Episode Overview

Podcast: Poetry Unbound
Host: Pádraig Ó Tuama
Episode Title: Kevin Hart — Prayer
Release Date: February 13, 2026

This episode centers on the poem “Prayer” by Australian poet Kevin Hart. Host Pádraig Ó Tuama explores the poem’s deep yearning, nature-infused spirituality, and the complexities of desire, weaving personal anecdotes and literary analysis into a reflective meditation on the nature of prayer and longing.

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. The Story Behind the Poem

• The Encounter: Ó Tuama recounts a memorable encounter in Australia after a poetry reading, where a woman, Michelle Trabilco, gifted him a book of Kevin Hart’s poetry. This moment of connection became deeply meaningful and attached personal resonance to the poem.
  • [00:04]: “And she said, you should read this. And I read it, and I was totally overwhelmed. I probably swore. And then she looked at me and said, that book’s yours now.”

2. Reading of “Prayer” by Kevin Hart

• The episode features a full reading of the poem, marked by repeated supplications (“Come in any way you want…”) and vivid natural imagery.

3. The Language and Structure of Prayer

• Interrogating “Prayer”: Ó Tuama reflects on the French origin of “prayer” (prier, to ask), and examines the multiple, sometimes surprising, reasons for asking within the poem:
  • “Because of what the darkness said.”
  • “Because the beast is stirring in its cage.”
  • “Because a night creeps through the day.”
  • “Because of love, the lightest love.”
  • “Because your touch will surely cut.”
  • [03:50]: “None of those are the kinds of languages that I’m used to thinking about when I think of something titled prayer.”

4. Yearning and Desire: The Core of the Poem

• The host highlights a palpable yearning throughout the poem, characterized by both spiritual and erotic longing:

  • [06:20]: “There is yearning the whole way throughout this poem. And something like a really nature-based transcendence and desire. And the nature-based feeling of it is so important.”

• Ó Tuama draws attention to the complexity of desire, connecting the English word “want” (lack and desire) to the poem’s emotional core.

5. Nature and Sensuality

• Hart’s poem is saturated with natural imagery — sunlight in leaves, gum leaves, rain, winter light — that blurs the line between the physical and the divine.
  • Reference to the “raw and ragged smells of gum leaves” grounds the poem in the poet’s Australian landscape and emphasizes its earthy spirituality.

6. Ambiguity of the Addressed “You”

• Ó Tuama ponders the nature of the addressee, considering whether the poem could be a prayer to a person, but ultimately situating it as addressed to a transcendent, undefined “You” — perhaps God, or perhaps something even larger.
  • [09:39]: “The object of desire is this you that’s undefined and elevated in the language that this poem calls prayer.”

7. Time, Memory, and Change

• The poem references both the passage of time (“like a dark hair that fades to gray”) and nostalgia for initial devotion (“come as you used to years ago…”).
• There’s a complex relationship between memory, loss, and longing that intensifies the speaker’s plea.

8. Pain, Blame, and Transformation

• The host discusses the self-blame present near the poem’s end, when the speaker wonders if the problem is “because of me, because of something dead in me.”

  • [13:45]: “I feel so sorry at times for this speaker who’s blaming himself or searching for blame. Because of me, because of something dead in [me].”

• The sharp “come like a jagged knife into my gut because your touch will surely cut” signals both the danger and necessity of the presence the speaker is beseeching.

9. Literary Allusions

• The phrase “winter light that slants upon a page” is an explicit nod to Emily Dickinson, invoking her line “There’s a certain slant of light,” as well as Dickinson’s poem “Tell all the truth but tell it slant.”

10. The Mystery and Power of Prayerful Yearning

• The episode concludes not with a tidy analysis but an invitation to feel the poem, to share in its “raw ache of yearning” for meaning and presence.
  • [15:12]: “There’s a draw to the unknowable, a draw to the unreachable that I think is so present here, the almost monstrous unreachable in the presence of this prayer that somehow is also not monstrous. It’s overwhelming.”

Notable Quotes and Memorable Moments

• On the Power of Receiving Poetry:
  [00:15]: “I love that poem. I love the book and I love how I got it.” — Pádraig Ó Tuama

• On Honest Prayer:
  [05:05]: “God, I hate some people and I bring my hate here.” — Recounting a shocking but clarifying prayer at a London service

• On Desire and Spirituality:
  [07:31]: “This poem seems filled with an erotic intelligence. There’s the line, come as you used to years ago. There seems to be a reference to love in the past.”

• On the Spiritual World:
  [08:55] (paraphrased from Kevin Hart): “But the spiritual world is within this one. Not as a secret, but as a radian.”

• On Lack and Longing:
  [15:47]: “And the interesting thing about the word want in English is that it means two things. It means a lack. I have a want. But it also means a desire. I have a want. And so desire is the whole way throughout this poem.”

Timestamps for Important Segments

• 00:04 — Ó Tuama recounts how he received the book and his first impression of “Prayer.”
• 01:25 — Full reading of “Prayer” by Kevin Hart.
• 03:10 — Initial reflections on the language and direction of the poem’s prayer.
• 05:00 — Anecdote about honest prayer at a London liturgical service.
• 06:20 — Exploration of yearning and nature in the poem.
• 07:31 — Discussion of erotic intelligence and time’s presence in the poem.
• 08:48 — Reference to Kevin Hart’s views on spirituality.
• 10:15 — Literary allusions to Emily Dickinson.
• 13:45 — Reflection on blame, longing, and self-recrimination.
• 15:47 — Discussion about the dual meaning of “want” and its connection to desire.
• 16:30 — Final meditation on the raw ache of yearning and the power of poetry.

Conclusion

This episode of Poetry Unbound delves deeply into Kevin Hart’s “Prayer,” unwrapping its sensual longing, ambiguous spirituality, and layered invocation of desire. Pádraig Ó Tuama’s generous, inquisitive approach invites listeners not just to understand the poem, but to inhabit its questions and yearnings — to experience its “presence of the absence that holds all things together.”