Pádraig Ó Tuama’s Kitchen Hymns opens 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 Hymns is 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 Hymns speaks 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.”
ISBN: 9781556597107
Format: Paperback
Do You Believe in God?
I turn to you,
not because I trust you,
or believe in you,
but because I need a direction for my need. You—
the space between me and death; you—
the hum at the heart of an atom; you—
nothing; you—my favorite emptiness; you—
what I turned away from and will turn to; you—
my ache made manifest in address; you,
silent you, what my friends saw as they died; you
contain what’s not containable; you
are the shape of my desire—
Reviews
“Host of On Being’s beloved Poetry Unbound podcast, Irish poet Ó Tuama continues his search for a faith not borne strictly of religious practice. The title references Irish religious songs heard at home, suggesting the conversational tone of this meditative work. . . . VERDICT Heartfelt, questing poems for anyone reconsidering how to believe”—Barbara Hoffert, Library Journal, STARRED review
“In reflective, questing poems, Irish theologian Tuama (Poetry Unbound, 2022), a prolific lecturer and editor, unpacks the contradictory coils of life. . . . The poet grapples with doubt and disillusionment and locates answers in language. . . . Tuama is especially adept at depicting the passage of time, whether it’s the circuitous rejuvenation of sunrise (‘the way that morning is both dead and new’) or the colorful autumnal sequence of the seasons, ‘the green has gone to brass and berry, copper, ember, fire.’ Readers will enjoy this title as a return to or entry point into Tuama’s work.”—Diego Báez, Booklist
“Darkness brings revelation in this meditative offering from Ó Tuama. . . . These poetic dialogues become hymns and anti-hymns that interrogate the weight of creation. . . . The ghostly liturgy found throughout the collection feels less like a Day of the Dead celebration and more like a quiet reckoning with absence, as the poet baptizes the self into the loneliness of modern existence. It’s an admirable and noteworthy performance.”—Publishers Weekly