Written by the engaging host of the popular show,Poetry Unbound, the poems ofKitchen Hymnsare finely honed melodies of survival—shaped with both humor and anger, force and conviction.
Pádraig Ó Tuama'sKitchen Hymnsopens with a question: “Do You Believe in God? —but the bee, “gone extinct, cannot answer, and the grass calls believe “a poor verb. This collection trades belief for language, and philosophy is grounded in form and narrative.Kitchen Hymnsis structured like a ghost mass, where even if God is a “favorite emptiness, longing still has things to say: Jesus and Persephone meet at Hell's exit and discuss survival; someone believes more in birds than belief; hares carry messages from the overworld to the underworld. A study in lyric address,Kitchen Hymnsspeaks to a shifting “you : an unknown you; the strange you; a lover, a hated other; the you of erotic desire; the you of creation and destruction. Large themes are informed by and contained in a poetics of observation, humor, trauma, dialogics, lament, rage and praise. Delivered in finely honed melodies, shaped with force and conviction,Kitchen Hymns“reckon[s] with the empty, and becomes “busy with a body / not a question. US
DO YOU BELIEVE IN GOD?
It was like a warm fire on a winter day
after a long walk home from school, a cup of cocoa
by that fire. It was like the sound of my dad's voice
when he sees me. It was like a hug from a friend,
the one you remember. It was like laughing during
sex. It was like that time I danced and I lÓÎ
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