234: Pádraig Ó Tuama: Poetry, and Making Peace, Bearing Witness and Being Human - Poetry Against the Dark
Pádraig Ó Tuama joins us for part three of a three-part series asking the question posed by poet Christian Wiman: What is poetry’s role when the world is burning?
It’s not a metaphorical question. We’re living through wars, climate collapse, collective burnout, and political fragmentation. What possibly might human flourishing mean in such a context? And what might poetry have to do with it?
Here Pádraig Ó Tuama--poet, theologian, and peacemaker--returns to No Small Endeavor for an expansive, searching conversation about words, wounds, witness, and wisdom. Former leader of Ireland’s Corrymeela peace and reconciliation community and host of Poetry Unbound, Ó Tuama draws from a deep well of personal and communal experience—where poetry is not just a literary act but a practice of survival, accountability, and attention.
Pádraig Ó Tuama reflects on growing up Catholic and gay in 1980s Ireland, and the complex legacy of faith, repression, and language he inherited—narratives that led him through years of exorcism and reparative “therapies.” With honesty and grace, he shares how poetry helped him reclaim agency and reframe pain, offering listeners a poignant example of how the “art of noticing” becomes a form of resistance and self-development. He reads moving excerpts from his recent collection Kitchen Hymns, including poems on belief, disillusionment, and friendship—each one an invitation to live more humanely and attentively.
Lee and Pádraig also delve into the mechanics of peacebuilding, the failures and contradictions within justice work, and how poetic language can uncover what politics often obscures. This episode is as much about being human as it is about art and theology: a tender meditation on how we live with purpose, create for the common good, and show up in the world with courage and compassion.
Show Notes, Resources, and Transcript for our episode with Pádraig Ó Tuama
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No Small Endeavor: Exploring what it means to live a good life, with thought provoking conversations about human flourishing, theology, politics, faith, social sciences, search for meaning, meaning and purpose, practices, common good, truth beauty and goodness, productivity, habit formation, neuroscience, science and religion, social justice, cardinal virtues, how of happiness, theology and culture, self development, happiness, virtue theory, being human, moral philosophy, and community. Follow @nosmallendeavor Host Lee C. Camp: Lee has worked as a professor of theology & ethics for more than 25 years, teaching and writing on topics of faith & politics, inter-religious dialog, and human flourishing at the intersection of theology, moral philosophy, and social sciences. Follow @leeccamp
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