“... Waves, / to me, have always looked like the ocean petting / the beach. There there, it consoles. Hear hear, / I approve. As in it’s clear who domesticated who.” That’s a taste of Joseph Kidney’s work — wry, poignant, keenly observant of the natural world — from one of the poems in his collection, Devotional Forensics, which received the 2026 Griffin Poetry Canadian First Book Prize. Kidney is also a scholar of Renaissance literature and lecturer at Stanford University. In this reflective conversation, he and Pádraig Ó Tuama speak about his appreciation of birds, the physicality and musicality that he strives to bring to his verse, and his love of “false etymlogies”.

We invite you to subscribe to Pádraig’s weekly Poetry Unbound Substack, read the Poetry Unbound books and his newest work, Kitchen Hymns, or listen to all our Poetry Unbound episodes.

Joseph Kidney is the author of the collection Devotional Forensics, which was published in 2025 by icehouse poetry and Goose Lane Editions. It received the 2026 Griffin Poetry Canadian First Book Prize. Kidney currently lectures at Stanford University in the U.S.

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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 Fridays. Before then, there will be two more Poetry Unbound In Conversation episodes. For now, in recognition of Halloween, Pádraig Ó Tuama reads aloud Edgar Allen Poe’s classic poem “The Raven.”

We invite you to subscribe to Pádraig’s weekly Poetry Unbound Substack, read the Poetry Unbound books and his newest work, Kitchen Hymns, or listen to all our Poetry Unbound episodes.

Edgar Allen Poe was born in 1809 in Boston, and he was the son of actors. After being orphaned at the age of two, he was adopted by family in Virginia, the Allens. He worked as a writer and while he had some renown in his lifetime, he lived in poverty. His poem “The Raven” was published in 1845 to acclaim, and he died four years later in Baltimore at the age of 40. Poe is regarded as a major figure in world literature, primarily based on his ingenious and profound short stories, poems, and critical theories.

Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.

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This episode isn’t about poetry but about another kind of art: the art of conflict resolution. In a deeply practical conversation, Pádraig Ó Tuama sits down with Columbia University’s Peter Coleman, author of The Way Out: How to Overcome Toxic Polarization and an expert in constructive conflict. Coleman shares advice for “the exhausted middle majority” — the large number of Americans fed up with our divided politics — on how to engage with others in ways that lead to openness and learning. He also talks about the surprising power of taking a walk with your challenger, the limitations of bringing together people from both sides, and the three factors that matter most when handling conflict.

We invite you to subscribe to Pádraig’s weekly Poetry Unbound Substack, read the Poetry Unbound books and his newest work, Kitchen Hymns, or listen to all our Poetry Unbound episodes.

Peter Coleman is a professor of psychology and education at Columbia University. He is an expert in constructive conflict resolution and sustainable peace, and he's particularly interested in how people can face and work with the conflicts of their lives and think about the systems of conflict we're in. He serves as the director of the Morton Deutsch International Center for Cooperation and Conflict Resolution and is the author of many books, including The Way Out: How to Overcome Toxic Polarization.

Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.

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