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American Public Media

Poet Major Jackson is your guide on the pathways to feel and understand our common journey – through poetry. In sharing poems, we take a moment to pause and acknowledge the world’s magnitude, and how poets illuminate that mystery. Join The Slowdown for a poem and a moment of reflection in one short episode, every weekday. Produced by APM Studios in partnership with The Poetry Foundation and supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts.

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. Make us a part of your routine as you drink coffee in the morning, as you take a walk in nature, or as you wind down to go to sleep in the evening. With host Major Jackson, we collectively take a moment to calm, to inspire, to learn, and to engage with the best emerging poets and established writers of our time and generations past, from Emily Dickinson to Danez Smith, from Amanda Gorman to Mary Oliver.

Listen to our back catalog for episodes by our previous hosts, Tracy K. Smith and Ada Limón,  as well as guest hosts Jenny Xie, Brenda Shaughnessy, Tina Chang, Nate Marshall, Shira Erlichiman, and Jason Schneiderman. Our hosts and production team select poems that move them, and we hope they move you, too.

The Slowdown: Poetry & Reflection Daily

Today’s poem is Ithaka by C.P. Cavafy.

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Harvard, Illinois is among a host of American cities and towns named for locales with more illustrious histories and associations: Paris, Texas; Rome, Maine; Athens, Georgia; Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Today’s poem makes me think, first, of the city in upstate New York where some of my favorite poets reside. But it takes me next to that birthplace of Odysseus and that symbol of home, an emblematic journey by which we all must psychologically return.” 

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

1020: Ithaka

Today’s poem is A Dominican Poem by Danielle Legros Georges. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. I

n this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem problematizes easy notions of citizenship and arbitrary boundaries. It powerfully implores us to reflect on our advantages, to find a way to humility — and to connect with those whose freedom is not a given.” 

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

1256: A Dominican Poem by Danielle Legros Georges

Today’s poem is Time || Immemorial by Daniel Simon. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. 

In this episode, Major writes… “Poems about public events offer reflection. They counter political and media rhetoric that aims to simplify. Writing poems gives citizens in a democracy a place at the table of ideas and grants us a way to engage that promotes justice and civic dialogue.” 

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

1257: Time || Immemorial by Daniel Simon

Today’s poem is The Trees by Jericho Brown. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. 

In this episode, Major writes… “I love the calls and trills of warblers and rose-breasted grosbeaks, the rushing sound of a brook over stone, the irrational belief, some might say, of connecting with something larger. I start off sometimes in a spiritual crisis, but walk out spiritually cleansed. For this reason, the natural world over the years has become my lifesaving talisman.” 

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

1258: The Trees by Jericho Brown

Today’s poem is When you have to kill everybody in the room by Niki Herd. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. 

In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem presents a psychological portrait of a gun owner and the looming senses of danger and potential to harm that accompanies him.” 

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

1259: When you have to kill everybody in the room by Niki Herd

Today’s poem is Fade Away by Amorak Huey. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. 

In this episode, Major writes… “I cannot fully explain my renewed love for vinyl. All I know is that for eight weekends straight, I have found myself randomly walking into a record store. Although you might know me to be nostalgic, I do not uphold the golden days of analog and denigrate all things digital. Today’s poem insists our lives, like so many analog recordings, are raw, unadorned, layered, full of disruptions and distortions.” 

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

1260: Fade Away by Amorak Huey

Today’s poem is Immersive by Joseph Millar. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. 

In this episode, Major writes… “Poetry reorients me, does the work of humanizing, of not letting me devolve to despair. Its insistence on staying present, on paying attention, on speaking to the beauty in nature and the beauty in us, renews my faith.” 

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

1261: Immersive by Joseph Millar

Today’s poem is The Future of Terror / 1 by Matthea Harvey. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. 

In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s haunting poem, an embedded abecedarian, gets at the bizarre alter-reality of violence, how it distorts and impacts everything.” 

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

1262: The Future of Terror / 1 by Matthea Harvey

Today’s poem is Film Theory by Xan Forest Phillips. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. 

In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem reminds me that artists exist in a culture of rejection. And over time, the little illusory nicks to your ego, and the weight of commitment to your art, either extinguishes your fire or has you recommit even more, driven by that sheer love of making.” 

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

1263: Film Theory by Xan Forest Phillips

Today’s poem is The Room is a Rectangle by Marianne Chan. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. 

In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem invites discussion of the physical and emotional barriers that exist between family members when dealing with mental health issues, spotlighting feelings of confinement and helplessness.” 

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

1264: The Room is a Rectangle by Marianne Chan

Today’s poem is A Funeral Ending with Beyoncé by Karisma Price. 

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. We’re taking a break this week, so we’re running some of our favorite episodes from this season so far. This episode was originally released on 07/18/2023.

In this episode, Major writes… “When speaking about the dead, my uncle makes sure to hit his fisted hand on any object that looks grainy and some shade of brown. One theory is that the practice of touching wood has its roots in the medieval belief that trees contained spirits that positively intervened when summoned. Today’s poem continues this faith, that we can somehow protect ourselves, by acting out instinctive customs against bad news or fateful tragedy.” 

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

[encore] 923: A Funeral Ending with Beyoncé

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