Kitchen Hymns

Name: Kitchen Hymns
Price: 17.0 USD
Availability: InStock
ISBN: 9781556597107

by Pádraig Ó Tuama

$17.00

In stock

Written by the engaging host of the popular show, Poetry Unbound, the poems of Kitchen Hymns are finely honed melodies of survival--shaped with both humor and anger, force and conviction.

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."

Publisher:: Copper Canyon Press
ISBN:: 9781556597107
Binding:: Paperback
Pages:: 104
Authors:: Pádraig Ó Tuama
Published Date:: 2025-01-28
Language:: English

Ships directly to you from our US distribution partner. US delivery only.

Usually ships within 1–2 business days.

Estimated total time for this book on its own:

Economy 6–10 business days (usually about a week)
Expedited 3–7 business days
Express 2–4 business days

Orders with more than one book may arrive in separate deliveries. Pre-orders always ship separately once the book is released.

We offer a 30-day return policy, which means you have 30 days after receiving your item to request a return. To be eligible for a return, your item must be in the same condition that you received it: new, unworn or unused, and in its original packaging. See details on our Return & Refund policy.

Recommended by a poet...

Which poetry book are you currently reading?

Kitchen Hymns by Pádraig Ó Tuama. I bought this book during my artist residency in Ireland. The author is an Irish poet, theologian, and presenter of the Poetry Unbound podcast. This is an amazing collection of poems that will surprise you, coming from a man of faith who quotes,

God made everything from nothing.

But the nothing persists.

- Paul Valery

— Cassie Holguin-Pettinato, author of The Five Stages of Stuttering

Read more from Cassie Holguin-Pettinato on our blog

All Poetry Copper Canyon Press English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh European LGBTQ+ National Poetry Month 2026 Pádraig Ó Tuama Religious

About Pádraig Ó Tuama

A poet and theologian born in Cork, Ireland, Pádraig Ó Tuama led the Corrymeela Community, Northern Ireland's oldest peace and reconciliation organization, from 2014 to 2019. His poetry collections include Sorry for Your Troubles (Canterbury Press, 2013) and Kitchen Hymns (Copper Canyon Press, 2025), a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Poetry. His prose works include the memoir In the Shelter: Finding a Home in the World (Hodder & Stoughton, 2015). He hosts the Poetry Unbound podcast from the On Being Project and divides his time between Belfast and New York.

If this information requires correction, please contact info@thepoetryshop.com.