This week in The Emergence Room, we sit down with someone whose presence feels like stepping into a poem — David Keplinger, poet, translator, teacher, and Rome Prize Fellow.
David moves through the world with a quiet radiance, shaped by years of listening: to language, to silence, to the histories that live between words. Our conversation traces an emergence arc from stillness to voice, from interiority to offering, and from the private act of writing toward the communal act of being witnessed.
He shares how translation has become a spiritual practice, what it means to write into the unsayable, and how Rome — with its ruins and reliquaries — is reshaping his understanding of time, artistry, and devotion. We talk about poetry as wayfinding: a method for surviving grief, cultivating presence, and returning to ourselves.
His story unfolds through movements of
Listening → Vulnerability → Transformation → Offering.
By the end, David reminds us that creativity isn't a performance of genius — it's a practice of being porous to the world.
Here's to David Keplinger, and to this tender, luminous conversation.
Welcome to this week's episode of The Emergence Room.
David's Website
https://www.davidkeplingerpoetry.com
Meditate with David
https://open.substack.com/pub/davidkeplinger?r=9buxg&utm_medium=ios
