The Spiritual Life of World Poetry on St. Patrick's Day and Every Day

I've been obsessed with this collection of poetry called Poetry Unbound: 50 Poems to Open Your World by Pádraig Ó Tuama. I bought the audiobook for a trip knowing nothing more than the title.

From my journal: On the plane/close my eyes/relax my hands/ press play. It's familiar words, my former poetry teacher, mystical, brilliant. She is speaking to me. Her voice/not her voice/ every voice: 

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.

- Aracelis Girmay.

Her class was just as magical as those words. Poetry was a place both sweet and haunting. It makes us question, think and feel.   Pádraig Ó Tuama chose poets from all around the world who accomplish all that. We are different. We are the same.

I have studied under, watched, read and listened to most of the poets in this anthology.  Today is St. Patrick's Day and I have made a habit of listening to Irish poetry on this day.  But I will pause that habit and listen to poems spoken with an Irish accent instead.  Pádraig Ó Tuama's voice is so lyric and wise.  Another quote:

... in the end we go to poetry for one reason, so that we

might more fully inhabit our lives and the world in which

we live them, and that if we more fully inhabit these

things, we might be less apt to destroy both.

- Christian Wiman

Yes. I agree. Pick up a book of poems. Open your world.

With love & humanity,

Stef