched, in awe, as a skilled gymnast or skater lifts off and completes a dizzying number of revolutions in less than a second...

00:16:34Mar 6, 2026

Billy-Ray Belcourt — Subarctica

Will you leave this episode feeling uplifted, envious, curious, or something else entirely? Yes. Billy-Ray Belcourt’s poem “Subarctica” tran...

00:17:46Mar 2, 2026

Ruth Irupé Sanabria — Carne

Ruth Irupé Sanabria’s delicious and dexterous “ Carne ” begins with these lines: “I've eaten pork from / pernil to chuletas to chitterlings....

00:17:18Feb 27, 2026

Lena Khalaf Tuffaha — Dukka

Loving in the face of violence, danger, and distress is an act of defiance, as demonstrated in Lena Khalaf Tuffaha’s achingly beautiful poem...

00:15:55Feb 23, 2026

Rachel Mann — #TDOR

Rachel Mann’s “#TDOR” manages to turn a depiction of one side of a conversation about marking Trans Day of Remembrance into a poem that is b...

00:20:32Feb 20, 2026

Sanah Ahsan — Ramadan’s Greeting

Sanah Ahsan’s evocative “Ramadan’s Greeting” brings us into the thoughts and experiences of a person observing the holiest month in Islam. I...

00:15:53Feb 16, 2026