The Art of Encounter: Catholic Writers from the Margins
Friday, October 20 and Saturday, October 21, 2023
As part of the official opening of the 2023 synod, Pope Francis reminded those present that every encounter calls for openness and a willingness to let ourselves be challenged by the presence and stories of others. In continuity with the Boston College commitment to a liberal arts education in the Jesuit tradition, The Art of Encounter: Catholic Writers from the Margins conference seeks to build on the Jesuit ideals of “seeing God in all things” and “training men and women for others” by responding to this call from Francis to undertake “encounter” as an approach to others. As Francis has argued, “the experience of encounter changes us; frequently it opens up new and unexpected possibilities.”
Funding for this conference was made possible by a grant from The Institute of Liberal Arts. Other sponsors include Boston College's Lonergan Institute, Burns Library, and Irish Studies, as well as Fordham University’s Curran Center for Catholic Studies.
The Art of Encounter conference seeks to respond to Francis’ call to “widen the tent” in order to welcome individuals and groups marginalized within the Catholic community because of gender, sexual identity, and ecclesiastical political identities, through encountering the stories told by poets and writers. With particular attention to listening to those creative voices that have not always been fully heard within the Catholic community, we have selected keynote speakers that integrate and wrestle with Catholic faith, speaking from the margins of the Catholic community towards its center. The first keynote and Saturday’s Workshop will be led by Irish poet Pádraig Ó Tuama, host of the On Being associate podcast Poetry Unbound and author of several poetry collections including his most recent, Feed the Beast. Ó Tuama writes as both a poet and a theologian, an LGBTQ+ activist, and was the leader of the Corrymeela Community—Ireland’s oldest peace and reconciliation organization—for five years. Our second keynote speaker is Alice McDermott, Richard A. Macksey Professor of the Humanities at Johns Hopkins University and author of eight novels, including several that were finalists for the Pulitzer Prize, and a founder of a group that seeks to engage all of the faithful in renewing the Church. A frequent visitor to Boston College, McDermott has been profiled in Boston College Magazine on her Catholic faith.
In addition to the two keynotes, there will be a presentation by Angela Alaimo O’Donnell, writer, poet, and professor at Fordham University and associate director of its Curran Center for American Catholic Studies. Kim Garcia, poet and teacher in BC’s English department and Allison Adair, associate professor of the practice (BC English), will host a panel on “Identity and the Catholic Imagination” with trans author R/B Mertz. Alongside the presentations will be substantial time for an afternoon reception and book signings in Burns Library.
Our hope is that students and other conference participants will have the opportunity to encounter both the authors themselves and their powerful ideas and stories, and in the process glimpse and contribute to a more capacious understanding of what the Catholic community might be, standing close to the heart of BC’s liberal arts education goal: to broaden our understanding of how encountering “the other” might be rich and fulfilling, opening up new possibilities for recognizing the richness and multiplicity of the real world—in a word, for finding God in all things.
Angela Alaimo O’Donnell, PhD is a professor, poet, scholar, and writer at Fordham University in New York City, and serves as Associate Director of Fordham’s Curran Center for American Catholic Studies. Her publications include two chapbooks and eight full-length collections of poems. Her most recent book of poems Holy Land (2022) won the Paraclete Press Poetry Prize. In addition, O’Donnell has published a memoir about caring for her dying mother, Mortal Blessings: A Sacramental Farewell; a book of hours based on the practical theology of Flannery O’Connor, The Province of Joy; and a biography Flannery O’Connor: Fiction Fired by Faith. The latter won the Catholic Press Association Prize for best biography in 2015. Her ground-breaking critical book on Flannery O’Connor Radical Ambivalence: Race in Flannery O’Connor was published by Fordham University Press in 2020. O’Donnell’s ninth book of poems, Dear Dante, will be released by Paraclete Press in Spring 2024.
Alice McDermott’s novel, Absolution, will be published in October by Farrar, Straus & Giroux. Her eight previous novels have been finalists for the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, the PEN/Faulkner Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award. Her novel Charming Billy won the National Book Award for fiction. Her stories and essays have appeared in The New Yorker, Harpers, The New York Times, Commonweal and elsewhere. For over two decades she was the Richard A. Mackey Professor of the Humanities at Johns Hopkins University and a member of the faculty of the Sewanee Writers Conference.
R/B Mertz (they/them) was homeschooled by Catholic fundamentalists and attended one of the most conservative colleges in the U.S. before coming out as a queer butch dyke poet in 2007 and as trans/non-binary in 2015. Their memoir, Burning Butch, was published in 2022 by Unnamed Press. They have published work in Another Chicago Review, Guernica Magazine, Arc Poetry Magazine, Fence, Autostraddle, Christian Century, and elsewhere. Their book of poems, CU T, will be released in early 2024 by Threadsuns Press. They now live in Toronto and are at work on a second memoir, Boy or Girl, which has been supported by a grant from the Toronto Arts Council. They teach writing at Sheridan College.
Irish poet and theologian Pádraig Ó Tuama’s work centers around themes of language, power, conflict and religion. He is the author of several books of poetry and prose: Feed the Beast, Daily Prayer with the Corrymeela Community, In the Shelter, Sorry for your Troubles, and Readings from the Books of Exile. Ó Tuama is also the host of the popular podcast Poetry Unbound, which immerses the listener into one poem every week, and the author of the collection, Poetry Unbound, an expansion on the podcast that offers reflections on fifty powerful poems. He splits his time between Ireland and NYC.
Kim Garcia is the author of The Brighter House, DRONE, Madonna Magdalene and Tales of the Sisters. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in IMAGE, AGNI, The Southern Review and elsewhere. Garcia teaches creative writing at Boston College.
Allison Adair is author of The Clearing, winner of the Max Ritvo Poetry Prize. Her poems appear in Best American Poetry, Threepenny, Kenyon Review, and ZYZZYVA, and have received the Pushcart Prize, the Florida Review Editors’ Award, and the Orlando Prize. She is originally from central Pennsylvania.
Mary Elliot is assistant director of the Lonergan Institute. She received her M.A. in Philosophy from Boston College in 2020. Her writing has been published in The Peabody Journal of Education, Academy Journal, and Macrina Magazine, among others.
Mark Massa, S.J., Th.D. is director of the Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life. He is a church historian who studies Catholicism in the U.S. in the twentieth century. He is the author of seven books, the most recent of which is The Structure of Theological Revolutions: How Humanae Vitae Shaped Debates About Natural Law.
Adair, Allison. The Clearing: Poems. First edition. Minneapolis, MN: Milkweed Editions, 2020.
Garcia, Kim. The Brighter House. Buffalo, NY: White Pine Press, 2016.
McDermott, Alice. After This. New York, NY: Dell Publishing, 2007.
McDermott, Alice. Charming Billy. First edition. New York, NY: Farrar Straus and Giroux, 1998.
Mertz, R/B. Burning Butch. Los Angeles, CA: Unnamed Press, 2022.
O'Donnell, Angela Alaimo. Holy Land: Poems. Brewster, MA: Paraclete Press, 2022.
O'Donnell, Angela Alaimo. “Love in the Time of Coronavirus: Wherein We Realize This Is Not Temporary.” Spiritus 21, no. 1 (2021): 151–151. https://doi.org/10.1353/scs.2021.0019.
Ó Tuama, Pádraig. Poetry Unbound: 50 Poems to Open Your World. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company, 2022.
Ó Tuama, Pádraig. Readings from the Book of Exile. Norwich, England: Canterbury Press, 2012.
Ó Tuama, Pádraig, and Jordan, Glenn. Borders and Belonging: the Book of Ruth: a Story for Our Times. Norwich, England: Canterbury Press, 2021
In this article published recently in The Irish Independent, Pádraig Ó Tuama – one of the keynote speakers for our conference, “The Art of the Encounter: Catholic Writers from the Margins” – describes the power of poetry. Ó Tuama reflects on the significance of poetic expression: “I think we turn to poetry because somehow we trust that language has the capacity to tell us something about ourselves.” As we prepare for the conference, his powerful words invite us to open ourselves up to the transformative effect that poetry can have on us and the way that it can offer meaning and guidance in the midst of life’s uncertainties.
Dr. Angela Alaimo O'Donnell introduces our first keynote speaker, Pádraig Ó Tuama, on Friday, October 20, 2023.
Pádraig Ó Tuama delivering his keynote address "I Pray God Rid Me of God" on Friday, October 20, 2023.
Pádraig Ó Tuama reading from his book on Friday, October 20, 2023.
Pádraig Ó Tuama delivering his keynote address on Friday, October 20, 2023.
Dr. Angela Alaimo O'Donnell delivering her lecture "The Out-cast & the Dis-understood: Poetry & the Practice of Love" on Saturday, October 21, 2023.
Dr. Angela Alaimo O'Donnell reading from her book Waking My Mother.
Pádraig Ó Tuama's poetry workshop titled The Devil’s in the Details: Literature and Language as a Way to Salvation on Saturday, October 21, 2023.
Christian Dupont introduces our afternoon panel “Identity and the Catholic Imagination” in Burns Library on Saturday, October 21, 2023. Sitting in chairs, to the right of Christian, Kim Garcia, R/B Mertz, and Allison Adair.
R/B Mertz giving their talk in Burns Library on Saturday, October 21, 2023. Kim Garcia (sitting to the right) and Allison Adair (not pictured) give their responses.
Kim Garcia, Allison Adair, and guest having a discussion following panel.
Group shot of reception held in Burns Library.
Alice McDermott delivers her keynote address Pardon and Peace: Encountering Absolution.
Photo Credits: Christopher Soldt for Friday night's Keynote address and Emily Caffrey for Saturday's events.
As part of the official opening of the 2023 synod, Pope Francis reminded those present that every encounter calls for openness and a willingness to let ourselves be challenged by the presence and stories of others. In response to this invitation, on Friday, October 20, 2023 and Saturday, October 21, 2023, the Boisi Center co-hosted a conference titled, The Art of Encounter: Catholic Writers from the Margins. The event was also sponsored by Boston College’s The Institute for the Liberal Arts, the Lonergan Institute, Burns Library, Irish Studies, as well as Fordham University’s Curran Center for American Catholic Studies. The conference offered various perspectives from Catholics who identify as existing on the margins of the Church and discussed ways to move forward to create a more inclusive community.
The conference began on Friday evening with a keynote address from Pádraig Ó Tuama, an acclaimed Irish poet and theologian and host of the well-known podcast, “Poetry Unbound.” His talk, entitled “I Pray God Rid Me of God,” explored how his experiences growing up as a gay Catholic influenced his relationship with God and his theology. He shared painful stories about how priests tried to exorcize him as a teenager. Ó Tuama responded by turning his rage about these experiences into art, reflecting that “I made something from that which wanted to destroy me.” Ó Tuama explained how art and poetry can be devices that help us process and metabolize unjust pain, which provided a meaningful context for the remainder of the conference.
The conference continued on Saturday morning with an opening talk from Angela Alaimo O’Donnell, the associate director of Fordham’s Curran Center and professor of literature at the university. Her talk was titled “The Out-cast & the Dis-understood: Poetry & the Practice of Love.” She read a number of her poems, many of which dealt with the complexities of her and her mother’s experiences with Catholicism. Recounting an experience of her mother’s marginalization in her parish because of her divorce, O’Donnell emphasized the importance of resisting those who draw boundaries around Catholic belonging, and she identified Catholicism as a religion for all.
Following O’Donnell’s address, the conference transitioned to a poetry workshop, titled “The Devil’s in the Details: Literature and Language as a Way to Salvation.” Ó Tuama, the workshop leader, shared his own poems that grappled with the idea that “the devil is in thyself.” The session invited attendees to confront and reflect on their inner lives and channel these discoveries into poetry. Ó Tuama provided a series of prompts to inspire this activity, and the session culminated in attendees’ sharing lines of their creations.
After the workshop and a shared meal, the conference moved into a panel discussion with R/B Mertz, a poet and teacher of writing at Sheridan College; Kim Garcia, a poet and creative writing professor at Boston College; and Allison Adair, a poet and creative writing professor of the practice at Boston College. The panel, “Identity and the Catholic Imagination,” began with a presentation from Mertz and then Garcia and Adair engaged Mertz in a Q&A. Mertz discussed their experiences growing up in a fundamentalist Catholic family, being homeschooled, and identifying as trans/non-binary. In light of this experience, they now advocate for people on the margins to reveal their true selves and join together to create a stronger coalition of support for marginalized Catholics. Mertz also encouraged attendees to look to people on the margins of gender expression within the Catholic tradition, such as Saint Joan of Arc. The panel was followed by a book signing, which allowed for further discussion between the presenters and attendees.
The conference then transitioned to a keynote presentation by Alice McDermott. McDermott was the Richard A. Macksey Professor of the Humanities at Johns Hopkins University prior to her retirement in 2019. Her novel, Charming Billy, received the National Book Award for fiction, and her other works have been finalists for the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and the PEN/Faulkner Award. Her keynote address, entitled “Pardon and Peace: Encountering Absolution,” discussed the themes of her recently published book, Absolution. She explained how literature can serve as a way to encounter experiences other than our own and discussed the importance of pardon and peace in the journey toward true absolution. Her comments were a powerful and insightful conclusion to the speaking sessions of the conference, helping to show how literature can enrich the texture of our relationships. The conference concluded with Mass in St. Mary’s Chapel presided by Mark Massa, S.J. The Mass was a meaningful way to wrap up the gathering, as it allowed the attendees to come together and pray for one another as well for those who feel on the margins of the church. It also featured the music of pioneering Black priest and liturgist, Reverend Clarence Joseph Rivers. The service reflected the conference’s overall aim to offer hope, promote encounter, and embody Pope Francis’ call to “widen the tent” and create a more inclusive church.