Welcome, everyone, to Room At the Table: Kitchen Conversations — A series of conversations with poets, authors, musicians, spiritual thinkers and folks from all walks of life — about their work, about what sustains them, inspires them, what helps them stay grounded in challenging times. This first episode is with beloved Author Parker J. Palmer. Upcoming episodes will include Poet, Jack Ridl; Author and Theologian, Philip Gulley; Musician and Director of The Hundreth Hill Artist Retreat, Krista Detor and more!
NOW, on to the series!
I'd like to welcome poet Jack Ridl
"Quietly waging the most peaceful and poetic political protest in history." - Garret Stack
If you don’t believe you have a soul, reading this Jack Ridl will give you one — its soulfulness is that far-reaching, generous, persuasive, and real.” - Mary Ruefle
I'd like to welcome poet Jack Ridl, Jack Ridl is a poet and author of several luminous award winning books of poetry, his most recent releases are All At Once , Saint Peter and the Goldfinch, and Practicing to Walk Like a Heron. Here’s a link for all his lovely books. His poems have appeared in publications and anthologies including, The Path of Kindness, The New York Times, Garrison Keillor's The Writers Almanac, Poet Laureate Billy Collins selected his Against Elegies for The Center for Book Arts Chapbook Award. Jack was also one of twelve in the arts invited to the Fetzer Institute for a conference on compassion and forgiveness. Jack and his wife Julie founded the Visiting Writers Series at Hope College where he taught for 37 years. More than 100 of his students are now published. The students named him both Outstanding Professor and Favorite Teacher. The Carnegie (CASE) Foundation named him Michigan's Professor of the Year. He also as a very fun Tedx talk on being imperfectly perfect. He has a continuing series of wonderful videos called The Sentimentalist on his webstie Ridl.com or YouTube Channel.
Warmly,
Carrie
It was a lovely experience getting a chance to have this kitchen conversation with Jack Ridl. I’ve become a huge fan of his luminous poetry and many collections. I highly recommend them all. In this conversation Jack reads two of his poems “Take Love For Granted” and “ The Dry Wallers Listen to Sinatra While They Work”. We also talk about the practice of presence, poetry, and leaning into the small moments..and how these moments aren’t actually small at all. Jack also addresses the hardships and challenges we face in these political times - through the lens of the human experience. I’m glad you could join us for this conversation. Pour a cup of tea, pull up a chair and join Jack and I around the table.
Question:
I really loved both poems Jack read in this conversation. What do you think about this idea of love being daily, personal, and full of small moments that make life interesting, touching, funny and oh so good? Was there a particular line in “Take Love for Granted” that touched or moved you?
Music Always Music
This is a link to a song that was written in response to one of Jack’s Poems “
Jack and I did a vespers service in January 2025 for the Unitarian Universalist Church of Detroit. It was a conversation of Jack’s poetry and my songs. One of the songs was written in response to his poem “The Materialism of Angels”. I called the song “Of Course”.
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