Pádraig Ó Tuama

Grace, period.

I wonder if you could talk to us about the insistence that you have of troubling a word that's often just used in a very benevolent way and an easy way.

You bring deep layers of trouble to this word grace.

Could you talk a bit about ekphrasis and your interest in it?

Did you come to ekphrasis through general interests, or was it particularly through Caravaggio that you began to pay such attention to works of art?

going to bring rachel back in um for a conversation which which picks right back up on this um which is that both of you have a long-standing um engagements through your recent works with characters from history caravaggio as you've just been talking about only as one you've obviously been looking at many other characters as well and then rachel you um with eleanor reichner i wonder if both you could talk about the the role of research historical research in the context of your poetry

We'll start with you, Rachel.

Both of you are disrupting a time continuum when it comes to the question as to who is able to speak to what particular era, bringing people from the past in enlightening and troubling ways into the present.

I want to continue that on with another way within which you both engage with time, which is elegy.

Rachel, you have a moving poem in your collection about your father, and Yomi, you have an extended sequence about your great aunt.

And then Rachel, with some of the poems you read, you sketch the murder of trans people, and Yomi, your work highlights the murder of black people by state violence.

And so in terms of personal griefs with people who have come to the end of a life, a long life, as well as then griefs of absolute violation where people are murdered in the middle, at the prime of their life.

And both of you are dealing with death and what that says to us about time and how it is that poetic form can engage with that.

I wonder if we could both comment on the role of elegy, both in private and public, in your work.

And then grief as a result of violence?

And the analogy and conversation with that?

How about you, Rachel, in terms of elegy regarding familial grief, as well as then elegy regarding grief as a result of violence?

Yeah, I can.

I want to finish by asking a huge question and asking that each of you could respond to it in somewhat of a short paragraph.

And I think it continues on.