Poetry Unbound: 50 Poems to Open Your World

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.

Author: Pádraig Ó. Tuama
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Published: 12/06/2022
Pages: 384
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.22lbs
Size: 8.60h x 5.87w x 1.23d
ISBN: 9781324035473

Review Citation(s):
Library Journal Prepub Alert 07/01/2022 pg. 12
Booklist 11/01/2022 pg. 21
Library Journal 12/01/2022 pg. 108
Publishers Weekly 01/23/2023