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Readings from the Book of Exile
One of the most intriguing and engaging voices in contemporary Christianity is that of the Irish poet, Padraig O Tuama and this is his first, long-awaited poetry collection. Hailing from the Ikon community in Belfast and working closely with its founder, the bestselling writer Pete Rollins, Padraig's poetry interweaves parable, poetry, art, activism and philosophy into an original and striking expression of faith. Padraig's poems are accessible, memorable profound and challenging. They emerge powerfully from a context of struggle and conflict and yet are filled with hope. Full Text - Short
96 pages, Paperback
First published July 1, 2012
About the author
Pádraig Ó Tuama
28 books461 followersPádraig Ó Tuama’s poetry and prose centre around themes of language, power, conflict and religion. His work has won acclaim in circles of poetry, politics, psychotherapy and conflict analysis. His formal qualifications (PhD, MTh and BA) cover creative writing, literary criticism and theology. Alongside this, he pursued vocational training in conflict analysis, specialising in groupwork.
His published work is in the fields of poetry, anthology, essay, memoir, theology and conflict. A new volume of poetry — Kitchen Hymns — is forthcoming from CHEERIO in mid 2024.
Profiled in The New Yorker, Pádraig’s poems have been featured in Poetry Ireland Review, Academy of American Poets, Harvard Review, New England Review, Raidió Teilifís Éireann’s Poem of the Week, and the Kenyon Review.
Pádraig has told stories at The Moth, has been featured on NPR’s All Things Considered, has presented programmes on poetry and language for BBC Radio 4; and has extended interviews with On Being, with Kim Hill on Radio NZ, and Soul Search on Radio National (Australia). In addition, he has interviewed poets and public figures including former President of Ireland Mary McAleese, Hanif Abdurraqib, The Edge, Sarah Perry, Joy Harjo, Billy Collins and Martin Hayes.
His published work is in the fields of poetry, anthology, essay, memoir, theology and conflict. A new volume of poetry — Kitchen Hymns — is forthcoming from CHEERIO in mid 2024.
Profiled in The New Yorker, Pádraig’s poems have been featured in Poetry Ireland Review, Academy of American Poets, Harvard Review, New England Review, Raidió Teilifís Éireann’s Poem of the Week, and the Kenyon Review.
Pádraig has told stories at The Moth, has been featured on NPR’s All Things Considered, has presented programmes on poetry and language for BBC Radio 4; and has extended interviews with On Being, with Kim Hill on Radio NZ, and Soul Search on Radio National (Australia). In addition, he has interviewed poets and public figures including former President of Ireland Mary McAleese, Hanif Abdurraqib, The Edge, Sarah Perry, Joy Harjo, Billy Collins and Martin Hayes.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 35 reviews
April 23, 2017
This book of poems I liked even more than Padraig's other volume, Sorry for Your Troubles. They are more personal, focusing on struggling with his own identity within society, within religion, and also confronting issues like suicide of a dear friend, faith, and acceptance of others across the board. Some of these poems can be found in audio or video form on the poet's website, and I'd highly recommend them... sometimes the rhyming nature and repeated phrases can seem overly simplistic on the page but they turn into heartfelt statements spoken aloud. I also love his occasional use of Gaelic, or "Irish."
Some favorites:
"The beginning of wisdom
was when I learnt the difference
between believing the truth
and telling the truth
about
belief."
Northeast morning roads of home
"...listening to the city's starlit skies,
speaking their own silence
to the sad and sinking storm inside your ribs..."
A reading from the book of exile
chapter four
"...we are loving things that
we can never bear
we attempt belief in things that we can not explain
and we rest uneasy in this
sometimesseemingcruelgame...."
Creed
(listen in its entirety with a bit of a track beneath on YouTube)
Ar eagla na heagla (Irish for 'just in case')
"...There is your destination
And your fear of where you're not."
Some favorites:
"The beginning of wisdom
was when I learnt the difference
between believing the truth
and telling the truth
about
belief."
Northeast morning roads of home
"...listening to the city's starlit skies,
speaking their own silence
to the sad and sinking storm inside your ribs..."
A reading from the book of exile
chapter four
"...we are loving things that
we can never bear
we attempt belief in things that we can not explain
and we rest uneasy in this
sometimesseemingcruelgame...."
Creed
(listen in its entirety with a bit of a track beneath on YouTube)
Ar eagla na heagla (Irish for 'just in case')
"...There is your destination
And your fear of where you're not."
March 27, 2026
I will read and own every book this man puts out.
June 19, 2019
Everything a book of poetry should be: resonant, thoughtful, beautiful. Deep enough to reveal new gems on rereading while still being clear the first time. This was a gift from a friend and it gave me LIFE, which I assume was her intention in giving it :)
February 23, 2021
I began this in my bed awake in the middle of the night after sleeping for 2 hours and finished about 36 hours later at my own Corrymeela. Hypodermic.
He’s talked somewhere else about the English word “to pray” coming from the French “prier”, to ask, to request, to call upon. All these poems are types of askings. All seem to have arisen from that heart’s desire, from that Croí [kri] from which we ask for whatever it is we need to keep hold of something. The structure is curious: chapters sequenced in a way I didn’t pay attention to enough as I went (so why am I telling you about it?). One chapter that gut-punched me was “A reading from the book of exile, the unwritable chapter”, which featured this epigraph:
and the place of
pain
is the place of
survival
(and sometimes barely that)
“Postcards to a dead friend” did me in.
He’s talked somewhere else about the English word “to pray” coming from the French “prier”, to ask, to request, to call upon. All these poems are types of askings. All seem to have arisen from that heart’s desire, from that Croí [kri] from which we ask for whatever it is we need to keep hold of something. The structure is curious: chapters sequenced in a way I didn’t pay attention to enough as I went (so why am I telling you about it?). One chapter that gut-punched me was “A reading from the book of exile, the unwritable chapter”, which featured this epigraph:
and the place of
pain
is the place of
survival
(and sometimes barely that)
“Postcards to a dead friend” did me in.
Read
August 29, 2025Standouts:
- 'Tis the gift
- Howth's soft heather
- Solitary flights
- Mourning prayer
- An offering to God in exile
- What I needed to hear
- Hold yourself together and pull yourself apart
- Who do you say that I am?
- 'Tis the gift
- Howth's soft heather
- Solitary flights
- Mourning prayer
- An offering to God in exile
- What I needed to hear
- Hold yourself together and pull yourself apart
- Who do you say that I am?
August 23, 2020
I don’t have much experience with poetry, but this was gorgeous.
January 29, 2017
I’m very glad i read these poems. These poems are very accessible. The author writes simply, plainly and it was a joy to read these. He writes of love and politics and emotions. He writes about loneliness and exile. A good guy. A good book.
August 8, 2021
Readings from the Book of Exile, Padraig O Tuama, 2012. My friend Mike Racette suggested Padraig O Tuama to me, after hearing him several times on Poetry Unbound, a short twice-weekly piece associated with On Being, the suite of offerings started by Krista Tippett which run on NPR and online.
O Tuama’s poetry really made me think. At its root, it is a profound exploration of theology. It is not an academic exploration – it is deeply personal and also deeply connective. That trait – connecting the personal and the universal (or at least, the experience of others), is present throughout this volume, and is for me a mark of great writing. This is true in the “Easy Essay” style poem (Peter Maurin’s form) of “Narrative Theology #1”. It is true also of “My love is a wide wide ocean” which captures yearning, distance, a forlorn hope, yet still hope, for love exists. I was personally struck also by “Marbge is imithe ar mean la an t-samhraidh” which speaks of a young man’s death, and reminded/rehearted me of a friend’s loss of his son:
He is gone,
Marbh 's imithe ar an la seo, liath 's fluich
o mo mhac, ochon, ochon, mo mhaicin bronach
uaigneach insan uaigh fhuar 's uaigneach."
(translation of the Irish:
He is gone,
dead and gone on this grey wet day
oh my son, alas, alas my sad small son,
lonely in a cold and lonely grave).
Today and every other day is now waked
by a grey absence,
bones frozen by clutch of dark earth.
No other way to stay in touch
besides reliving all that is now not living.
O Tuama does not shy away from the tough stuff. He goes right at it, into darkness and pain. As he writes in “the unwritable chapter”
and the place of
pain
is the place of
survival
(and sometimes barely that)
But there is solace, in community, in compassion. Towards the end of the book, O Tuama describes his own travails and the support and love given by friends, ending with an old Irish saying, a great one. (Ar scath a cheile a mhaireas n daoine)
It is in the shelter of each other that the people live.
I started readings from the book of exile thinking it a book of poetry with theological themes. It is that, but even more, I now think, a theological work in poetic form. That in itself shattered some norms and expectations about forms of writing. As O Tuama concludes in his last poem,
Go in pieces
to see
and feel your world.
O Tuama’s poetry really made me think. At its root, it is a profound exploration of theology. It is not an academic exploration – it is deeply personal and also deeply connective. That trait – connecting the personal and the universal (or at least, the experience of others), is present throughout this volume, and is for me a mark of great writing. This is true in the “Easy Essay” style poem (Peter Maurin’s form) of “Narrative Theology #1”. It is true also of “My love is a wide wide ocean” which captures yearning, distance, a forlorn hope, yet still hope, for love exists. I was personally struck also by “Marbge is imithe ar mean la an t-samhraidh” which speaks of a young man’s death, and reminded/rehearted me of a friend’s loss of his son:
He is gone,
Marbh 's imithe ar an la seo, liath 's fluich
o mo mhac, ochon, ochon, mo mhaicin bronach
uaigneach insan uaigh fhuar 's uaigneach."
(translation of the Irish:
He is gone,
dead and gone on this grey wet day
oh my son, alas, alas my sad small son,
lonely in a cold and lonely grave).
Today and every other day is now waked
by a grey absence,
bones frozen by clutch of dark earth.
No other way to stay in touch
besides reliving all that is now not living.
O Tuama does not shy away from the tough stuff. He goes right at it, into darkness and pain. As he writes in “the unwritable chapter”
and the place of
pain
is the place of
survival
(and sometimes barely that)
But there is solace, in community, in compassion. Towards the end of the book, O Tuama describes his own travails and the support and love given by friends, ending with an old Irish saying, a great one. (Ar scath a cheile a mhaireas n daoine)
It is in the shelter of each other that the people live.
I started readings from the book of exile thinking it a book of poetry with theological themes. It is that, but even more, I now think, a theological work in poetic form. That in itself shattered some norms and expectations about forms of writing. As O Tuama concludes in his last poem,
Go in pieces
to see
and feel your world.
September 3, 2020
First I fell in love with his beautiful reading voice. Then I quickly ordered a collection of his poems.
I constantly mix up poems by or things I know about, David Whyte, John O’Donohue & Pádraig Ó Tuama. They all have lovely voices - especially for reading poetry. Having now read a collection of each of their poems, I’d also say that they tend to have similar style and content.
However.
I think I was overall most pleased by Ó Tuama’s poems. I don’t think I found one poem that I disliked wholly. My stratagem for reading books of poetry is to jot down my favourite poems while reading, when when finished, go back and reread the poems I noted. After finishing this collection I only had one poem that truly stood out from the rest for me (Tortuous Atonement) but not because I disliked the rest of the poems; rather, I felt fairly equally pleasantly about them all. So I reread the entire collection.
Upon second read, I found a few poems did indeed resonate with me more than the majority, though still none quite so heavily as Tortuous Atonement.
My favourite poems from this collection were:
Tortuous Atonement
A reading from the book of exile chapter three
A song of ascent
Mo sheasamh ort, lá na choise tinne
An offering to God in exile
What I needed to hear
While he was in Malta
I constantly mix up poems by or things I know about, David Whyte, John O’Donohue & Pádraig Ó Tuama. They all have lovely voices - especially for reading poetry. Having now read a collection of each of their poems, I’d also say that they tend to have similar style and content.
However.
I think I was overall most pleased by Ó Tuama’s poems. I don’t think I found one poem that I disliked wholly. My stratagem for reading books of poetry is to jot down my favourite poems while reading, when when finished, go back and reread the poems I noted. After finishing this collection I only had one poem that truly stood out from the rest for me (Tortuous Atonement) but not because I disliked the rest of the poems; rather, I felt fairly equally pleasantly about them all. So I reread the entire collection.
Upon second read, I found a few poems did indeed resonate with me more than the majority, though still none quite so heavily as Tortuous Atonement.
My favourite poems from this collection were:
Tortuous Atonement
A reading from the book of exile chapter three
A song of ascent
Mo sheasamh ort, lá na choise tinne
An offering to God in exile
What I needed to hear
While he was in Malta
November 30, 2024
"Do you like the smell of tortured Jesus burning in the snow? Do you like how his veins are pulsing underneath his ripped skin's glow? Do you salivate and lick your lips, swallowing your spit, imagining the sweet meat taste from the barbecuing pit? Do you drink the drink and talk the talk inviting all your friends, To bask in resurrection scents, and eat the flesh of all amends?"
"On a cool November night, we sat on broken chairs on a winter's balcony wrapped in old and holey blankets and smelt the sulky storm, while listening to the city's starlit skies, speaking their own silence to the sad and sinking storm inside your ribs."
I've never felt so connected to someone who lives across the world from me. The tones of religious love and loss, sympathetic to the Christian but equally irreverent, and of queer, quiet moments that should be empty but aren't, are tones that have echoed through my whole life. The inclusion of pieces of the Irish language and speaking through its special phrases is incredibly moving. So so so excellent...
"On a cool November night, we sat on broken chairs on a winter's balcony wrapped in old and holey blankets and smelt the sulky storm, while listening to the city's starlit skies, speaking their own silence to the sad and sinking storm inside your ribs."
I've never felt so connected to someone who lives across the world from me. The tones of religious love and loss, sympathetic to the Christian but equally irreverent, and of queer, quiet moments that should be empty but aren't, are tones that have echoed through my whole life. The inclusion of pieces of the Irish language and speaking through its special phrases is incredibly moving. So so so excellent...
May 2, 2020
Pádraig Ó Tuama, in this collection of poems, offers us a glimpse of his ability to write deeply personal and delicate poems. His style is simple but compelling, and contentwise the poems mostly revolve around the topics of faith and fear, love and loneliness, meaning and mourning.
I will remember and return to many of these verses, but the very last poem of this collection will always have a special place in my hear:
I will remember and return to many of these verses, but the very last poem of this collection will always have a special place in my hear:
The task is ended
The task is ended.
Go in pieces.
Our faith has been rear-ended
certainty amended
and something might be mended
that we didn’t know was torn.
And we are fire
Bright, burning fire,
turning from the higher places
from which we fell,
emptying ourselves into the
hell
in which we’ll find
our loving, and beloved
brother
mother
sister
father
friend
And so friends, the task is ended.
Go in pieces
to see
and feel your world.
January 29, 2022
chapter four
there are some things too meaningful for talking
and even feeling leaves us full of grief
at all we touch and need and
can never speak of
we are living lives that we can‘t state the name of
we are loving things that
we can never bear
we attempt belief in things that we can not explain
and we rest uneasy in this
sometimesseemingcruelgame
and we rest with tension so
beautiful
its heartaching
there are some things too meaningful for talking
and even feeling leaves us full of grief
at all we touch and need and
can never speak of
we are living lives that we can‘t state the name of
we are loving things that
we can never bear
we attempt belief in things that we can not explain
and we rest uneasy in this
sometimesseemingcruelgame
and we rest with tension so
beautiful
its heartaching
July 18, 2021
This was a real weird one. I love Pádraig's work with On Being, and his poetry analysis is great in podcast form. Unfortunately, his strengths as a poetry reader were not evident in this collection, as the majority of the poems felt like Rupi Kaur by way of Dr. Seuss. Each poem aspired to hit dramatic emotional beats, but I think they could have accomplished more by trying less.
September 10, 2020
This is poetry that burns and heals. These are poems which had me wanting to see my friends just so that I could read them to them. It was from Barfield that I learned how poetry speaks in register and with a depth which prose can never quite achieve and O'Tauma—more than most poets I have read—speaks poetry like it is his native tongue and in so doing communicates with the soul bypassing the restrictions of prose language.
November 27, 2020
I never know what to say about poetry. I can't really discuss it on a technical level with any degree of authority, so whatever I have to say tends to be about personal/emotional response.
That feels far too intimate to just be sharing with people.
That feels far too intimate to just be sharing with people.
July 29, 2021
I love the poems of Pádraig Ó Tuama. Moving and funny and touching and splendid in all ways. Hearing him read his poems and others is a very special treat. This is not much of a critical review, I know, but that's how it is with these poems.
July 18, 2024
A charming collection of poems. I would read the ones I liked aloud to my wife at the dinner table. Almost a “healing” collection. The religious themes were more inviting than I would anticipate and are not marketed on the cover. There are poems in here I will return to.
March 15, 2026
And we are fire.
Bright, burning fire,
turning from the higher places
from which we fell,
emptying ourselves into the
hell
in which we’ll find
our loving, and beloved
brother
mother
sister
father
friend
And so, friends, the task is ended.
Go in pieces
to see
and feel your world.
Bright, burning fire,
turning from the higher places
from which we fell,
emptying ourselves into the
hell
in which we’ll find
our loving, and beloved
brother
mother
sister
father
friend
And so, friends, the task is ended.
Go in pieces
to see
and feel your world.
June 13, 2017
Stunningly beautiful
November 9, 2017
I do not usually read poetry.
I lose patience with its pace.
But this volume of poetry moved me deeply. It's pace made me pause
and see and listen and hear
I lose patience with its pace.
But this volume of poetry moved me deeply. It's pace made me pause
and see and listen and hear
September 20, 2018
After many poems, I had to just stop and breathe.
There is so much deep reality tucked into every intentional detail in this book.
There is so much deep reality tucked into every intentional detail in this book.
June 10, 2019
Bloody breathtaking, humane and beautiful. It took me a long time to read; going back and forth reading and re-reading some over and over again. In wrung both tears and giggles out of me.
June 25, 2019
So good. I enjoyed the depth, and grace of the writing.
April 5, 2020
Poems that capture beautifully what it means to be human.
March 19, 2021
I enjoyed this book of poetry immensely. Full of thoughtful reflections upon religion, relationships, and life, this book was a delight.
December 31, 2022
Wholesome musings from a sweet soul.
November 2, 2025
4,5 stjerner
en meget dybfølt og vellykket digtsamling om en følelsesmæssig hjemløshed, en adskillelse.
en meget dybfølt og vellykket digtsamling om en følelsesmæssig hjemløshed, en adskillelse.
March 24, 2026
Lovely gentle poetry nourishment.
January 20, 2021
I couldn't tell if his poetry was clear and concise or a just a bit thin. Overall, intrigued me enough to read more of his poems.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 35 reviews