Poetry gives language to our lives when our everyday prose is lacking. It allows us to hold up a mundane piece of existence to the light and see it in a new way.  Too often we relegate those transformative moments to whatever time we can set aside to sit down with a poetry book. On Being’s podcast, Poetry Unbound, invites us to include poetry in our routines by sharing a poem and commentary on that poem each week, along with a guiding question for the week posted on their website. Having completed their second season last fall, there are now forty-one episodes of Poetry Unbound available, with more on the way April 26th. 

When I first listened to Poetry Unbound, it was because my friend shared the episode on Christian Wiman’s “All My Friends Are Finding New Beliefs.” I love podcasts and poetry (particularly that poem), so I immediately started listening. Normally when I experience poetry, I like to read it aloud to myself to hear how the words fit together while seeing it on the page. Hearing poetry without the text to reference was a little disorienting at first, but after listening to all of Season 2 of Poetry Unbound, I’ve found host Pádraig Ó Tuama’s readings to be grounding. On Being makes all of the poems featured on the show available for reading online, so there is always the option to read along, too.

The format of Poetry Unbound provides space to experience the poem and form your own thoughts while also guiding the listener through the reading. Ó Tuama begins each episode with a quick thought about why he loves poetry that gives a rough context for why he chose that poem and goes into the first reading of the poem. After that, he reflects on what the poet is doing in the poem, giving the listener a mini poetry workshop along with some personal anecdotes. The episodes end on a second and final reading of the poem.

As I have listened to Poetry Unbound almost every day for the last month, I’ve found the routine to be almost devotional. This is similar to how On Being advertises it. The fifteen-minute episodes drop the listener into the world of the poem and can reframe their mindset of the everyday. In the malaise of routine, Poetry Unbound descends into each poem with such care that I emerged wanting to give the same care and wonder to the customs of my own life. The best example of this is the episode on Gregory Pardlo’s “Wishing Well.” As Ó Tauma explains, “Poetry bows down to unexpected human encounters, to unexpected moments, to meetings with strangers that we have—something surprising that comes out of nowhere, that we want to hold and honor and bow down to.” This was probably my favorite episode of the season. In “Wishing Well,” Pardlo tells the story of meeting a stranger outside the Met Museum. It’s a scenario we’ve all experienced—unwanted conversation and uncertainty of what the stranger will do or say next. This stranger asks if the water fountain is a wishing well and then takes out two pennies and pulls Pardlo into making a wish.

“. . . hey my man I’m going

to make a wish for you too.

I am laughing now so what you want

me to sign a waiver? He laughs along ain’t

say all that he says but you do have to

hold my hand.             And close your eyes.”

The poem goes on to describe an otherworldly experience after the poet closes his eyes: “I hear the coins blink against / the surface and I cough up daylight like I’ve just / been dragged ashore.” 

Pardlo’s experience with this stranger brought him out of his own private pain because he was willing to step into that moment, however skeptically. This episode made me want to look for small treasures like this in my daily life. Poetry, as with any meditation or prayer practice, can slice open your day to reveal new possibilities, and that’s what I have loved so much about Poetry Unbound.