The poem in this Poetry Unbound episode is dedicated to the body. “The body is a nation I have not known,” Chris Abani (@chrisabani) writes. Throughout the 21 lines of this work, he describes lungs, skin, bone, touch, smells, sweat, armpits and hunger. For all the embodiedness of the poem, there is disembodiedness, too: the poem continues to question how to truly be in your own body. ⁠ ⁠ How do you speak of — and to — your body? ⁠ ⁠ Find a link to this Poetry Unbound episode in our bio. ⁠ ⁠ Print by @expeditionpress⁠ ⁠ #onbeing #poetryunbound #poetry #poet #poem #poetsofinstagram #poemsofinstagram

EDIT: The original Zoom version of this event sold out, but you can still watch via a Facebook Live simulcast (link in bio). We will also share a recording afterward. The great challenges of our time hold vast open questions, all of which will still be with us the day after this election. We can turn towards them, together, and see what possibility they might open for shared life — even through disagreement, tumult, and uncertainty. The On Being Project’s growing social healing team warmly invites you to bring the questions on your minds (and hearts) to this Facebook Live event with Krista Tippett — an hour of deep thinking out loud. Lucas Johnson, our executive director of Civil Conversations and Social Healing, will curate. Join us on Monday, Oct., 26 at 5 p.m. ET here on Facebook Live. ⁠ #liveevent #livingthequestions #kristatippett #onbeing #socialhealing #conversation #wisdom #deepthinking

This week we’re exploring the wisdom of Howard Thurman, a mystic and moral anchor for the civil rights movement. In an essay, the late Vincent Harding described Thurman as a seeker who “was never satisfied with the truth that he had achieved, knowing always that there was more to come, and that he must never think that he had found it all.”⁠ ⁠ Find a link to Harding’s essay in our bio. ⁠ ⁠ #onbeing #vincentharding #howardthurman #spirituality #theology #wisdom #conversation #truth

This week’s On Being show is an hour to sit with, and be filled. Two voices — one from the last century, one from ours — who inspire inward contemplation as an essential part of meeting the challenges in the world. ⁠ ⁠ Howard Thurman’s book “Jesus and the Disinherited,” it was said, was carried by Martin Luther King Jr. alongside the Bible and the U.S. Constitution. Thurman is remembered as a philosopher and theologian, a moral anchor, a contemplative, a prophet, and pastor to the civil rights leaders. Rev. Otis Moss III (@otismossiii), himself the son of one of those leaders, is a bridge to Thurman’s resonance in the present day, and between the Black freedom movements then and now.⁠ ⁠ Find a link in our bio to Krista’s conversation with Rev. Otis Moss III.⁠ ⁠ #onbeing #otismossiii #howardthurman #theology #morality #conversation #wisdom #newepisode⁠

In this Poetry Unbound episode, Molly McCully Brown’s (@mmcullybrown) poem takes place at night, describing a scene from a town on the edge of a city. The poet feels at home in a “nowhere” town, with cattle pacing in the fields, boarded houses, and rowdy filling stations. This is a place that through the eyes of some would be considered a “shit town,” but to the poet it is home. ⁠ ⁠ Are there places you've lived or visited that others would disregard? What do you see in them that others might miss?" ⁠ ⁠ Find a link to this Poetry Unbound episode in our bio. ⁠ Print by @expeditionpress ⁠ ⁠ #poetryunbound #onbeing #poet #poets #poem #poems #poetsofinstagram #poemsofinstagram #newepisode

Rev. Otis Moss III (@otismossiii) is an esteemed Chicago pastor and a bridge between the Black freedom movements of the last century and ours. With him we soak up the teachings of Howard Thurman — a mystic, meditator, theologian and moral anchor for the civil rights movement.⁠ ⁠ “Thurman was always pushing them on the inward journey, on who they are and their encounter and to find — in his words, find ‘the sound of the genuine’ in you. Discover that; discover what makes you come alive and the encounter with the spirit, the encounter with silence, the encounter with God,” Moss says. ⁠ ⁠ Find a link to listen in our bio.⁠ ⁠ Photo by @sarahyenesel⁠ ⁠ #onbeing #otismossiii #howardthurman #theology #morality #conversation #wisdom #newepisode

Natalie Diaz’s (@ndinn) poem is told from the point of view of “Lot’s wife,” a biblical character who was turned into salt because she looked back to see the burning of Sodom, her home city. The poet shows us what Lot’s wife sees: towers swaying, guitars popping, dogs weeping and roosters howling. By mixing the modern with the everlasting, Lot’s wife is humanized and justified. ⁠ ⁠ Find a link to this Poetry Unbound episode in our bio. ⁠ ⁠ Print by @expeditionpress⁠ ⁠ #onbeing #poetryunbound #newepisode #poetry #poets #poem #poetsofinstagram #poemsofinstagram #nataliediaz #letterpress

In "Miscegenation," poet Natasha Trethewey (@natasha_trethewey_official) recalls the story of how her parents crossed state lines to wed in 1965 because Mississippi laws forbade interracial marriage at the time. It is written in the form of a ghazal, with birth and belonging, names and death coming together.⁠ ⁠ Find a link to this Poetry Unbound episode in our bio. ⁠ ⁠ Print by @expeditionpress⁠ ⁠ #onbeing #poetryunbound #newepisode #poetry #poets #poem #poetsofinstagram #poemsofinstagram #natashatrethewey #letterpress

After Arlie Hochschild published her book “Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right,” just before the 2016 election, it came to feel prescient. And the conversation Krista had with her in 2018 has now come to point straight to the heart of 2020 — a year in which many of us might say we feel like strangers in our own land and in our own world. ⁠ ⁠ The research for the book took Hochschild back and forth for years between Berkeley, California, where she’s now a professor emerita, and Southwest Louisiana, a Tea Party stronghold at that movement’s height. ⁠ ⁠ Find a link in our bio to her 2018 conversation with Krista.⁠ ⁠ #arliehochschild #podcast #listen #onbeing #reflect

Arlie Hochschild created a field within sociology looking at the social impact of emotion. She explains how our stories and truths — what we try to debate as issues in our social and political lives — are felt, not merely factual. And she shares why, as a matter of pragmatism, we have to take emotion seriously and do what feels unnatural: get curious and caring about the other side.⁠ ⁠ Find a link in our bio to her 2018 conversation with Krista.⁠ ⁠ #arliehochschild #sociology #socialimpact #truth #stories #onbeing #podcast #quote

The setting for James Wright’s poem, “A Blessing,” is twilight in a field just off the highway to Rochester, Minnesota, where the poet and a friend encounter two ponies who come “gladly out of the willows / To welcome my friend and me.” ⁠ ⁠ Is there a moment of beauty you can recall that’s like a blessing for you? ⁠ ⁠ Find a link to this Poetry Unbound episode in our bio. ⁠ ⁠ Art by @expeditionpress ⁠ ⁠ #onbeing #poetryunbound #newepisode #poetry #poets #poem #poetsofinstagram #poemsofinstagram #jameswright #letterpress

“These words: I love my mother. I love black women⁠ Who plant flowers as sheepish as their sons.”⁠ ⁠ From “Foreday in the Morning” by Jericho Brown ⁠ ⁠ (@jerichobrown1). Listen to him read it at the link in our bio. ⁠ ⁠ #onbeing #poetry #poem #poet #poetsofinstagram #poemsofinstagram #jerichobrown #listen #read