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Lyt når som helst, hvor som helst 

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 The Interpretation of Dreams by Kate Farrell. 

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “The grand adventures or scary disasters that happen in our sleep are most interesting to the dreamers themselves, because a dream is a window into the subconscious. It’s a little peek into what your mind is actually chewing on, maybe without you even realizing it. You thought you were over that thing a friend said to you, or that awkward situation at work, but when it popped up in your dream, you realized no, it’s still on your mind.” 

This show is made possible by gifts from listeners. Support The Slowdown today. Slowdownshow.org/donate

1550: The Interpretation of Dreams by Kate Farrell

Today’s poem is Thirst Trap by Caleb Curtiss. 

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “People post seductive selfies for all kinds of reasons. They might want validation in the forms of likes and comments. They might be single and hoping to meet someone online. They might be trying to build a following, or promote a product. Someone’s face or body is going to grab a lot more eyes on social media than text on a plain background. Which means we’re often attaching our bodies to our labor or art. Regardless of how you feel about this, it is, in a way, deeply intimate.” 

This show is made possible by gifts from listeners. Support The Slowdown today. Slowdownshow.org/donate

1549: Thirst Trap by Caleb Curtiss

Today’s poem is You're Supposed to Enjoy Dying by Colin Pope. 

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “There are so many things to fear — spiders, snakes, heights, deep water, the dark. I have a friend who is so fearful of rats, you can’t even say the word in her presence. I’d say that most of these fears are rational. Snakes and spiders can bite, and some are venomous. You could drown in deep water or fall from a great height. The one thing that humans seem almost universally afraid of is also the only part of life that is certain: death.” 

This show is made possible by gifts from listeners. Support The Slowdown today. Slowdownshow.org/donate

1548: You're Supposed to Enjoy Dying by Colin Pope

Today’s poem is Northern Flicker Reconsidered by Susan Rich. 

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Once, during a Q&A after a reading, a woman raised her hand to ask, ‘What’s with all the birds in your poems?’ I had to laugh. She was right: the hawks, grackles, and starlings of my neighborhood have called and swooped into many of my poems. I told her that birds are wildlife that we all have access to, no matter where we live. Birds are everywhere … in cities, in suburbs, in the country. They make cameo appearances in many of my poems, and sometimes they’re even the stars.” 

This show is made possible by gifts from listeners. Support The Slowdown today. Slowdownshow.org/donate

1547: Northern Flicker Reconsidered by Susan Rich

Today’s poem is Pocket Dial by James Davis May. 

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes... "It’s a strangely intimate thing, the pocket dial. When we’re on the receiving end, we find ourselves listening from a tucked away place close to someone’s body. It’s a pitfall of carrying our devices with us. Previous generations, generations who grew up without cell phones, didn’t have to contend with things like pocket dials."

This show is supported by gifts from listeners. Support The Slowdown with a donation and get access to the sponsor-free version of The Slowdown today. slowdownshow.org/donate

1546: Pocket Dial by James Davis May

Today’s poem is Panis Angelicus by Carol Muske-Dukes. 

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… "There is music everywhere — played from the stereos of passing cars, sung by unselfconscious walkers wearing headphones. There’s the slamming of screen doors. The barking dogs. The occasional siren. And those noises are a kind of music, too."

This show is supported by gifts from listeners. Support The Slowdown with a donation and get access to the sponsor-free version of The Slowdown today. slowdownshow.org/donate

1545: Panis Angelicus by Carol Muske-Dukes

Today’s poem is Versions of Girlhood by Tina Chang. 

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… "Today’s poem makes me feel seen as a mother, and it also reminds me to stay present — to appreciate exactly where we are together, right now."

This show is supported by gifts from listeners. Support The Slowdown with a donation and get access to the sponsor-free version of The Slowdown today. slowdownshow.org/donate

1544: Versions of Girlhood by Tina Chang

Today’s poem is What The Suitcase Bearing my Family Name Might Have Contained When it Arrived at Auschwitz by Ava Nathaniel Winter. 

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… "It is a privilege to have lived in the same part of the same country, safely, for generations. It is a privilege to have a basement, an attic, or a garage filled with boxes: books, family photos, children’s artwork from years of school. They are just things, yes. And they are not just things at all. I try to remember this privilege when complaining about clutter."

This show is supported by gifts from listeners. Support The Slowdown with a donation and get access to the sponsor-free version of The Slowdown today. slowdownshow.org/donate

1543: What the Suitcase Bearing My Family Name Might Have Contained When It Arrived at Auschwitz by Ava Nathaniel Winter

Today’s poem is What We Wanted by Carol Moldaw. 

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… "Maybe humans have muscle and sense memory not unlike my dog on her walk around the block. We instinctively know the way, and we are most comfortable traveling the paths we’ve traveled before. It becomes a part of who we are, of how we know ourselves. But sometimes we want or need to travel “off the beaten path,” as they say. Sometimes, as we see in today’s poem, we have to find — or create — a new way."

This show is supported by gifts from listeners. Support The Slowdown with a donation and get access to the sponsor-free version of The Slowdown today. Slowdownshow.org/donate

1542: What We Wanted by Carol Moldaw

Today’s poem is Poem to Watch over You by Omotara James. 

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Diannely Antigua writes… “On Juneteenth, freedom feels like a welcome long denied. It is also a welcome we must keep making possible for each other every day. Not only in law, but in practice. Freedom should be both a declaration and a way of living. Today’s poem imagines that kind of welcome. It speaks to that miracle of arrival, to a life entering the world without needing justification. It reminds us that before the world teaches us otherwise, there is the simple and sacred fact of being received.”

This show is supported by gifts from listeners. Support The Slowdown with a donation and get access to the sponsor-free version of The Slowdown today. Slowdownshow.org/donate

1541: Poem to Watch over You by Omotara James

Today’s poem is Against Melancholy by Nathan McClain. 

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Diannely Antigua writes… “I often hear the phrase “the risk of joy,” and I keep returning to it. Is joy a risk? And if it is, what is it that we are risking? Can I open my chest to joy, knowing it might hurt me if it leaves?” 

This show is supported by gifts from listeners. Support The Slowdown with a donation and get access to the sponsor-free version of The Slowdown today. Slowdownshow.org/donate

1537: Against Melancholy by Nathan McClain

Lyt når som helst, hvor som helst

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