Welcome to Litsy!

I heard of Padraig O Tuama via On Being, and when I saw this book I had to check it out. It‘s beautiful, diverse, and just lovely. O Tuama offers 50 poems, with a brief intro to each, then he unpacks each one. He discusses how each poem works, but in a way that opens up its meaning and its possibilities, rather than just dissecting it. I slowly savored these poems, both in print & audio. (Thank you @underground_bks for recommending the audiobook!)

The Place Where We Are Right
Yehuda Amichai
(Trans. Stephen Mitchell)

From the place where we are right
flowers will never grow
in the spring.

The place where we are right
is hard and trampled
like a yard.

But doubts and loves
dig up the world
like a mole, a plow.
And a whisper will be heard in the place
where the ruined house
once stood.

—
I love this so much—it helps me stop, reconsider, and hold my opinions and beliefs more loosely.

'Our voice in my throat speaking to you now.'

It's the only time the word 'our' appears in the poem. Nowhere else. Maybe everybody said that the poet and her mother sounded alike on the telephone. Now the mother is gone, but is living in the voice of the poem, and in the voice of whomever is reading the poem. We hear her now.

#Poetry
#insomnia

This is my favorite way to experience poetry—in the company of a deeply kind, wise-hearted, warmly funny, poetry-loving friend like Pádraig Ó Tuama who here introduces each specially selected poem, mostly by poets writing today, allows it to blow your mind and break your heart, and then walks you through what makes it so special. This is a true gift for poetry lovers and the perfect introduction to poetry for anyone looking for a way in!