Pádraig Ó Tuama is three poems into the new season of the podcast Poetry Unbound. Yesterday’s poem gave me lots to think about.
The Land Acknowledgement we do at the beginning of the Casting for Recovery retreat reminds us all that the place where we will make new friends and learn new skills was originally where the Kaskaskia people and the ancient Hopewell Culture lived. At this year’s upcoming retreat, we’ll do that AND acknowledge the land itself as Conor Kerr does in “Winter Songs.”
Two words that Pádraig unravels in his conversation about the poem are DISMANTLE and REMEMBER. We usually think of dismantle as meaning to take apart. But he points out that
The verb “dismantle” comes from the noun mantle, which in some uses of it, is the placing of a ceremonial cloak to confer authority to someone. And so to dis-mantle structures…this is not necessarily about destroying, it is about placing authority where it should be placed because the structures that are being critiqued in the poem have divided.
When we remember, we are usually looking back and thinking about something again. But if we consider what it means to be dis-membered, or torn apart, then if something is re-membered, it is put back together again. I love that shade of meaning.
So there you have it: a podcast to check out if you don’t already know it, one that will not only add more poetry to your life but also provide all kinds of food for thought. Happy Listening!
A(nother) Year of Reading 