In today’s episode, he reads from a sequence of poems he wrote called “Seven Deadly Songs” – sonic booms of verse that recreate some of the impossibly hard things that happened to Ó Tuama growing up gay in Ireland.
Maybe we can feel ourselves into these poems too, feel the sounds of the words inside us, feel something – anger, sacrilege, indifference, recognition. We growl at God, because sometimes, in Ó Tuama’s words “the God character of our narrative needs to be undone in order for something new to open.”
We talk The Lord of the Rings, N.K. Jemisin and world-building, about Tasha’s deep childhood desire to be Batman, and Ó Tuama’s deep childhood desire to be Wonder Woman!
What questions can we ask of our stories that will take us deeper into them?
Let us know in the comments!
The Afterparty
In which Jeff says he feels dumb, and poetry is hard, and Tasha says reading a poem is like watching a gas cloud condense into a planet. We talk about the practice of finding yourself in the landscape of a story, and also of finding story in the landscape of your life. Then, we talk about prayer. Tasha recites a childhood prayer in German, and Jeff exclaims, “Ezekiel comes through with $10,000!” 😄
*In an effort to sustain our antics, the Afterparty will move behind ye old paywall soon!
That’s all for now! Thanks for tuning in & see you next week.
Love always,
🧘🏽♀️ Tasha & Jeff 🧘🏼♂️
Story Unbound with Pádraig Ó Tuama