In this concluding episode of “Poems as Teachers,” our special miniseries on conflict and the human condition, host Pádraig Ó Tuama says the poems discussed in this offering are a different kind of teacher: “not as teachers that give us rules to follow — more so teachers that share something of their own intuition.” And for a final reflection, he offers Kai Cheng Thom’s “trauma is not sacred,” which speaks directly, fiercely, and lovingly to the pain, scars, and violence that we humans carry and inflict upon one another.

This is the final episode of “Poems as Teachers,” a special seven-part miniseries on conflict and the human condition.

We’re pleased to offer Kai’s poem, and invite you to read Pádraig’s weekly Poetry Unbound Substack, read the Poetry Unbound book, or listen back to all our episodes.

Being right may feel good, but what human price do we pay for this feeling of rightness? Yehuda Amichai’s poem “The Place Where We Are Right,” translated by Stephen Mitchell, asks us to answer this question, consider how doubt and love might expand and enrich our perspective, and reflect upon the buried and not-so-buried ruins of past conflicts, arguments, and wounds that still call for our attention.

This is the sixth episode of “Poems as Teachers,” a special seven-part miniseries on conflict and the human condition.

We’re pleased to offer Yehuda’s poem, and invite you to read Pádraig’s weekly Poetry Unbound Substack, read the Poetry Unbound book, or listen back to all our episodes.

In “Hebrews 13” by Jericho Brown, a narrator says: “my lover and my brother both knocked at my door.” The heat is turned on, scalding coffee is offered and hastily swallowed, and silence is the soundtrack. What an exquisitely awkward triangle it is, and what a human, beautiful, and loving shape that can be.

This is the fifth episode of “Poems as Teachers,” a special seven-part miniseries on conflict and the human condition.

We’re pleased to offer Jericho Brown’s poem, and invite you to read Pádraig’s weekly Poetry Unbound Substack, read the Poetry Unbound book, or listen back to all our episodes.

In Mosab Abu Toha’s “Ibrahim Abu Lughod and brother in Yaffa,” two barefoot siblings on a beach sketch out a map of their former home in the sand and argue about what went where. Their longing for return to a place of hospitality, family, memory, friends, and even strangers is alive and tender to the touch.

This is the fourth episode of “Poems as Teachers,” a special seven-part miniseries on conflict and the human condition.

We’re pleased to offer Mosab Abu Toha’s poem, and invite you to read Pádraig’s weekly Poetry Unbound Substack, read the Poetry Unbound book, or listen back to all our episodes.

We ask questions to find out the facts, but what if you can’t trust the answers, the questions, or the person who’s asking the questions? In Constantine P. Cavafy’s “Waiting for the Barbarians,” translated by Evan Jones, leaders exercise a sinister kind of violence — they’ve taken over people’s imaginations with showy displays of wealth and privilege, time-wasting ceremony, and fear coursing beneath it all.

This is the third episode of “Poems as Teachers,” a special seven-part miniseries on conflict and the human condition.

We’re pleased to offer Constantine P. Cavafy’s poem, and invite you to read Pádraig’s weekly Poetry Unbound Substack, read the Poetry Unbound book, or listen back to all our episodes.

As appealing as it may sound, is it really possible to live in a world completely free of conflict? No. And since differences and disagreements are inevitable and natural, Joy Harjo gives ground rules in “Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings.” Her call to us echoes across time and space — a call to listen, to humility, to justice, and to recognizing the land, the living, the dead, the not-yet-living.

This is the second episode of “Poems as Teachers,” a special seven-part miniseries on conflict and the human condition.

We’re pleased to offer two sections of Joy Harjo’s longer poem, and invite you to read Pádraig’s weekly Poetry Unbound Substack, read the Poetry Unbound book, or listen back to all our episodes.

Host Pádraig Ó Tuama gives an overview of this Poetry Unbound mini season that’s devoted to poems with wisdom to offer about conflict and humanity. He also brings us Wisława Szymborska’s “A Word on Statistics,” translated by Joanna Trzeciak, which covers statistics of the most human kind — like the number of people in a group of 100 who think they know better, who can admire without envy, or who could do terrible things. Listen, and ask yourself: Which categories do I belong to? Which do I believe?

This is the introductory episode of “Poems as Teachers,” a special seven-part miniseries on conflict and the human condition.

We’re pleased to offer Wisława Szymborska’s poem, and invite you to read Pádraig’s weekly Poetry Unbound Substack, read the Poetry Unbound book, or listen back to all our episodes.

If your home were a museum — and they all are, in a way — what would the contents of your refrigerator say about you and those you live with? In his poem “Refrigerator, 1957,” Thomas Lux opens the door to his childhood appliance and oh, does a three-quarters full jar of maraschino cherries speak volumes.

We’re pleased to offer Thomas Lux’s poem, and invite you to read Pádraig’s weekly Poetry Unbound Substack, read the Poetry Unbound book, or listen back to all our episodes.

The word “flush” is a verb, as in an activity that we do umpteen times a day. It’s also an adjective that conveys abundance. Fittingly, Rita Wong’s poem “flush” offers a praise song to water’s expansive and unceasing presence in our lives — from our toilets to our teacups, from inside our bodies to outside our buildings, and from our soil to our skies.

We’re pleased to offer Rita Wong’s poem, and invite you to read Pádraig’s weekly Poetry Unbound Substack, read the Poetry Unbound book, or listen back to all our episodes.

Bro — this is definitely not the “Beowulf” that you read back in school. Maria Dahvana Headley’s gutsy, swaggering translation brings the Old English epic poem roaring into this century, showing you why this tale of fraught family ties, power plays and posturing, and mighty, imperfect people is as relevant as ever.

We’re pleased to offer Maria Dahvana Headley’s poem, and invite you to read Pádraig’s weekly Poetry Unbound Substack, read the Poetry Unbound book, or listen back to all our episodes.

A horse race from the 1980s may not seem like the obvious inspiration for a poem that celebrates so many of the things that make our lives worth living — good company (human and animal), good books, good food, and honest work — and that is just part of the surprise, delight, and surging joy of Michael Klein’s “Swale.”

We’re pleased to offer Michael Klein’s poem, and invite you to read Pádraig’s weekly Poetry Unbound Substack, read the Poetry Unbound book, or listen back to all our episodes.

What holds our bodies together? Yes, there are the biological components, such as the cells, fluids, fibers, but what about the bone-deep stuff, the histories, myths, aches, resolves? In “Our Bird Aegis,” poet Ray Young Bear evokes an adolescent eagle to show how this blend of the visceral, the inherited, and the self-made abides in each of us, no matter our form, wherever we go.

We’re pleased to offer Ray Young Bear’s poem, and invite you to read Pádraig’s weekly Poetry Unbound Substack, read the Poetry Unbound book, or listen back to all our episodes.

While disputes over contested lands result in damage that can be seen and documented, they also create countless unseen ruptures in the hearts, minds and souls of the humans caught in the chaos. By giving voice to yearning, Suji Kwock Kim’s poem “Search Engine: Notes from the North Korean-Chinese-Russian Border” shows how bearing witness and asking the impossible are acts of profound courage, creativity, and defiance.

We’re pleased to offer Suji Kwock Kim’s poem, and invite you to read Pádraig’s weekly Poetry Unbound Substack, read the Poetry Unbound book, or listen back to all our episodes.

In “ROLL CALL: NEW TAROT NAMES FOR BLACK GIRLS,” Amber McBride treats us to a playful litany of language that twists and leaps and never stumbles. Flavored with old-time Christianity, old-time hoodoo, and a modern alchemy all her own, it talks back to prejudice, reclaims the words meant to take people down, and forges new identities that shimmer with strength and strangeness.

We’re pleased to offer Amber McBride’s poem, and invite you to read Pádraig’s weekly Poetry Unbound Substack, read the Poetry Unbound book, or listen back to all our episodes.

A fragile and wondrous technology that we all possess, the human breath powers any number of things in our lives — speeches, feats of music, athleticism, and more. Carl Dennis’s powerful and meditative poem “Breath” calls on us to take a moment, give our breath our full attention, and celebrate it.

We’re pleased to offer Carl Dennis’s poem, and invite you to read Pádraig’s weekly Poetry Unbound Substack, read the Poetry Unbound book, or listen back to all our episodes.

Our lives are filled with distances, the physical spans that we travel but also the stranger, vaster expanses between our past and our present or between feeling anchored and connected and feeling terribly alone. A poem can capture all of those in a way that a map can’t, as Elisa Gonzalez superbly demonstrates in “To My Twenty-Four-Year-Old Self.”

We’re pleased to offer Elisa Gonzalez’s poem, and invite you to read Pádraig’s weekly Poetry Unbound Substack, read the Poetry Unbound book, or listen back to all our episodes.

Most of us do our eavesdropping shyly and secretively, but Ofelia Zepeda’s poem “Deer Dance Exhibition” welcomes us to listen in on an exchange between people as they watch a ceremonial dance. Along the way, we get the sense that what we’re witnessing is more than a conversation — it’s the sounds and sensations of life itself.

We’re pleased to offer Ofelia Zepeda’s poem, and invite you to read Pádraig’s weekly Poetry Unbound Substack, read the Poetry Unbound book, or listen back to all our episodes.

Even in the most uneventful of human lives, uncertainty and doubts will inevitably intrude. When faced with those, what can you do to steady yourself? One suggestion: Turn to the poem “When in Doubt” by Sandra Cisneros, where she generously shares some of the wisdom that she’s gleaned over the years.

We’re pleased to offer Sandra Cisneros’s poem, and invite you to read Pádraig’s weekly Poetry Unbound Substack, read the Poetry Unbound book, or listen back to all our episodes.