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American Public Media

Host Maggie Smith is your daily poetry companion. Poetry is one of the greatest tools we have to wield our own attention — to consider our own lives and the lives of others, to help us live creatively and compassionately, to use that attention to lean into wonder, and joy, and truth, and to find hope — to keep hoping. The Slowdown community knows that reflecting on a poem, every weekday, can connect us to our inner world and the world around us. Listen as you make your morning coffee, as you go on a walk in your neighborhood, as you pull away from the to-do list, as you resist the dismal, endless scroll to share five minutes of perspective through the lens of poetry, from poets old and new, well-loved and emerging onto the scene. Brought to you by American Public Media, in partnership with the Poetry Foundation.

The Slowdown: Poetry & Reflection Daily

Today’s poem is I Worry My Mother Will Die and I Will Know Nothing by Asa Drake. 

The Slowdown is currently taking a break. We’ll be back on Monday, August 18 with episodes from our new host, Maggie Smith. This week, we’re going back into the archive to revisit Ada Limón’s time as host. 

In this episode, Ada writes… “Today’s poem centers on ideas of hunger and fullness. It asks what can satisfy us in a world that is often telling us we are not enough and will never have enough.” 

Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

[encore] 520: I Worry My Mother Will Die and I Will Know Nothing by Asa Drake

Today’s poem is Trash by Joshua Bennett. The Slowdown is currently taking a break. We’ll be back on Monday, August 18 with episodes from our new host, Maggie Smith. This week, we’re going back into the archive to revisit Ada Limón’s time as host. 

In this episode, Ada writes… “Today’s poem is a perfect example of starting a poem in one place and ending it in another, unexpected place. I admire how this poem reveals a truth and a desire that pulsates under each stanza.” 

Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

[encore] 792: Trash by Joshua Bennett

Today’s poem is [since feeling is first] by E.E. Cummings.

The Slowdown is currently taking a break. We’ll be back on Monday, August 18 with episodes from our new host, Maggie Smith. This week, we’re going back into the archive to revisit Ada Limón’s time as host. 

In this episode, Ada writes… “I have a friend who will stare at something and say, “Now that’s a poem.” A glove in the snow, a bird feather stuck in the fence post, a good meal. It feels like she is blurring the lines between what we think is a poem and what is poetic, between what is real life and the language we use to capture it. 

Today’s poem, by the beloved poet E.E. Cummings, does that work of showing us the resounding “yes” to the poem—and also “yes” to the real, tangible, touchable, life.” 

Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

[encore] 688: [since feeling is first] by E.E. Cummings

Today’s poem is Sleeping with the Chihuahua by Tami Haaland.

The Slowdown is currently taking a break. We’ll be back soon with new episodes from a new host. This week, we’re going back into the archive to revisit Tracy K. Smith’s time as host. Today’s episode was originally released on November 28 2019. 

In this episode, Tracy writes… “Today’s poem describes the joy of falling asleep next to someone you love. Because whether you’re snuggled in with pets, people, or some combo of the two, it’s bliss when love makes you into a pack.” 

Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

[encore] 264: Sleeping with the Chihuahua by Tami Haaland

Today’s poem is Fish Heads by R.A. Villanueva. 

The Slowdown is currently taking a break. We’ll be back soon with new episodes from a new host. This week, we’re going back into the archive to revisit Tracy K. Smith’s time as host. Today’s episode was originally released on March 30, 2020. 

In this episode, Tracy writes… “What is it about food that feeds us? Not just the calories and nutrients, but the deeper yearning certain foods quench?” 

Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

[encore] 351: Fish Heads by R.A. Villanueva

Today’s poem is Thanks by W.S. Merwin.

The Slowdown is currently taking a break. We’ll be back soon with new episodes from a new host. This week, we’re going back into the archive to revisit Tracy K. Smith’s time as host. Today’s episode was originally released on December 18, 2019. 

In this episode, Tracy writes… “It takes a wise and gifted poet to create a panoramic portrait of life that allows guilt and anger and shame to occupy the very same space as gratitude. I believe the late W.S. Merwin was such a poet. Reading his poem, “Thanks,” takes courage, because it insists upon a fierce form of moral reckoning.” 

Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

[encore] 278: Thanks by W.S. Merwin

Today, we’re thrilled to share that the new host of The Slowdown is Maggie Smith. 

We’ll be back in your feeds with new episodes on August 18th. 

Poetry is one of the greatest tools we have to wield our own attention. To consider our own lives and the lives of others. To help us live creatively and compassionately. To use that attention to lean into wonder, and joy, and truth, and to find hope. To keep hoping. 

The Slowdown was launched nearly seven years ago to find a haven of calm in the middle of this constant storm. Based on the simple idea that reflecting on a poem, every weekday, can connect us to our inner world and the world around us. And hundreds of episodes later, we stay committed to this idea.

Maggie Smith is the New Host of The Slowdown

Today’s poem is Workshop by Jacob Shores-Argüello. 

The Slowdown is currently taking a break. We’ll be back soon with new episodes from a new host. This week, we’re going back into the archive to revisit Tracy K. Smith’s time as host. Today’s episode was originally released on October 22, 2019. 

Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

[encore] 237: Workshop by Jacob Shores-Argüello

Today’s poem is Nocturne by Oliver Baez Bendorf. 

The Slowdown is currently taking a break. We’ll be back soon with new episodes from a new host. This week, we’re revisiting some favorites from Major Jackson’s time as host. Today’s episode was originally released on September 8, 2023. 

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “In young adulthood, long before children, jobs, home ownership, my evenings felt like a blank canvas of cultural and spiritual possibility. I felt a joyous connection to all around me, artists and writers and musicians, thinkers and believers, both living and departed, alive in their pursuit of beauty and knowledge. I was starving and knew it. On South Street, one bookstore stayed open till midnight. Many nights I closed it down, sitting in a corner reading a paperback, a beer in my pocket or a cup of coffee in my hand. At some point, I knew I needed to make art, to move to celebrating the world’s loveliness. I was perpetually hungry to do so.” 

Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

[encore] 961: Nocturne by Oliver Baez Bendorf

Today’s poem is Accessory to War by Kim Stafford. 

The Slowdown is currently taking a break. We’ll be back soon with new episodes from a new host. This week, we’re revisiting some favorites from Major Jackson’s time as host. Today’s episode was originally released on April 30, 2024. 

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s sobering poem lands a powerful reminder: that even when we adhere to a belief against war, even when we wish not to collude in acts of aggression, in a powerful nation as ours, mere citizenship implicates us.” 

Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

[encore] 1107: Accessory to War by Kim Stafford

Today’s poem is A Little Slice of Heaven by Jaswinder Bolina. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. 

In this episode, Major writes… “What breaks through the impenetrable folly of it all? What lends itself as miraculous in the dailiness of our lives? The magic sprouting of a bed of daffodils in spring time, a sculpture made from black twizzlers that the artist intricately wove together into a font of wonder, or the breathtaking smile of a friend that is all the gardens you ever gazed at. Sometimes, just sometimes, someone will utter a phrase that sends us reeling inward, that seems off the grid of the unexpected, that lifts us above the quotidian. Likely, just likely, this is the work of poetry.” 

Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

1313: A Little Slice of Heaven by Jaswinder Bolina

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