The Slowdown: Poetry & Reflection Daily

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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...

1320: mulberry fields by Lucille Clifton

Today’s poem is mulberry fields by Lucille Clifton.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “American poetry gently mediates our rich and complicated history. It points the way to healing and affirms timeless values that secure all Americans' freedoms.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Mar 27, • 5:45

encore [902]: Morning in a City by J. Mae Barizo

Our episode today is one of many from the archives. We’ll be back tomorrow with more new poetry and reflection! Today’s poem is Morning in a City by J. Mae Barizo. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem, an homage to poet Robert Hass, suggests one possible way of retaining is to live in the music of our existence, where memories though fleeting and at our peripheries, still carry indulgences of delight.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to

Mar 26, • 5:33

1319: The Rain, Life, and Other Things by Leah Umansky

Today’s poem is The Rain, Life, and Other Things by Leah Umansky. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “I hear in today’s poem a spirit of riffing and casting forward in expressive notes. The speaker progresses by way of shifts and variations that ultimately arrives like a jazz solo. It’s where I find solace in movement and truth, in an embrace of simplicity.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: ht

Mar 25, • 8:36

1318: Desert Sayings by Donovan McAbee

Today’s poem is Desert Sayings by Donovan McAbee. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s uproarious poem makes me want to abandon our life of chatter. To throw off our overly scheduled existence. I want to wake up to truths that can only be gleaned when I fade-out sequentially every duty that impresses upon me as needing to get done.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/r

Mar 24, • 5:39

1317: Grinning in Sardinia by Tomás Q. Morín

Today’s poem is Grinning in Sardinia by Tomás Q. Morín. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Writing is mining. That’s what I tell students or anyone that aspires to give expression to their lives. It’s probably why the Greek goddess of memory, Mnemosyne, is credited with inventing language. So much of writing is digging into the past, is going in further to find words that shape our understanding of the irrational before we lose hold.” Celebrate the power of

Mar 21, • 6:02

1316: Portrait of My Mother Studying for Her Citizenship Exam by Eduardo Martínez-Leyva

Today’s poem is Portrait of My Mother Studying for Her Citizenship Exam by Eduardo Martínez-Leyva. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “With watery eyes, Mrs. Kumar shared the feelings of being in a room full of people with different histories and cultures, all raising their hands together, in unison, giving voice to a shared belief in the freedoms espoused by their new country. Her story is but one of many. Today’s poem tells another story of a path to citiz

Mar 20, • 5:51

encore [1224]: Here We Are by Lauren K. Watel

Our episode today is one of many from the archives. We’ll be back tomorrow with more new poetry and reflection! Today’s poem is Here We Are by Lauren K. Watel. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem begins from the idea that we yearn for connection and healing, but that our conflicts feel irreconcilable — to the point that we do not trust a future free of our trauma, grief, and suffering.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown to

Mar 19, • 5:33

1315: Milestone 2 (We Laugh About the Weather, Its Permanence) by Divya Victor

Today’s poem is Milestone 2 (We Laugh About the Weather, Its Impermanence) by Divya Victor. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “I wish us not to slide over each other’s lives, but there are limits to becoming too familiar. What if the conversation is not well-intentioned, but packed with assumptions, or worse? I thought as much reading today’s poem, one where the speaker themself is silent, subject not only to a barrage of trapping questions, but also to the

Mar 18, • 5:31

1314: If we had known, by Marissa Davis

Today’s poem is If we had known, by Marissa Davis. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “I love how nature disrupts the important goings-on of humans, how it forces us to grind to a halt and makes us one with our environs. We are smart to heed its signs.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Mar 17, • 6:06

1313: A Little Slice of Heaven by Jaswinder Bolina

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. Somet

Mar 14, • 6:06

1312: small comment by Sonia Sanchez

Today’s poem is small comment by Sonia Sanchez. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s sharp poem was written by one of our most revered living poets. Its analysis could not be more pertinent to our political reality today.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Mar 13, • 5:36

[encore] 1078: Ferment by Monica Rico

Our episode today is one of many from the archives. We’ll be back tomorrow with more new poetry and reflection! Today’s poem is Ferment by Monica Rico. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “When writing poems and essays, I saturate my brain, when in fact, I should instead let intuition and a meandering knowing take over. There is something in the old-time folk wisdom, in what some used to call “common sense,” that which cannot be learned in a book, but arrives

Mar 12, • 5:44

1311: Gratitude by Patrick Dundon

Today’s poem is Gratitude by Patrick Dundon. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem puts us in touch with what it means to experience unadulterated joy, one that is owed to an exquisite contentment.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Mar 11, • 5:48

1310: Divinity School by Ariana Reines

Today’s poem is Divinity School by Ariana Reines. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Some people visit the Caribbean and other warmer climes. I drove to a lamp store. Some people dine by a fireside hearth at their favorite restaurant. I drove to a lamp store. Some people . . . you get my point. Reading the headlines, I thought recently, of those seeking refuge, of those on the social, economic, and political margins. I thought about how maybe America is a l

Mar 10, • 5:08

1309: 5 A.M. by Michael Ondaatje

Today’s poem is 5 A.M. by Michael Ondaatje. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “The nature of my youth was one in which my passion for art lived out in my passion for life. At times, there was a recklessness about it. Like Greg, Quraysh, and me spilling out of a Soho bar at first light, having debated literature and writers with a seriousness that felt like life mattered, truly mattered.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every

Mar 7, • 5:45

1308: Mother's Rules by Yalie Saweda Kamara

Today’s poem is Mother's Rules by Yalie Saweda Kamara. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual.In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem shows how we impossibly carry our parents’ voices well into our adulthood, a measure by which to shape our lives independent of their nurturance and instructions.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Mar 6, • 6:01

[encore] 1039: What Good Is Silence by Phuong T. Vuong

Today’s poem is What Good Is Silence by Phuong T. Vuong. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. Our episode today is one of many from the archives. We’ll be back tomorrow with more new poetry and reflection! In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem illustrates returning to listening as a ventilation of the soul, sublimating the ego in the interest of interacting with more than just our thoughts.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a diffe

Mar 5, • 5:51

1307: Field Guide as Sonnet by A. D. Lauren-Abunassar

Today’s poem is Field Guide as Sonnet by A. D. Lauren-Abunassar. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem honors the spirit of courageous women who humbly persist, who do not hold back on love.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Mar 4, • 5:52

1306: Ode to the Pink Cowboy Hat by Quinn Carver Johnson

Today’s poem is Ode to the Pink Cowboy Hat by Quinn Carver Johnson. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem honors how popular culture made room for a different kind of masculinity in the most unlikely of shows, the World Wrestling Federation with Chief Jay Strongbow, André the Giant, Hulk Hogan, Ric Flair and “Adorable” Adrian Adonis.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl

Mar 3, • 5:40

1305: An Apology for Trashing Magazines in Which You Appear by Nicole Sealey

Today’s poem is An Apology for Trashing Magazines in Which You Appear by Nicole Sealey. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. Around what has become known as “awards season,” casual conversations are abuzz with talk of the year’s movies. This week’s episodes explore how poets take up movies as subjects — how the two art forms intertwine to make us feel more closely this life we share. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s cleverly sonic poem collapses the distance even more between celebri

Feb 28, • 7:14

1304: Cinema Paradiso by Claire Booker

Today’s poem is Cinema Paradiso by Claire Booker. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. Around what has become known as “awards season,” casual conversations are abuzz with talk of the year’s movies. This week’s episodes explore how poets take up movies as subjects — how the two art forms intertwine to make us feel more closely this life we share. In this episode, Major writes… “One of my favorite moments in Italian Cinema is the movie Cinema Paradiso. It finds a young boy named Toto as the

Feb 27, • 6:44

1303: Chaplinesque by Hart Crane

Today’s poem is Chaplinesque by Hart Crane. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. Around what has become known as “awards season,” casual conversations are abuzz with talk of the year’s movies. This week’s episodes explore how poets take up movies as subjects — how the two art forms intertwine to make us feel more closely this life we share. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s iconic Modernist poem celebrates the artist and movie icon who inspired generations of filmmakers and actors, bu

Feb 26, • 6:20

1302: One Shies at the Prospect of Raising Yet Another Defense of Cannibalism by Josh Bell

Today’s poem is One Shies at the Prospect of Raising Yet Another Defense of Cannibalism by Josh Bell. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. Around what has become known as “awards season,” casual conversations are abuzz with talk of the year’s movies. This week’s episodes explore how poets take up movies as subjects — how the two art forms intertwine to make us feel more closely this life we share. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem whimsically plays with faux intimacy as an aesthe

Feb 25, • 6:23

1301: Jaws by Emma Hine

Today’s poem is Jaws by Emma Hine. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. Around what has become known as “awards season,” casual conversations are abuzz with talk of the year’s movies. This week’s episodes explore how poets take up movies as subjects — how the two art forms intertwine to make us feel more closely this life we share. In this episode, Major writes… “As a kid, I saw Steven Spielberg’s movie Jaws in 1975. It’s 2025. I now have an app that tells me the location of sharks. I do no

Feb 24, • 6:20

1300: Genesis by Megan Pinto

Today’s poem is Genesis by Megan Pinto. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual.In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem makes it apparent how powerful human ingenuity is, how wondrous it is, but also, too, its limitations. Technology cannot console and quiet our restless, lonely spirits. Only we can.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Feb 21, • 6:16

1299: Hello, the Roses by Mei-mei Berssenbrugge

Today’s poem is Hello, the Roses by Mei-mei Berssenbrugge. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “It is said, poets are perpetually at odds with scientists. But the truth is, poets have long been inspired by advances in engineering, astronomy, and biology.”Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Feb 20, • 7:39

1298: Earth, Earth by Cyrée Jarelle Johnson

Today’s poem is Earth, Earth by Cyrée Jarelle Johnson. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Lately, I have upped my message of abiding by — or living — an ethos of care and compassion; my work in the classroom and on the page has taken greater urgency.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Feb 19, • 6:20

1297: Jamboree, Evening, Midsummer by Austin Araujo

Today’s poem is Jamboree, Evening, Midsummer by Austin Araujo. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “I have borne witness to some profoundly tender relationships over the years between siblings. I realize how quiet I have been in acknowledging the beauty of those bonds. So, consider today’s episode a shout out, a lifting of siblinghood that avoids traditional predictable codes and stereotypes.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Ev

Feb 18, • 5:43

1296: In Which I Become (Skywoman) by Kenzie Allen

Today’s poem is In Which I Become (Skywoman) by Kenzie Allen.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s beautiful, incantatory poem contains a rich message of communal nurturance, how we soften each other’s fall, as we learn to acknowledge our purpose in the universe.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Feb 17, • 5:59

1295: Wind Ode by Sharon Olds

Today’s poem is Wind Ode by Sharon Olds. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Maggie Smith writes… “Today’s poem is an ode, a poem of praise or celebration. It reminds me that attention is a form of love. If you love the world, give it the gift of your attention. Don’t be afraid to get up close, to look deeper, to go inside. To reach out and touch, to smell, to engage your senses. We’re only here on this planet for a short time. We might as well soak up every las

Feb 14, • 5:57

1294: White Peonies by Reginald Dwayne Betts

Today’s poem is White Peonies by Reginald Dwayne Betts. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Maggie Smith writes… “When I’m on a walk, I take pictures and make recordings so I can later identify what I’ve seen and heard. If my teenage daughter is with me, as she often is, she teases me when I use the birding app on my phone, or when I take photos of seed pods, or leaves, or bark, so I can identify a plant or a tree. She said once, “Why can’t you just see it and e

Feb 13, • 5:26

1293: Washing the Elephant by Barbara Ras

Today’s poem is Washing the Elephant by Barbara Ras. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Maggie Smith writes… “Today’s poem walloped me with its deep wisdom about childhood, memory, and love.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Feb 12, • 5:50

1292: Rabbitbrush by Molly McCully Brown

Today’s poem is Rabbitbrush by Molly McCully Brown. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Maggie Smith writes… “One of the things I love about being in a new place is experiencing the flora and fauna of that place. But it’s more than that, isn’t it? When we learn a new place, we also learn who we are in that new place. We learn new ways to be ourselves.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tiny

Feb 11, • 5:40

1291: Our Bodies by Michael Bazzett

Today’s poem is Our Bodies by Michael Bazzett. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Maggie Smith writes… “I grew up pre-Internet, pre-cell phones. For most of my childhood we didn’t have cable TV or a VCR. If I had free time, I was riding my bike, playing outside, or reading a book. We call it “free range” now—the idea that children don’t need to be constantly supervised and entertained. There’s something about being left to your own devices, and having to be res

Feb 10, • 5:28

1290: Statement of Teaching Philosophy by Keith Leonard

Today’s poem is Statement of Teaching Philosophy by Keith Leonard. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Maggie Smith writes… “I know I’m not the only one who’s experienced the inadequacy of language. I know I’m not the only one who’s struggled to communicate something I’ve been thinking or feeling. But maybe you’ve experienced the magic of language. Maybe you’ve read something that articulated what you’ve felt or experienced but could never describe yourself. Or

Feb 7, • 5:58

1289: Things I Want to Tell You About California by Barbara Costas-Biggs

Today’s poem is Things I Want to Tell You About California by Barbara Costas-Biggs. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Maggie Smith writes… “Today’s poem feels like a “wish you were here” postcard. It makes me wonder how I would describe where I live to someone faraway, what details I would include. What in my familiar world might woo them to join me here.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https:

Feb 6, • 5:13

1288: A Drink in the Night by Deborah Garrison

Today’s poem is A Drink in the Night by Deborah Garrison. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Maggie Smith writes… “Today’s poem captures a scene between a parent and child that feels both familiar and miraculous. I love that poems are a place where the everyday and the transcendent can live side by side. Because they live side by side in life, too. There’s wonder everywhere, even in the tiniest, most banal moments. We just have to open our eyes to see it—or, as

Feb 5, • 5:33

1287: Astronomers Locate a New Planet by Matthew Olzmann

Today’s poem is Astronomers Locate a New Planet by Matthew Olzmann. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Maggie Smith writes… “Today’s poem does something I admire a great deal, which is to bring two unexpected things together: a scientific discovery of a new planet, and the issue of marriage rights."Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Feb 4, • 5:51

1286: Reasons to Live by Ruth Awad

Today’s poem is Reasons to Live by Ruth Awad. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Maggie Smith writes… “I know hope can be a tough sell when there’s so much suffering in the world. It’s easier to notice what’s wrong with the world instead of what’s right. But in especially difficult times, we have to look harder for the light. It’s there. Even if it’s small, or flickering, or hard to see from a distance, the light is always there.” Celebrate the power of poems w

Feb 3, • 4:54

1285: It Too Remains by Glyn Maxwell

Today’s poem is It Too Remains by Glyn Maxwell. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Though spoken to a single person, today’s elegiac poem makes a universal claim about loss; our hearts, mind, and bodies and the memories within render permanent, even conjure, those we once loved on this side of life.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Jan 31, • 5:32

1284: When You Rise from the Dead I Drive You to the After Party by Melissa Studdard

Today’s poem is When You Rise from the Dead I Drive You to the After Party by Melissa Studdard. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “I think my group chats are the best group chats. We hit each other up every day, give verbal daps, check-in on family, share progress videos of workouts. We pass on new drafts of poems with no pressure to give feedback (but, of course, we do). Or we simply say, “Good morning.” When birthdays roll around, we make sure each feels

Jan 30, • 5:42

1283: A Sword Shall Pierce Your Heart by Pádraig Ó Tuama

Today’s poem is A Sword Shall Pierce Your Heart by Pádraig Ó Tuama. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “I think my group chats are the best group chats. We hit each other up every day, give verbal daps, check-in on family, share progress videos of workouts. We pass on new drafts of poems with no pressure to give feedback (but, of course, we do). Or we simply say, “Good morning.” When birthdays roll around, we make sure each feels the love. On our phones, we

Jan 29, • 4:54

1282: Third Week of Ramadan by Sahar Romani

Today’s poem is Third Week of Ramadan by Sahar Romani. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem banishes any doubt that this is all a precious journey. It is a poem that points to a holy rite practiced the world over whose aim is purification and renewal.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Jan 28, • 6:10

1281: I Want to Die by Tariq Luthun

Today’s poem is I Want to Die by Tariq Luthun. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Dining at a new restaurant, me and a group of friends landed on the topic of fears. I was kind of listening, but I was more into the food being set before us. Then it was my turn; I said I feared loneliness, that I would never experience the joy of friends, that I would lose out on moments like this, taking in the pleasures of the world. I was surprised by my expressiveness.

Jan 27, • 6:02

1280: If by Imtiaz Dharker

Today’s poem is If by Imtiaz Dharker. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… "Today’s poem encourages us to be aware of each other, to be more in awe of the miracle of now. With the presence of war on earth, I feel the beckoning call of this poem even more powerfully. Let kindness reign everywhere." Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Jan 24, • 5:49

1279: Ode to My Mama and “The Purple Dress,” circa 1992-1993 by Brittany Rogers

Today’s poem is Ode to My Mama and “The Purple Dress,” circa 1992-1993 by Brittany Rogers. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… "It’s disconcerting seeing the younger me all these years later. I notice the sensitive, mildly insecure yet intellectually hungry me. I was trying to see a hidden world through the camera’s lens, my inner life in concert with the world around me. These pictures reveal how I strained to feel worthy. Time has cloaked that younger me in

Jan 23, • 5:33

1278: things people like to share: by Nuar Alsadir

Today’s poem is things people like to share: by Nuar Alsadir.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s whimsical poem, a minimalist list poem, meditates on the line between what we might be willing to let go and what we choose to keep for ourselves.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Jan 22, • 5:07

1277: Self-Portrait as Kendrick Lamar, Laughing to the Bank by Ashanti Anderson

Today’s poem is Self-Portrait as Kendrick Lamar, Laughing to the Bank by Ashanti Anderson. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… "I first read today’s poem as the rap battle of the summer, arguably of the century, played out between Kendrick Lamar and Drake. This helped me understand again the relationship between hip-hop and poetry. Wit and insinuation are vital elements of our culture." Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every don

Jan 21, • 5:49

1276: To Be Longing by Elizabeth Willis

Today’s poem is To Be Longing by Elizabeth Willis. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… "Today’s poem explores the situation of writing ourselves out of fixed meanings that confine us to labels, to disempowering social and political realities." Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Jan 20, • 6:01

1275: Love Language by Angela Narciso Torres

Today’s poem is Love Language by Angela Narciso Torres. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Why do we need to know how much we are loved? In a way, aren’t we asking how thick is the shield of affection that protects us from the world, maybe even from ourselves?” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Jan 17, • 6:04

1274: Ennui by Luis G. Dato

Today’s poem is Ennui by Luis G. Dato. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem critiques the relentless, psychic demands of an inscrutable world, yet, too, encourages a side-ways road to tranquility, a way that we might secure a meaningful freedom.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Jan 16, • 5:54

1273: Sorrow Ghazal by Mary Elder Jacobsen

Today’s poem is Sorrow Ghazal by Mary Elder Jacobsen. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem is a loving exchange that underscores the importance of giving room for what makes those we love different from us, even if we wish to change them.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Jan 15, • 6:01

1272: The Paper Nautilus by Marianne Moore

Today’s poem is The Paper Nautilus by Marianne Moore. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Treat poetry like a rollercoaster. You may not know the laws of physics, but it does not prevent you from enjoying the ride. Poetry values ambiguity and it is okay not to know all of its layers.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Jan 14, • 5:52

1271: Refuge by Nehassaiu deGannes

Today’s poem is Refuge by Nehassaiu deGannes. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s formally rich poem positions gardening as a powerful means of holding on to one’s culture, to one’s culinary identity in a new land.”Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Jan 13, • 6:18

1270: The Gift to Sing by James Weldon Johnson

Today’s poem is The Gift to Sing by James Weldon Johnson. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “For those of us who want to hold onto the light as long as we can, we make sure to embrace more than the material comforts — we can make sure to surround ourselves with family, friends and song.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Jan 10, • 5:17

1269: Grace by Orlando Ricardo Menes

Today’s poem is Grace by Orlando Ricardo Menes. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “I believe in grace, which arrives from a sacred belief that all of us are deserving of it.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Jan 9, • 5:47

1268: The Pacific by Jennifer Jean

Today’s poem is The Pacific by Jennifer Jean. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “What I appreciate in today’s poem is the speaker’s indomitable outlook that echoes my grandparents’ optimistic spirit, especially in the face of deprivation and difficulty. Today’s poem lands on what is both a beautiful notion and a pragmatic belief: that even in our states of lack, we still live a miraculous existence, where love and natural beauty abound.” Celebrate the power

Jan 8, • 5:00

1267: What the Body Gives Away by Saba Keramati

Today’s poem is What the Body Gives Away by Saba Keramati. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “I like to believe that my senses are open as I take in music, food, travel, new adventures, new friends. I like to think poetry makes me extrasensory. But, then again, my wife would argue I spend too much time in my head, thinking my life away. I enjoy how today’s poem makes it a goal to be keenly aware, intuitive, and innate.” Celebrate the power of poems with a g

Jan 7, • 5:18

1266: Echo by Christina Rossetti

Today’s poem is Echo by Christina Rossetti. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem calls back to a deceased beloved, to return to this side of existence, to traverse the layers of time — an incantation that wishes to reunite us with the bliss we once knew.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Jan 6, • 5:03

[encore] 1006: Something Sweet by Hannah Lowe

Today’s poem is Something Sweet by Hannah Lowe. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. We’re taking a break this week, so we’re sharing some of our favorite episodes from the archive. We’ll be back with new episodes on January 6, 2025. This episode was originally released on November 24, 2023. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem, a sonnet, holds the truth that the world is capable of awakening us out of our petrified states. We can be charmed back into our bodies and repaired, so tha

Jan 3, • 5:47

[encore] 964: abundance of light by erica lewis

Today’s poem is abundance of light by erica lewis. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. We’re taking a break this week, so we’re sharing some of our favorite episodes from the archive. We’ll be back with new episodes on January 6, 2025. This episode was originally released on September 13, 2023. In this episode, Major writes… “I hear in today’s poem a haunting, reckoning, and nostalgia – dominant themes among poets on the road. On stages and podiums, we traded poems about heartbreak, childh

Jan 2, • 5:52

[encore] 1032: Counting, This New Year’s Morning, What Powers Yet Remain To Me by Jane Hirshfield

Today’s poem is Counting, This New Year’s Morning, What Powers Yet Remain To Me by Jane Hirshfield. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. We’re taking a break this week, so we’re sharing some of our favorite episodes from the archive. We’ll be back with new episodes on January 6, 2025. This episode was originally released on January 1, 2024.In this episode, Major writes… “The clocks have struck another year. Soon, I will box up and archive 2023 in the mental basement of my mind, although I'm

Jan 1, • 5:46

[encore] 1184: End of December by Ashjan Hendi, translated by Moneera Al-Ghadeer

Today’s poem is End of December by Ashjan Hendi, translated by Moneera Al-Ghadeer. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. We’re taking a break this week, so we’re sharing some of our favorite episodes from the archive. We’ll be back with new episodes on January 6, 2025. This episode was originally released on August 15, 2024. In this episode, Major writes… “Tests to long-term commitments are bound to happen. Expending too much affection can lead to exhaustion and the bruise of eventual disapp

Dec 31, 2024 • 5:15

[encore] 845: Dear Future Me (#12) by Lena Moses-Schmitt

Today’s poem is Dear Future Me (#12) by Lena Moses-Schmitt.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. We’re taking a break this week, so we’re sharing some of our favorite episodes from the archive. We’ll be back with new episodes on January 6, 2025. This episode was originally released on March 30, 2023. In this episode, Major writes… “Writing poetry is chiefly a search for language that makes a tidy explanation of both the present and the past, with the hope our mind grabs on so that the poem e

Dec 30, 2024 • 6:29

[encore] 1026: Ode to Bones by Lynne Thompson

Today’s poem is Ode to Bones by Lynne Thompson. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. We’re taking a break this week, so we’re sharing some of our favorite episodes from the archive. We’ll be back with new episodes on January 6, 2025. This episode was originally released on December 22, 2023. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem riffs off a childhood name, to caravan us to all the possibilities of association which brings the speaker back to the uniqueness and individual nature of th

Dec 27, 2024 • 6:13

[encore] 908: After the Farm was Sold to FedEx by Carlie Hoffman

Today’s poem is After the Farm was Sold to FedEx by Carlie Hoffman. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. We’re taking a break this week, so we’re sharing some of our favorite episodes from the archive. We’ll be back with new episodes on January 6, 2025. This episode was originally released on June 27, 2023. In this episode, Major writes… “Often, nostalgia can look like that woodblock key handed to us at the interstate rest stop. It opens a door, but the past is really a little room and kind

Dec 26, 2024 • 5:21

[encore] 1122: Childhood by David Baker

Today’s poem is Childhood by David Baker. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. We’re taking a break this week, so we’re sharing some of our favorite episodes from the archive. We’ll be back with new episodes on January 6, 2025. This episode was originally released on May 21, 2024. In this episode, Major writes… “I enjoy today’s poem immensely for how it makes its opening comparison, then leads us to the sweet conclusion, one about an experience we all share. Yet, it individualizes through t

Dec 25, 2024 • 5:03

[encore] 1022: Two Shadows by Maurice Manning

Today’s poem is Two Shadows by Maurice Manning. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. We’re taking a break this week, so we’re sharing some of our favorite episodes from the archive. We’ll be back with new episodes on January 6, 2025. This episode was originally released on December 18, 2023. In this episode, Major writes… “I want someone in my daughter’s life who will sing to her when she is most full of doubts and uncertainties, when storms inevitably arrive. Today’s poem gorgeously antici

Dec 24, 2024 • 5:33

[encore] 1163: Voice Clear As by Kemi Alabi

This episode was originally released on July 17, 2024. Today’s poem is Voice Clear As by Kemi Alabi.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Long ago, I knew I needed a new conception of heaven. The one with pearly white gates and winged angels from my youth in church just wasn’t working for me. I mean, I get clouds and blue skies as symbols of ascension from earthly plains. And it wasn’t just in church — heaven was everywhere, in museums and in movies, too. But

Dec 23, 2024 • 4:57

1265: Gorgon Loves Googie's by Rebecca Morgan Frank

Today’s poem is Gorgon Loves Googie's by Rebecca Morgan Frank. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Yet, how do we refresh and enfold long-standing tales, figures, and voices such that they hold special meaning for us tomorrow? Today’s poem intertwines a figure of the past and a vision of the future, expressing the difficulty of attaining desire, and the reality of unfulfilled longing.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every don

Dec 20, 2024 • 5:07

1264: The Room is a Rectangle by Marianne Chan

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

Dec 19, 2024 • 5:33

1263: Film Theory by Xan Forest Phillips

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://ti

Dec 18, 2024 • 5:34

1262: The Future of Terror / 1 by Matthea Harvey

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

Dec 17, 2024 • 5:39

1261: Immersive by Joseph Millar

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

Dec 16, 2024 • 4:46

1260: Fade Away by Amorak Huey

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 disrupt

Dec 13, 2024 • 6:09

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

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

Dec 12, 2024 • 5:34

1258: The Trees by Jericho Brown

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 w

Dec 11, 2024 • 5:02

1257: Time || Immemorial by Daniel Simon

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.co

Dec 10, 2024 • 5:10

1256: A Dominican Poem by Danielle Legros Georges

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

Dec 9, 2024 • 6:09

1255: The Presence in Absence by Linda Gregg

Today’s poem is The Presence in Absence by Linda Gregg. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “As poet Elizabeth Alexander asks in one of my favorite poems, “Ars Poetica #100”: “and are we not of interest to each other?” While not its only function, for poetry also thrives beyond the affairs of societies, poetry deepens our appreciation for people. Their perspectives and life events take central stage. It’s as if they are with us, though not with us.” Celebrate

Dec 6, 2024 • 5:12

1254: That's My Heart Right There by Willie Perdomo

Today’s poem is That's My Heart Right There by Willie Perdomo. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “I did not appreciate the depth of emotions behind the songs my grandfather sang, until one morning when I arrived early to high school for track practice to see my crush holding hands with my best friend. Whew! I could have sung a hundred blues songs, and would have felt none the better. But I came to understand something about love; we are creatures with wild

Dec 5, 2024 • 4:29

1253: On the Death of a Young Lady Five Years of Age, a reinscription by Aracelis Girmay

Today’s poem is On the Death of a Young Lady Five Years of Age, a reinscription by Aracelis Girmay. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Last year, a group of poets celebrated the 250th anniversary book publication of Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral (1773) by Phillis Wheatley Peters. In honor of this important milestone editors Danielle Legros Georges and Artress Bethany White solicited Black female poets to write in the manner of Phillis Wheat

Dec 4, 2024 • 5:19

1252: The Canonization by John Donne

Today’s poem is The Canonization by John Donne. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s classic poem knows that loving hearts create possibilities for us to exist as full and whole human beings. We need as many examples as possible of sweet passion and friendship. It might be the key to our survival.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Dec 3, 2024 • 5:34

1251: On Living by Nâzim Hikmet, translated by Randy Blasing and Mutlu Konuk

Today’s poem is On Living by Nazim Hikmet, translated by Randy Blasing and Mutlu Konuk. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “My walk that morning brought forth the world in technicolor, piercing green trees, a blue sky screeching loud as a free jazz concert, a jogger’s passing smile, soft, otherworldly. The earth hummed and throbbed. At a stoplight, I was suddenly filled with an inexplicable joy. My day of explosive happiness was counterintuitive. My inner wo

Dec 2, 2024 • 6:14

1250: 52 Blue by Sappho Stanley

Today’s poem is 52 Blue by Sappho Stanley. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today's poem probes into the ocean within the self — the mysteries of love.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Nov 29, 2024 • 5:52

1249: Farmers' Market by Molly Fisk

Today’s poem is Farmers’ Market by Molly Fisk. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “When I was younger, as an introverted kid, I did not value large family gatherings during holidays, especially not Thanksgiving. Now, I appreciate what I once shunned. Gather me among kinfolks. Let’s talk loudly with drinks in our hands. Let’s enjoy the bounty of family and rituals that fill us with connection and the purpose of loving each other. And when we sit down to dinne

Nov 28, 2024 • 4:44

1248: Listening to Monk's Misterioso I Remember Braiding My Sisters' Hair by Christopher Gilbert

Today’s poem is Listening to Monk's Misterioso I Remember Braiding My Sisters' Hair by Christopher Gilbert. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “The phrase “take me away” sounds passive. But music requires work, requires paying attention to changes, knowing a passage is an improvisational homage to some legendary artist. I love keeping up with the fast thinking behind the notes like little sunbursts. The nuances, say, of a Thelonious Monk off-chord is an inte

Nov 27, 2024 • 6:11

1247: A Garden and a Street by Teresa Cader

Today’s poem is A Garden and a Street by Teresa Cader. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Poetry holds that place of both awakening and frustration, of perseverance against unimaginable violence and the flight away from the pains of our fragile world. Someday the bombs will stop falling. Someday the rhetoric of hatred will not have an audience. Isn’t this something that we all should work toward? Until then, so says the speaker in today’s poem, we must fin

Nov 26, 2024 • 5:08

1246: Big Purple Peonies by Margaret Ross

Today’s poem is Big Purple Peonies by Margaret Ross. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s deeply satisfying poem arrives from an exacting eye. The poet’s kinetic imagination and mental roaming feel gorgeously reportorial and cinematic, mapping self-reflection through their portrayal of vibrant landscapes.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Nov 25, 2024 • 5:48

1245: Telescope by Louise Glück

Today’s poem is Telescope by Louise Glück. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Myka Kielbon writes… “I live on a hill on the edge of a valley. I look out my window and watch cars creep by on the interstate that could take me a thousand miles to my birthplace if I so choose. This slice of Los Angeles – the one I look out over everyday – is odd to reconcile with the map that I see on my phone. So now, as I live in it, I try to find my own authentic knowledge of th

Nov 22, 2024 • 5:41

1244: Poem by Frank O'Hara

Today’s poem is Poem (“Instant coffee with…”) by Frank O'Hara. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Myka Kielbon writes… “Loren was the person I knew in New York who was the same kind of lost as me. There is a magic to how we find each other when we need each other. It seems like our souls sort of… orbit until they reach out. They land. They find ground and we find a friend, even if it’s temporary.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today.

Nov 21, 2024 • 5:11

1243: Waiting for the Annular Eclipse by Rhoni Blankenhorn

Today’s poem is Waiting for the Annular Eclipse by Rhoni Blankenhorn. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Myka Kielbon writes… “Rock bottom is a funny place. If anyone has been there, then I suppose we all end up in our own rock bottom at some point. The truth about nothing ever ending, nothing ever being final, is that things will be the same again, too. Just not all at the same time, in the same way. You’ll find a new rock bottom. And, a new way out.” Celebrat

Nov 20, 2024 • 5:51

1242: Aleppo by Hala Alyan

Today’s poem is Aleppo by Hala Alyan. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Myka Kielbon writes… “Recently, I dreamt that my friend and I were moving into a big, old apartment. Once we got the couch in the living room, my grandmother appeared, sitting on it. I haven’t seen her in a decade. She died in 2015. I think my grandmother, a woman who witnessed and bore great suffering, a woman who was courageous and loving, came to me to remind me of the strength we need

Nov 19, 2024 • 6:07

1241: Brooklyn is for Breakups by Chen Chen

Today’s poem is Brooklyn is for Breakups by Chen Chen. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Myka Kielbon writes… “I have experienced a whole lot of life, and romance only forms threads of that life, woven into all the other moments. The threads are often short. They have loose ends. What I struggle with – what I’ve struggled with for years – is naming the importance of the relationships I’ve had with people that don’t fit neatly into a category.” Celebrate the po

Nov 18, 2024 • 5:32

1240: Mother of the English Language by Nicole Arocho Hernández

Today’s poem is Mother of the English Language by Nicole Arocho Hernández. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Myka Kielbon writes… “Today’s poem has that kind of intimacy you only achieve by deciding to be weird together. When we forgo a tight grip on meaning, sometimes we get a little closer to the truth of feeling.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Nov 15, 2024 • 5:24

1239: My Father Flying by Jan Beatty

Today’s poem is My Father Flying by Jan Beatty. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Myka Kielbon writes… “Grief feels, sometimes, like a burden. A heavy one. But it is also a practice. People we love leave this earth, but they don’t leave us. We can find lightness in small rituals, small memorials to share with the world the version of the person that we have folded up inside of ourselves.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every do

Nov 14, 2024 • 5:44

1238: Forgiveness Rock Record by Tawanda Mulalu

Today’s poem is Forgiveness Rock Record by Tawanda Mulalu. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Myka Kielbon writes… “Today’s poem excavates the hard route to self-love, but it also shows us the trick: that self-love doesn’t happen all alone.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Nov 13, 2024 • 5:59

1237: Shadow Play by Jessica Fisher

Today’s poem is Shadow Play by Jessica Fisher. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Myka Kielbon writes… “Today’s poem speaks to someone who left marks on this earth hundreds of years ago. It asks what elemental — and metaphysical — forces moved through them, like wind playing the chimes. Just like those forces did then, and do today, and will tomorrow.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tin

Nov 12, 2024 • 5:35

1236: Letter to a Young Poet by Megan Fernandes

Today’s poem is Letter to a Young Poet by Megan Fernandes. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Myka Kielbon writes… “Today’s poem holds its epiphanies close. It lives in that space which grows from wholehearted obsession, specificity, and the knowledge that the act of returning is the kind of love that keeps us going.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Nov 11, 2024 • 5:54

1235: On Being by Ruben Quesada

Today’s poem is On Being by Ruben Quesada. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem captures our complex relationship with nature, how we experience the sublime of the seasons, but also, the way it is often mediated through our modern and mechanized era.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Nov 8, 2024 • 5:04

1234: Mami Told Me to Put Water under the Bed by Peggy Robles-Alvarado

Today’s poem is Mami Told Me to Put Water under the Bed by Peggy Robles-Alvarado. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem professes the healing properties of water and the restorative powers of language to renew our connection to each other.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Nov 7, 2024 • 6:00

1233: Trans Loneliness by Rickey Laurentiis

Today’s poem is Trans Loneliness by Rickey Laurentiis. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Society’s debates around gender identity boils down to this simple fact: people want others to see them as they see themselves. This is a pure, human need for affirmation from friends, parents, and peers. It builds self-esteem and mental stability.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rj

Nov 6, 2024 • 5:24

1232: A House Called Tomorrow by Alberto Ríos

Today’s poem is A House Called Tomorrow by Alberto Ríos. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “I loved watching the volunteers at my polling place. They were cheerful. They lovingly bantered, though they certainly could have belonged to different political parties. They gave me a vision of selfless coexistence that felt like this defined us more than our public debates. I thought of legions of people who volunteer to combat all manner of challenges to society,

Nov 5, 2024 • 6:08

1231: Gala Noise by Diane Mehta

Today’s poem is Gala Noise by Diane Mehta. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem invites us to contemplate how language is not just what is heard, but what is conveyed beneath the surface. Underneath, it sees that we are interconnected with nature, linked to an existential restlessness which leads us to the act of making sounds.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/

Nov 4, 2024 • 5:49

1230: Second Paradise by Chard deNiord

Today’s poem is Second Paradise by Chard deNiord. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s shrewd poem ardently shows how time shreds memories into a dreamlike sequence of events, yet we are preserved in our stories.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Nov 1, 2024 • 6:01

1229: Refugia by Traci Brimhall

Today’s poem is Refugia by Traci Brimhall. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem knows some environments awaken us daily to the wonders. Maybe that is paradise, a place of first permission to go on loving the world.” 'Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Oct 31, 2024 • 5:32

1228: Shelf Life by Nathan Xavier Osorio

Today’s poem is Shelf Life by Nathan Xavier Osorio. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “There’s something sad, sometimes, about taking in all of the country from the fringes. I used to view the highway as a symbol of escape and possibility. Now, I view the road as a complex portal to our great melancholy. Today’s poem exposes a thin veil of desolation on the surface of life. It’s as if we are all waiting for something magical to happen, to lift us out of our

Oct 30, 2024 • 5:50

1227: Genetics by Sinead Morrissey

Today’s poem is Genetics by Sinead Morrissey. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “The speaker in today’s poem professes an emotional and physical connection to parents who chose to go separate ways. Understanding the power of sacred love, the speaker in the poem invites a beloved to embark on a shared life together.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Oct 29, 2024 • 5:42

1226: The Devouring Economy of Nature by Daniel Borzutzky

Today’s poem is The Devouring Economy of Nature by Daniel Borzutzky. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “I know there is no easy solution to economic inequality. I do wish that we channeled greater energy into figuring out the wealth gap, how to provide sustainable wages to working people. One of the corrupting aspects of our economic system is that it forces us to accept conditions that reduce people and nature.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to

Oct 28, 2024 • 6:14

1225: After Vallejo by A.B. Spellman

Today’s poem is After Vallejo by A.B. Spellman. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Recently, I decided to be responsible and begin the process of creating a trust and establishing a will. I thought it morbid at first. Yet, planning the aftermath of my death empowered me. I don’t know when or where I will die. So having some say in that eventful day for me feels like a lavish gift to myself.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Ev

Oct 25, 2024 • 5:49

1224: Here We Are by Lauren K. Watel

Today’s poem is Here We Are by Lauren K. Watel. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual.In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem begins from the idea that we yearn for connection and healing, but that our conflicts feel irreconcilable — to the point that we do not trust a future free of our trauma, grief, and suffering.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Oct 24, 2024 • 5:33

1223: Between You and You by Sham-e-Ali Nayeem

Today’s poem is Between You and You by Sham-e-Ali Nayeem. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Writing can change the mind for the better. Poems shape our breathing, allow us to enter seas of consciousness that become part of the spontaneous energy of life. The improvised, spirited words in a poem are born out of a body free enough to let go.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.co

Oct 23, 2024 • 5:46

1222: Post- by Corey Van Landingham

Today’s poem is Post- by Corey Van Landingham. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem reminds me that life shapes us into authentic beings. Looking behind at our own journey can sometimes cause pain — but it can also liberate us.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Oct 22, 2024 • 6:06

1221: Home Movies: A Sort of Ode by Mary Jo Salter

Today’s poem is Home Movies: A Sort of Ode by Mary Jo Salter. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “With so much of our treasured moments digitized on servers, it seems we’ve lost physical evidence of our lives. Yet, we own thousands more photos of ourselves than our parents and grandparents. Like many, I wonder what will happen to the virtual record of our existence once we depart the earth.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Eve

Oct 21, 2024 • 5:41

1220: Taking Stock by Elaine Equi

Today’s poem is Taking Stock by Elaine Equi. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem invites us to find the balance between deepening our self-awareness and actually living life. Sometimes our journey means not letting that journey inhibit our sense of fun.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Oct 18, 2024 • 5:20

1219: from "Elegy for the Times" by Adonis, translated by Robyn Creswell

Today’s poem is from "Elegy for the Times" by Adonis, translated by Robyn Creswell. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “For stateless people, writing poems, taking pictures, composing songs is precarious, but making art happens, nonetheless. Often, it is a counter insistence of one’s presence on earth. Today’s poem is a humanizing statement of profound sorrow borne of conflict and exile.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every

Oct 17, 2024 • 6:08

1218: Vulture by Ted Kooser

Today’s poem is Vulture by Ted Kooser. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual.In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem invites us to attune, to notice, to hear what’s communicated beneath our words and bodies, to read the signs, even if what is heard or seen or felt bears an ominous message.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Oct 16, 2024 • 5:40

1217: Abide by Jake Adam York

Today’s poem is Abide by Jake Adam York. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem sees existence as a fleeting encounter of sublime immensity — one where we intertwine with the natural world, such that we have no other choice, but to awaken to all life around us.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Oct 15, 2024 • 5:06

1216: oracle by Duriel E. Harris

Today’s poem is oracle by Duriel E. Harris. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem intrigues me for how it upholds the possibility of poetry as a terse, sacred voicing that emerges from within, where the inexpressible finds its way to the world as transcendent music, something far more compelling than the language of machines.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm

Oct 14, 2024 • 5:13

1215: The Clearing by Jane Kenyon

Today’s poem is The Clearing by Jane Kenyon. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Dogs have a lot to teach us. Learning to care about the land and people is to live daily in the fullness of existence, such that we come to cherish and love those close to us and beyond.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Oct 11, 2024 • 5:31

1214: Grading Rubric by Antonio de Jesús López

Today’s poem is Grading Rubric by Antonio de Jesús López. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s brilliant poem speaks to the ordeal of enduring racial abuse and microaggressions in educational institutions. It slyly appropriates an academic assessment tool to point out that we are clearly failing in treating each other like whole humans.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.

Oct 10, 2024 • 6:06

1213: Pacific Power & Light by Michael Dickman

Today’s poem is Pacific Power & Light by Michael Dickman. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “The beauty of poetry is its diversity and how it gives us an opportunity to feel language, rather than the poem acting only as a substitute for a Hallmark card or occasion for a punchline.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Oct 9, 2024 • 7:25

1212: Eureka! by Jessica Abughattas

Today’s poem is Eureka! by Jessica Abughattas. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “To borrow a phrase, love calls us to the things of this world. But as today’s brilliant poem reminds us, in our search for happiness, we find our worth in relation to our freedom and societal expectations. We learn to self-affirm in our search for joy.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4sy

Oct 8, 2024 • 6:03

1211: The Forgotten Dialect of the Heart by Jack Gilbert

Today’s poem is The Forgotten Dialect of the Heart by Jack Gilbert. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Inadequacy is built into the enterprise of speaking; we struggle to say exactly what we need to say — if we even know what we need to say.“ Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Oct 7, 2024 • 5:22

1210: Negro Hero (to Suggest Dorie Miller) by Gwendolyn Brooks

Today’s poem is Negro Hero (to Suggest Dorie Miller) by Gwendolyn Brooks. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. It’s fall, and that means “back-to-school”. We put together this week’s episodes for the educators in our audience — especially those of you who may be looking for a little Slowdown treatment on those classroom classics, from Shakespeare to Frost. We hope you all enjoy these selections, as learners of any age. In this episode, Major writes… “When I last taught this poem, I asked a

Oct 4, 2024 • 10:37

1209: Sonnet 130 by William Shakespeare

Today’s poem is Sonnet 130 by William Shakespeare. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. It’s fall, and that means “back-to-school”. We put together this week’s episodes for the educators in our audience — especially those of you who may be looking for a little Slowdown treatment on those classroom classics, from Shakespeare to Frost. We hope you all enjoy these selections, as learners of any age. In this episode, Major writes… “Shakespeare’s Sonnet 130 is brilliant for how the speaker dispr

Oct 3, 2024 • 7:04

1208: Gravelly Run by A. R. Ammons

Today’s poem is Gravelly Run by A. R. Ammons. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. It’s fall, and that means “back-to-school”. We put together this week’s episodes for the educators in our audience — especially those of you who may be looking for a little Slowdown treatment on those classroom classics, from Shakespeare to Frost. We hope you all enjoy these selections, as learners of any age. In this episode, Major writes… “It is best if we come to know ourselves through its cycles and terra

Oct 2, 2024 • 6:54

1207: from "Spring and All" by William Carlos Williams

Today’s poem is from "Spring and All" by William Carlos Williams. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. It’s fall, and that means “back-to-school”. We put together this week’s episodes for the educators in our audience — especially those of you who may be looking for a little Slowdown treatment on those classroom classics, from Shakespeare to Frost. We hope you all enjoy these selections, as learners of any age. In this episode, Major writes… “Time is the river that never dries up, that is a

Oct 1, 2024 • 10:02

1206: Birches by Robert Frost

Today’s poem is Birches by Robert Frost. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. It’s fall, and that means “back-to-school”. We put together this week’s episodes for the educators in our audience — especially those of you who may be looking for a little Slowdown treatment on those classroom classics, from Shakespeare to Frost. We hope you all enjoy these selections, as learners of any age. \In this episode, Major writes… “I have long admired today’s poem by Robert Frost. “Birches” spotlights a

Sep 30, 2024 • 9:07

1205: Leaving by Madeleine Cravens

Today’s poem is Leaving by Madeleine Cravens. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem knows the world is enticing, seductive, full of possibilities. The hack is to consciously curate our pleasures — the slow, intentional cherishing of a life well-lived.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Sep 27, 2024 • 7:07

1204: The Joseph Cornell App by David Roderick

Today’s poem is The Joseph Cornell App by David Roderick. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “The great actor James Earl Jones departed this earth. His passing reminded me of a hilarious app idea I devised at a party. I called it the God App, where the great actor would simply recite the ten commandments. When I imagined a deity speaking, I thought of James Earl Jones, the rich baritone voice that gave us Darth Vader.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gif

Sep 26, 2024 • 5:20

1203: This Living by Amber Tamblyn

Today’s poem is This Living by Amber Tamblyn. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “In my mere five decades on earth, I’ve faced many challenges — thwarted dreams, failed friendships, career disappointments — that often left me feeling alone, stranded in the dry badlands, searing heat bearing down. And yet, of course, I wasn’t. A three-hour telephone conversation with a friend, an unexpected consoling note from a colleague, even a passing smile from that stran

Sep 25, 2024 • 6:32

1202: If only by Dawn Lundy Martin

Today’s poem is If only by Dawn Lundy Martin. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem unapologetically claims psychic space. In order to be at peace and clear-eyed, the speaker forgoes decorative language that would obscure what their heart and mind believe is ethically true.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Sep 24, 2024 • 6:25

1201: Try to Praise the Mutilated World by Adam Zagajewski, translated by Clare Cavanagh

Today’s poem is Try to Praise the Mutilated World by Adam Zagajewski, translated by Clare CavanaghThe Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “One of the great paradoxes in life is the presence of human suffering on the planet amidst prosperity. No religion can explain this other than point to some large cosmic plan. Sometimes it’s tough bearing witness and walking in a world where one feels debilitated, and silence around other people’s suffering feels like gaslight

Sep 23, 2024 • 5:26

1200: Lying My Head Off by Cate Marvin

Today’s poem is Lying My Head Off by Cate Marvin. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “One of the great feelings of aging is coming clean about my shortcomings. That honesty is an illuminating relief, because, as today’s surrealist poem suggests, the masks we take on eventually make us an imposter to ourselves.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Sep 20, 2024 • 7:14

1199: Homo naledi by Sara Borjas

Today’s poem is Homo naledi by Sara Borjas.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “I see poems functioning in the way stones function, as protection, as foundation, even as weaponry. Today’s poem asserts those simple objects that manifest as testament of our durable existence in the face of opposing forces.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Sep 19, 2024 • 6:07

1198: The Big People by César Vallejo, translated by James Wright

Today’s poem is The Big People by César Vallejo, translated by James Wright. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem strikes that note of fear of being cut off from the world and the impending feelings of abandonment.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Sep 18, 2024 • 5:40

1197: March, the Garden by Chera Hammons

Today’s poem is March, the Garden by Chera HammonsThe Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “People often ask me: can poetry be taught? As if there is a playbook for writing poetry, guidelines, and steps. I believe writing poetry, like gardening, is a gradual accumulation of instinctive habits: observing, tending, and nourishing one’s talent and imagination. Today’s poem sees the garden as a barometer of our changing climate and of our inner lives.” Celebrate the p

Sep 17, 2024 • 5:42

1196: A Conversation between Women by Jennifer Chang

Today’s poem is A Conversation between Women by Jennifer Chang. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “On any given day, I can call up one of a handful of friends to have tough conversations. Occasionally, I need someone who will challenge my assumptions, who will help me work through matters that are pressing, who will quickly go past the small talk to a deeper exchange, who will call me on my BS and earnest seriousness.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gi

Sep 16, 2024 • 5:29

[encore] 1165: Pando Aspen Clone by Jacqueline Balderrama

Today’s poem is Pando Aspen Clone by Jacqueline Balderrama.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. We’re taking a break this week, so we’re sharing some of our favorite episodes from the archive. This episode was originally released on July 19, 2024. In this episode, Major writes… “When lost, truth is, someone always rescued me from my disorientation. Today’s poem reminds me that we are a single body, reliant on each other to find our way.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowd

Sep 13, 2024 • 6:25

[encore] 1063: Love Poem by Sophie Cabot Black

Today’s poem is Love Poem by Sophie Cabot Black.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. We’re taking a break this week, so we’re sharing some of our favorite episodes from the archive. This episode was originally released on February 28, 2024. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem reminds me of the daunting and ongoing and heartrending work of preparing ourselves to love and to dare to receive it, if we can.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation

Sep 12, 2024 • 5:27

[encore] 1138: Orientation by Cindy Juyoung Ok

Today’s poem is Orientation by Cindy Juyoung Ok.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. We’re taking a break this week, so we’re sharing some of our favorite episodes from the archive. This episode was originally released on June 12, 2024. In this episode, Major writes… “Every poem is a bridge between nature and us, in that what lies hidden, what is below, is somehow familiar, and brought to consciousness.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a

Sep 11, 2024 • 5:26

[encore] 926: from "The Garden of Limbs" by Cristina Pérez Díaz

Today’s poem is from "The Garden of Limbs" by Cristina Pérez Díaz.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. We’re taking a break this week, so we’re sharing some of our favorite episodes from the archive. This episode was originally released on July 21, 2023. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem, which alludes to the biblical story of Adam and Eve and the first garden, celebrates the carnal sweetness of those chill days with a beloved. The poem brazenly proclaims the power (and maybe eve

Sep 10, 2024 • 6:49

[encore] 1103: Chaos Theory by Clint Smith

Today’s poem is Chaos Theory by Clint Smith.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. We’re taking a break this week, so we’re sharing some of our favorite episodes from the archive. This episode was originally released on April 24, 2024. In this episode, Major writes… “Occasionally, I try to follow the series of decisions that led me to this present, however triumphant or painful. My life wavers between fate and destiny. But then again, poetry brings me to the belief that some mysterious force

Sep 9, 2024 • 6:27

[encore] 1125: English by Janel Pineda

Today’s poem is English by Janel Pineda. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. We’re taking a break this week, so we’re sharing some of our favorite episodes from the archive. This episode was originally released on May 24, 2024.In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem brilliantly figures the psychological complexities of adopting a new language, and a way of thinking, while losing another.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference

Sep 6, 2024 • 6:28

[encore] 1097: Mercy, Mercy Me by Olatunde Osinaike

Today’s poem is Mercy, Mercy Me by Olatunde Osinaike. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. We’re taking a break this week, so we’re sharing some of our favorite episodes from the archive. This episode was originally released on April 16, 2024.In this episode, Major writes… “The speaker in today’s poem survives by an adherence to their values — but also by a willingness to adopt new codes, to risk new experiences, to take on new attitudes.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slo

Sep 5, 2024 • 5:58

[encore] 932: Letter to my sister by Trapeta B. Mayson

Today’s poem is Letter to my sister by Trapeta B. Mayson. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. We’re taking a break this week, so we’re sharing some of our favorite episodes from the archive. This episode was originally released on July 31, 2023.In this episode, Major writes… “My mother did not live long enough to read my poems about her. I like to think that she would have appreciated how I processed our shared history and relationships, even the difficult moments. I like to think she’d ha

Sep 4, 2024 • 6:10

[encore] 1093: When Your Month is Lonely… by Christine Kwon

Today’s poem is When Your Month is Lonely… by Christine Kwon. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. We’re taking a break this week, so we’re sharing some of our favorite episodes from the archive. This episode was originally released on April 10, 2024.In this episode, Major writes… “I read all those articles that proclaim how lonely we are becoming; I believe there’s some truth to it. Here’s my fear: all my work is making me alien to myself and others. I’m happy people are in my life. I wish

Sep 3, 2024 • 5:48

[encore] 1117: I Am Waiting by Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Today’s poem is I Am Waiting by Lawrence Ferlinghetti.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. We’re taking a break this week, so we’re sharing some of our favorite episodes from the archive. This episode was originally released on May 14, 2024.In this episode, Major writes… “On a Saturday morning group Zoom call, I wore my Philadelphia Phillies cap. A friend almost choked on his coffee, confusing my red hat for a MAGA hat. It made for a funny exchange, where I unapologetically claimed my beli

Sep 2, 2024 • 6:26

1195: First Kiss by Rooja Mohassessy

Today’s poem is First Kiss by Rooja Mohassessy. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem reminds us that kissing is universal, but also something that is not taught, and so, we fumble our way through until we get it right.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Aug 30, 2024 • 5:59

1194: Theories of Influence by Anselm Berrigan

Today’s poem is Theories of Influence by Anselm BerriganThe Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Reading is like wandering through our dreams where the details blur once we awaken yet we are still changed throughout our day. Sometimes, we want to be lost, but what is to be gained when we find where we’re going? When we see what our subconsciouses are processing?” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: ht

Aug 29, 2024 • 5:36

1193: Chanson d’automne by Paul Verlaine, with special guest Jacques Pépin

Today’s poem is Chanson d’automne by Paul Verlaine, with special guest Jacques Pépin. He is a French chef, author, culinary educator, television personality, and artist who has appeared on American television, has written for The New York Times and Food & Wine and has authored more than 30 cookbooks. He has been honored with 24 James Beard Foundation Awards, five honorary doctoral degrees, the American Public Television's lifetime achievement award, the Emmy Award for Lifetime Achievement in 201

Aug 28, 2024 • 5:43

1192: Narcissus and the Namesake River by Reginald Shepherd

Today’s poem is Narcissus and the Namesake River by Reginald Shepherd. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem takes up the myth of Narcissus, the nymph who falls in love with his own image.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Aug 27, 2024 • 5:53

1191: For Mac Miller and 2009 by Kayleb Rae Candrilli

Today’s poem is For Mac Miller and 2009 by Kayleb Rae Candrilli.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Because of my family’s addiction issues, I spoke out of fear to my children, and often rather harshly. I worried particularly that they would fall prey to the opioid epidemic that hit the state of Vermont, a fentanyl crisis as severe as the rest of the country. Several friends grieved the loss of children to overdose. I wish I had told my children of my casual

Aug 26, 2024 • 5:26

1190: At the Museum of Empress Livia’s Garden Room by Pimone Triplett

Today’s poem is At the Museum of Empress Livia’s Garden Room by Pimone Triplett. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s lyric poem walks us through a villa garden painted on a fresco. Reading the poem, it is as though we eavesdrop on the speaker’s awe, but also how a rich, imagined replica of fruit, birds, trees leads us to thoughts about our own relationship to natural spaces.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donat

Aug 23, 2024 • 6:09

1189: Nature Poem About Flowers by Matthew Rohrer

Today’s poem is Nature Poem About Flowers by Matthew Rohrer. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “They say clothes make the man. Frequently though, clothes hide the person, particularly a person’s depth of feeling.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Aug 22, 2024 • 6:01

1188: In Jerusalem by Mahmoud Darwish, translated by Fady Joudah, with special guest adrienne maree brown

Today’s poem is In Jerusalem by Mahmoud Darwish, translated by Fady Joudah, with special guest adrienne maree brown. Through her writing, which includes short- and long-form fiction, nonfiction, spells, tarot decks and poetry; her music, which includes songwriting, singing and immersive musical rituals; and her podcasts, including How to Survive the End of the World, Octavia’s Parables and The Emergent Strategy Podcast, adrienne has nurtured Emergent Strategy, Pleasure Activism, Radical Imaginat

Aug 21, 2024 • 7:58

1187: Picking Favorites by George Franklin

Today’s poem is Picking Favorites by George Franklin. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem finds a capacious way of existing that honors an entire life and everyone in it.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Aug 20, 2024 • 5:37

1186: Oh, y’know, just your standard Q&A by Alex Z. Salinas

Today’s poem is Oh, y’know, just your standard Q&A by Alex Z. Salinas.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem is the kind of interview that I long to give, one full of non sequiturs and expansive evasions.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Aug 19, 2024 • 5:50

1185: Fragment 31 by Sappho, translated by Christopher Childers

Today’s poem is Fragment 31 by Sappho, translated by Christopher Childers.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “If you listen close enough to a poem, especially to the very best of them, you can hear on their surface, the poet’s breathing and silences shaped by the pace and noise of their age. You can hear a voice fastened to the page, the speech of the era in which the poem was written, along with images that float into our mind’s eye which are also of a peri

Aug 16, 2024 • 6:01

1184: End of December by Ashjan Hendi, translated by Moneera Al-Ghadeer

Today’s poem is End of December by Ashjan Hendi, translated by Moneera Al-Ghadeer.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Tests to long-term commitments are bound to happen. Expending too much affection can lead to exhaustion and the bruise of eventual disappointment. As today’s poem suggests, one of the secrets to a successful marriage is moderation and restraint.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference

Aug 15, 2024 • 5:15

1183: maggie and milly and molly and may by E.E. Cummings, with special guest Eric Whitacre

Today’s poem is maggie and milly and molly and may by E.E. Cummings, with special guest Eric Whitacre. Whitacre is a Grammy Award-winning composer, conductor, and speaker. A graduate of The Juilliard School, his works are programmed worldwide, and his ground-breaking Virtual Choirs have united well over 100,000 singers from more than 145 countries. Upcoming premieres include a new major work for choir, instrumentalists and electronics, Eternity in an Hour, at the Royal Albert Hall as part of the

Aug 14, 2024 • 5:46

1182: from “Take Me Back, Burden Hill” by L. Lamar Wilson

Today’s poem is from “Take Me Back, Burden Hill” by L. Lamar Wilson.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Humans, it seems, are bound to feel adrift. So many times in my life, I have worked to muster a belief that all of it matters. I have made great efforts to not be lulled into amnesia nor medicate myself blind to the forces that harm — and to those that truly heal. Living a spiritual existence means developing strategies that keep us in possession of oursel

Aug 13, 2024 • 7:20

1181: Enlightenment by Vijay Seshadri

Today’s poem is Enlightenment by Vijay Seshadri.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem points to how people’s sense of desolation and lack of meaning sometimes fuel a desire to save the world, work they go about with patronizing superiority and condescension.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Aug 12, 2024 • 5:39

1180: The Gardener 85 by Rabindranath Tagore

Today’s poem is The Gardener 85 by Rabindranath Tagore.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Poetry has a way of collapsing time, and by working the senses, having us experience an era. In the blues rhythms of Langston Hughes’ poetry, I hear early twentieth century New York, and going back, I hear the plurality of America and its citizens in the poetry of Walt Whitman who explicitly said he heard singing. In a way, poems are capsules from the past that open wh

Aug 9, 2024 • 6:17

1179: Nude by James Kelly Quigley

Today’s poem is Nude by James Kelly Quigley.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “I long to write poems of a mystical nature, where the wisdom of the ages is carried forth in new forms and phrases. Today’s brief poem, in its associative leaps, could be the seed to a new way of seeing, if we just let its words work their magic.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Aug 8, 2024 • 4:39

1178: America by Claude McKay, with special guest Tonya Mosley

Today’s poem is America by Claude McKay, with special guest Tonya Mosley. Tonya is the host and creator of Truth Be Told and founder of TMI Productions. She is also a co-host of Fresh Air, and a correspondent and former host of Here & Now, the midday radio show co-produced by NPR and WBUR. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Tonya shares… “The Harlem Renaissance feels so current and so now, and the thing about it is it always has for me. From the time I was a little girl,

Aug 7, 2024 • 7:07

1177: Machete: Look by Jasminne Mendez

Today’s poem is Machete: Look by Jasminne Mendez.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem reminds us of the tools that break the bonds of human connection and life, how we must go against rhetoric that strips us of our power to feel empathy and exercise grace.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Aug 6, 2024 • 5:55

1176: Fowl at Large by Sarah Giragosian

Today’s poem is Fowl at Large by Sarah Giragosian.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Courage is at the heart of writing, and as today’s poem suggests, a wildness of being, that fires away from timidity and into realms of the self as glamorous and unpredictable, as if you had the whole world shook.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Aug 5, 2024 • 5:11

1175: Hunger by Kelli Russell Agodon

Today’s poem is Hunger by Kelli Russell Agodon.This spring, we asked our community to submit poems that have helped you slow down in your lives. Thank you to the nearly 300 of you who sent us poems to read and enjoy. This week we’re featuring the team’s selections. Today’s selection was submitted by Jeannine from Washington. In this episode, Major writes… “What is it about this stage of dating that has us turn off the radar, render us blind to the red flags, to what we hope our instincts should

Aug 2, 2024 • 7:00

1174: Separation Wall by Naomi Shihab Nye

Today’s poem is Separation Wall by Naomi Shihab Nye.This spring, we asked our community to submit poems that have helped you slow down in your lives. Thank you to the nearly 300 of you who sent us poems to read and enjoy. This week we’re featuring the team’s selections. Today’s selection was submitted by Meital from Washington, D.C. In this episode, Major writes… “Coexistence on the planet demands that we transcend reactionary treatment of each other. For this reason, we need poems to tease out

Aug 1, 2024 • 7:00

1173: Sono by Suji Kwock Kim

Today’s poem is Sono by Suji Kwock Kim.This spring, we asked our community to submit poems that have helped you slow down in your lives. Thank you to the nearly 300 of you who sent us poems to read and enjoy. This week we’re featuring the team’s selections. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem coordinates a masterful flow of language, simulating the journey of a child crossing into our time through another’s body. The poem reminds us, with sound and texture, to not lose our sense of marv

Jul 31, 2024 • 6:45

1172: From Blossoms by Li-Young Lee

Today’s poem is From Blossoms by Li-Young Lee.This spring, we asked our community to submit poems that have helped you slow down in your lives. Thank you to the nearly 300 of you who sent us poems to read and enjoy. Today’s selection was submitted by Candace from North Carolina. This week we’re featuring the team’s selections. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem exults in that bounty of spiritual abundance and celebrates the joy inside us yielded from the land.” Celebrate the power of p

Jul 30, 2024 • 6:49

1171: One Art by Elizabeth Bishop

Today’s poem is One Art by Elizabeth Bishop. This spring, we asked our community to submit poems that have helped you slow down in your lives. Thank you to the nearly 300 of you who sent us poems to read and enjoy. This week we’re featuring the team’s selections. Today’s selection was submitted by Doug from Minnesota. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s iconic poem inflects so much psychological truth and honest emotion in the wake of a parting; the hard pain must be worked through.” Celebra

Jul 29, 2024 • 6:55

1170: The Way by Cynthia Cruz

Today’s poem is The Way by Cynthia Cruz. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “This past spring like every spring many of my students graduated into the uncertainty of their futures. Their lives can take so many directions. I am curious as to what ultimately launches us as human beings with a purpose, or not. If ever we meet as new friends, I will likely ask what you do for a living. In some scenarios, my inquisitiveness can sound like prying. But what I am re

Jul 26, 2024 • 6:07

1169: from "American Analects" by Gary Young

Today’s poem is from "American Analects" by Gary Young. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “I find that poems emerge out of dialogues that I have either with myself, other works of art, or my friends. In this way, my poems are a collaboration of silences.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Jul 25, 2024 • 5:44

1168: Refusing Rilke's “You must change your life” by Remica Bingham-Risher

Today’s poem is Refusing Rilke's “You must change your life” by Remica Bingham-Risher. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “I live with Rilke’s famous line, “You must change your life,” in my ear on repeat, an earworm, as if something is less than stellar about who I am today. I move instinctively towards myself as though I were a massive project, believing I will someday, again in Rilke’s words, “burst like a star.” That this is how to be seen, to be loved,

Jul 24, 2024 • 5:29

1167: Transfusion by Shara Lessley

Today’s poem is Transfusion by Shara Lessley. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s fine poem creates the feeling of a medically induced slumber, but, by working layers of sound, a gorgeous aesthetic tension enlivens my ears.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Jul 23, 2024 • 6:12

1166: Wind Poem by Song Yu, translated by Chloe Garcia Roberts

Today’s poem is Wind Poem by Song Yu, translated by Chloe Garcia Roberts.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “During moments of political crises, I think of wind, how conflicts arise and unfold. Today’s poem, written some 17 centuries ago, effectuates a storm. In the very structure of its sentences, the poem enacts the motion of a mighty gust and its aftermath — a murmuring calm and quiet that claims our being.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The

Jul 22, 2024 • 6:11

1165: Pando Aspen Clone by Jacqueline Balderrama

Today’s poem is Pando Aspen Clone by Jacqueline Balderrama. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “When lost, truth is, someone always rescued me from my disorientation. Today’s poem reminds me that we are a single body, reliant on each other to find our way.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Jul 19, 2024 • 6:25

1164: Act of Gratitude by Cyrus Cassells

Today’s poem is Act of Gratitude by Cyrus Cassells. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Reading poems that strike big-hearted notes of the ecstatic have me celebrate my own victories and joys, small things in life that are meaningful, yet unnoticeable to the distracted eye: a child’s hug at the end of bedtime, first sip of steaming soup on a frigid day that fogs your face, the way a friend smiles at a corny joke. Today’s poem deftly catalogs those unexpected

Jul 18, 2024 • 5:46

1163: Voice Clear As by Kemi Alabi

Today’s poem is Voice Clear As by Kemi Alabi. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Long ago, I knew I needed a new conception of heaven. The one with pearly white gates and winged angels from my youth in church just wasn’t working for me. I mean, I get clouds and blue skies as symbols of ascension from earthly plains. And it wasn’t just in church — heaven was everywhere, in museums and in movies, too. But those early images, lodged into my subconscious, weren

Jul 17, 2024 • 4:57

1162: But Beautiful by Rodney Terich Leonard

Today’s poem is But Beautiful by Rodney Terich Leonard.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Some poets aim for meaning and clarity of emotion. And then, the best does that and more. They also play language as though words were comprised of tones and notes, as though the poem were a musical composition. They treat language as a resource by creating echoes through rhyme or cadence or incantation. Others give language a skin by utilizing words that have a roughn

Jul 16, 2024 • 5:55

1161: Each Morning Again by Rose McLarney

Today’s poem is Each Morning Again by Rose McLarney.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “My daily routines present no surprises; they keep the beat of my life. The foreseeable brings me comfort. I typically stick to the script of the previous day. But writing poetry is something that disrupts my set pattern. Composing language into a meaningful act of artful feeling provides necessary pause to meditate on the purpose of my life and its possibilities.” Celebra

Jul 15, 2024 • 5:16

1160: Naïve by Tim Seibles

Today’s poem is Naïve by Tim Seibles. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s deeply reflective poem encourages a return to ourselves as open and loving, even at the risk of seeming dewy-eyed and idealistic.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Jul 12, 2024 • 6:38

1159: We Never Stop Talking About Our Mothers by Diannely Antigua

Today’s poem is We Never Stop Talking About Our Mothers by Diannely Antigua. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “I treasure the elder women in my life for their conscious, yet easy-going transference of soul-nourishing values. Matriarchs mediated conflicts among family members. They put into play care and cohesion. They lovingly told stories, recalled important family members, and carried on cultural traditions, passed down like charms.” Celebrate the power

Jul 11, 2024 • 5:42

1158: A Blessing by Samyak Shertok

Today’s poem is A Blessing by Samyak Shertok. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s remarkable poem exalts in the cultural rite of eating a meal prepared by an elder. Its sumptuous language and lush syntax are markers of the summer’s abundance.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Jul 10, 2024 • 5:37

1157: from “Requiem 1935-1940” by Anna Akhmatova, translated by Stanley Kunitz and Max Hayward

Today’s poem is from “Requiem 1935-1940” by Anna Akhmatova, translated by Stanley Kunitz and Max Hayward. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “What is the role of poetry during war? Does it have a function? Then and now, poets and readers of poetry see language as the terrain where we find ourselves heard and affirmed in our beliefs. Poets protest, bear witness, and mourn.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a

Jul 9, 2024 • 6:25

1156: In Love by Chloe Martinez

Today’s poem is In Love by Chloe Martinez. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “The first time I was in love, I started missing baseball practice. Instead, I went to the library. Cherie spent afternoons doing her homework there. I could barely think about anything but her. What an immense feeling, to live with a perennial lump in my chest!” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/r

Jul 8, 2024 • 5:51

1155: A Toast by Oksana Zabuzhko

Today’s poem is A Toast by Oksana Zabuzhko.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem honors the immense feelings of connection art and poetry offer us. It notes what care is possible when we listen to each other and co-create a world where decency and regard are the order of the day.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Jul 5, 2024 • 7:21

1154: Selfsame River Thrice by Alicia Mountain

Today’s poem is Selfsame River Thrice by Alicia Mountain.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Writing poems can be a lot like shopping in a thrift store where all the forgotten items are yours, and the act of finding language is a form of discovery and recovery. Today’s poem reminds me how emotionally difficult it is to retrieve the past, even for the purpose of art.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a diffe

Jul 4, 2024 • 5:54

1153: Illumination by Natasha Trethewey

Today’s poem is Illumination by Natasha Trethewey. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s elegant poem reads like a manifesto for those who rigorously annotate. For those who know that marking a book renders visible silent conversations.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Jul 3, 2024 • 6:46

1152: from "The Crystal Text" by Clark Coolidge

Today’s poem is from "The Crystal Text" by Clark Coolidge. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Poetry negotiates that space between our inner life and the relational world we share with others. Magically, we make plain what we feel and observe to convey what some might call a soul. I often describe poetry as a mirror that reflects back our interiority. But today’s poem wonders if such perspective is even possible, given that we barely know who we are — makin

Jul 2, 2024 • 5:59

1151: I Tune My Body and My Brain to the Music of the Land by Natalie Shapero

Today’s poem is I Tune My Body and My Brain to the Music of the Land by Natalie Shapero.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “I wonder how much of our authentic selves are lost in the belief that we are stronger collectively, when we adhere this way, to a set of civic virtues that may not fully align with our worldview. Is there a part of us that wishes to express something different? How might we look within, and no longer seek social affirmation?” Celebrate

Jul 1, 2024 • 5:26

1150: Fuji, Ararat by Legna Rodríguez Iglesias, translated by Eduardo Aparicio

Today’s poem is Fuji, Ararat by Legna Rodríguez Iglesias, translated by Eduardo Aparicio. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Leslie Sainz writes… “Today’s exquisite poem infuses the Petrarchan sonnet with playful existentialism and self-soothing. It’s Nietzsche meets Anti-Eat, Pray, Love—and as a work of translation, it defies impossibility.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com

Jun 28, 2024 • 7:33

1149: Agony's Rasp by Garous Abdolmalekian, translated by Ahmad Nadalizadeh and Idra Novey

Today’s poem is Agony's Rasp by Garous Abdolmalekian, translated by Ahmad Nadalizadeh and Idra Novey. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Leslie Sainz writes… “Today’s poem simultaneously inhabits the planes of presence and absence, conveying the suffering of avoidance from multiple perspectives. With restraint and disorienting beauty, we are at the mercy of the dying voice, the reviving voice, and the surviving voice.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift

Jun 27, 2024 • 6:08

1148: Urine Season by Niina Pollari

Today’s poem is Urine Season by Niina Pollari. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Leslie Sainz writes… “When someone in my life—an acquaintance, a coworker, a friend or beloved—experiences a tremendous loss, I am acutely reminded of how language fails us. We give out heartfelt condolences such as “I’m sorry for your loss,” “My deepest sympathy,” or “Thinking of you during these difficult times.” But they do not resurrect the dead and rarely comfort the living.

Jun 26, 2024 • 6:06

1147: A Book of Music by Jack Spicer

Today’s poem is A Book of Music by Jack Spicer. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Leslie Sainz writes… “Today’s nimble poem inspires me to think about rope idioms in the context of romantic relationships. When did you show your lover the ropes? Have you given your lover enough rope from which to dangle?”Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Jun 25, 2024 • 6:13

1146: Lonely Women by Choi Seungja, translated by Won-Chung Kim and Cathy Park Hong

Today’s poem is Lonely Women by Choi Seungja, translated by Won-Chung Kim and Cathy Park Hong. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Leslie Sainz writes… "I learned how to enjoy my own company while living in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. One evening, I decided to enter the Campus Theatre, an art-deco movie house known for showing a captivating mix of new releases, classics, and indie films. And it was there, sitting comfortably in a dark room, while staring at an anac

Jun 24, 2024 • 5:50

1145: Love Poem by the Light of the Refrigerator by Alisha Dietzman

Today’s poem is Love Poem by the Light of the Refrigerator by Alisha Dietzman. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Leslie Sainz writes… “Today’s poem, with its phantom-like repetition and delicate renderings of stereotypically gendered décor, demands our aesthetic attention. It is at once domestic and elemental, modest and suggestive, buoyant and exacting.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https:/

Jun 21, 2024 • 6:49

1144: Horse by TR Brady

Today’s poem is Horse by TR Brady. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Leslie Sainz writes… “Today’s deceptively simple poem is as provoking as it is spare. With parallel syntax and capacious anticipation, we witness the unbridgeable silences that exist between man and beast, man and earth, and, most immediately, between each other.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Jun 20, 2024 • 6:20

1143: Screenplay by Harryette Mullen

Today’s poem is Screenplay by Harryette Mullen. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Leslie Sainz writes… “Today’s poem performs the mundane in cinematic fashion. Through sharp auditory imagery, deliberate juxtaposition, and the suggestion of ritual, it reminds us that, though the musical scores of our lives are never not playing and not always pleasant, our job is, always, to listen.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation

Jun 19, 2024 • 7:23

1142: Hyperacusis by Santee Frazier

Today’s poem is Hyperacusis by Santee Frazier.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Leslie Sainz writes… “I find that I’m especially sensitive to sound. I also find that sonics drive my poetics. In my role as an editor, I gravitate towards writing that prioritizes rhythm, be it harmonious or unsettling, and I believe phonetics alone has the power to both eschew narrative meaning and dictate it.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every

Jun 18, 2024 • 6:19

1141: When I Was in My Early Thirties I Saw Elton John in a Nightclub in Atlanta Called Tongue and Groove by Khadijah Queen

Today’s poem is When I Was in My Early Thirties I Saw Elton John in a Nightclub in Atlanta Called Tongue and Groove by Khadijah Queen.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Leslie Sainz writes… “Today’s poem transports us to a night out worth remembering, not for its intoxicating music or the surprise of a celebrity sighting, but because our response to disappointment can function as a measure of individual growth.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The S

Jun 17, 2024 • 5:30

1140: Fish, Serpent, Egg, Scorpion by Kwame Dawes

Today’s poem is Fish, Serpent, Egg, Scorpion by Kwame Dawes. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem highlights that cycle of hard truths and compassion passed between fathers and sons.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Jun 14, 2024 • 7:06

1139: Dolly Would by Julie E. Bloemeke

Today’s poem is Dolly Would by Julie E. Bloemeke. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “To build an image and reputation from dreams requires herculean efforts that often involve doubts, failures, and sacrifices, but as we hear in today’s poem, a devotedness to one’s art that transforms a passion into a stratospheric journey into the self. ” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/r

Jun 13, 2024 • 6:28

1138: Orientation by Cindy Juyoung Ok

Today’s poem is Orientation by Cindy Juyoung Ok.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Every poem is a bridge between nature and us, in that what lies hidden, what is below, is somehow familiar, and brought to consciousness.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Jun 12, 2024 • 5:25

1137: i have an irrational fear of spiders by Charlie Getter

Today’s poem is i have an irrational fear of spiders by Charlie Getter.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem smartly interrogates the role of fears and how they might unreasonably control our lives.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Jun 11, 2024 • 7:23

1136: Visible Light by Heidi Seaborn

Today’s poem is Visible Light by Heidi Seaborn.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “As a child, on summer evenings, my friends and I ran through the neighborhood collecting lightning bugs. They were most visible in vacant lots, but we feared those dark places we sometimes entered. So, the hunt for them as ten-year-olds also felt like an adventure. We gently coaxed them into glass mason jars then sat on the stoop counting their lights to see who had the most.

Jun 10, 2024 • 5:32

1135: At the Rainbow Cattle Company by Bruce Snider

Today’s poem is At the Rainbow Cattle Company by Bruce Snider. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem names the silent syncopated talk of the body that occurs when two people are in sync, in graceful movements, when they let each other lead.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Jun 7, 2024 • 6:20

1134: Americans by Katie Peterson

Today’s poem is Americans by Katie Peterson. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Whenever I hear a person refer to people by their geographic or cultural or national association, I wince. In doing so, we falsely implicate everything from intelligence levels to physical appearances. This strikes me as crude, reductive, unintentionally demeaning.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl

Jun 6, 2024 • 6:04

1133: The Alien by Greg Delanty

Today’s poem is The Alien by Greg Delanty. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “However tight the team of parents, and family and community beyond that, supporting a child in utero, that baby is carried by one body alone. Their body is not only one of creation, of labor, of internal mystery, but one of a singular emotional gravity.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Jun 5, 2024 • 5:29

1132: Felonious States of Adjectival Excess Featuring Comparative and Superlative Forms by A. H. Jerriod Avant

Today’s poem is Felonious States of Adjectival Excess Featuring Comparative and Superlative Forms by A. H. Jerriod Avant. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “I am drawn to poets who, like the author of today’s poem, bring imagination and attention to sonic idioms of a poem. They make reading aloud fun.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Jun 4, 2024 • 5:32

1131: How It Will End by Denise Duhamel

Today’s poem is How It Will End by Denise Duhamel. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem illustrates how difficult it is to plot the fate of a couple, especially one whose ups and downs are played out publicly.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Jun 3, 2024 • 5:58

1130: Cy Twombly's Untitled (Say Goodbye Catullus, to the shores of Asia Minor) by Javier O. Huerta

Today’s poem is Cy Twombly's Untitled (Say Goodbye Catullus, to the shores of Asia Minor) by Javier O. Huerta. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “This week’s episodes are a special feature on ekphrasis – poems which engage with works of art. Ekphrastic poetry sometimes pushes back against the idea of simple art made complicated in idea, born from an eccentric personality. Inspired by another famous Twombly painting, one that itself is inspired partly by a p

May 31, 2024 • 7:07

1129: Hagar in the Wilderness by Tyehimba Jess

Today’s poem is Hagar in the Wilderness by Tyehimba Jess.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “This week’s episodes are a special feature on ekphrasis – poems which engage with works of art. Today’s poet pays homage to an artist who, with her own hands, made art out of heroic, mythical, and biblical figures, whose visions were worthy of the substance of stone.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: h

May 30, 2024 • 6:55

1128: Post-Industrial Society Has Arrived by Vidhu Aggarwal

Today’s poem is Post-Industrial Society Has Arrived by Vidhu Aggarwal.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “This week’s episodes are a special feature on ekphrasis – poems which engage with works of art. Poets possess an expansive intuition, a proclivity towards image-making that meets head-on the most difficult of artists. In responding to works of art, poets perform the gift of interpretation. By turning language into a critical practice, they find pathways

May 29, 2024 • 7:22

1127: Two Paintings Seen Again by Rachel Hadas

Today’s poem is Two Paintings Seen Again by Rachel Hadas.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “This week’s episodes are a special feature on ekphrasis – poems which engage with works of art. Today’s ekphrastic poem makes a compelling assertion that to fully register the power of art, we must take our time to take it in.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

May 28, 2024 • 6:51

1126: Not So Much an End as an Entangling by Linda Gregerson

Today’s poem is Not So Much an End as an Entangling by Linda Gregerson.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “This week’s episodes are a special feature on ekphrasis – poems which engage with works of art. The vision of birds stilled in motion at the center of Tom Uttech’s paintings invite similar speculations. Today’s poem reads an exodus of earth’s species as an ominous commentary, I surmise, on the decimation of the environment.” Celebrate the power of poems

May 27, 2024 • 6:53

1125: English by Janel Pineda

Today’s poem is English by Janel Pineda. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem brilliantly figures the psychological complexities of adopting a new language, and a way of thinking, while losing another.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

May 24, 2024 • 6:28

1124: What Good Is A Castle by Linda Susan Jackson

Today’s poem is What Good Is A Castle by Linda Susan Jackson.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Those signs are back; a favorite restaurant near campus suddenly closed. My network news show has a new host; my local bagel shop removed the best breakfast sandwich this side of cream cheese from its menu board. These are reminders that nothing is permanent. Is anything sacred? Of course not. The only constant in life is change.” Celebrate the power of poems wit

May 23, 2024 • 5:19

1123: In the House With No Doors by Sarah Kay

Today’s poem is In the House With No Doors by Sarah Kay.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem speaks to the intimacy roommates share, how sometimes we start off as strangers then, as we enter into each other’s routines, become the best of friends.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

May 22, 2024 • 5:38

1122: Childhood by David Baker

Today’s poem is Childhood by David Baker.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “I enjoy today’s poem immensely for how it makes its opening comparison, then leads us to the sweet conclusion, one about an experience we all share. Yet, it individualizes through the power of metaphor.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

May 21, 2024 • 5:03

1121: The Empire of Light by Michael Dumanis

Today’s poem is The Empire of Light by Michael Dumanis.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem reveals how poets distinctly process the world. A fragmented mix of images might reflect how we naturally think. Spontaneity defines our lyricism, and its pleasure is its speed.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

May 20, 2024 • 5:57

1120: Monet Refuses the Operation by Lisel Mueller

Today’s poem is Monet Refuses the Operation by Lisel Mueller.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Poets and visual artists work to give representation to the world which shimmers and blurs. Sometimes only impressions are available. Rather than a fidelity to things as they are, we desire to represent those very distortions. Today’s dramatic monologue is a gem of a poem, one that reminds how everything around us is divined with light, even our imperfec

May 17, 2024 • 6:20

1119: A Black Doe in the Anthropocene by Artress Bethany White

Today’s poem is A Black Doe in the Anthropocene by Artress Bethany White.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Here is my ignorance; I thought we settled the matter of the “Anthropocene” a long time ago. Isn’t there enough conclusive evidence? Wars, loss of biodiversity, overpopulation, endangered species, deforestation, earth warming, greenhouse gasses, the production of nonbiodegradable materials, nuclear waste that further threatens wildlife, human

May 16, 2024 • 6:08

1118: At My Funeral by Hélène Cardona

Today’s poem is At My Funeral by Hélène Cardona.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Ultimately, we do not know the experience of dying. We can only imagine. Artists, though, have fun playing with the mystery of what happens when we transition to no longer walking the earth in the flesh. From the Jerry Zucker movie “Ghost” to Dylan Thomas’s poem “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night,” I have found special comfort in works that find a boldness in fac

May 15, 2024 • 5:16

1117: I Am Waiting by Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Today’s poem is I Am Waiting by Lawrence Ferlinghetti.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “On a Saturday morning group Zoom call, I wore my Philadelphia Phillies cap. A friend almost choked on his coffee, confusing my red hat for a MAGA hat. It made for a funny exchange, where I unapologetically claimed my belief in the ideals of America, but, no . . . I am a different kind of patriot. America is defined by its belief in equality, freedom, liberty, o

May 14, 2024 • 6:26

1116: Mercy by Dessa

Today’s poem is Mercy by Dessa.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “I never took to the attitude of I’ll show them. It concedes that those people, people who did not think enough of me to take care of my feelings, are still in my life, in an unhealthy manner, subconsciously controlling my actions. My success is not going to suddenly prove me worthy of love in their eyes. Will they have thought better of that moment when they scarred me? Maybe. Will t

May 13, 2024 • 5:59

1115: Frame Six by Cheswayo Mphanza

Today’s poem is Frame Six by Cheswayo Mphanza.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Occasionally, I experience a psychological disconnection between my work, my life, and the world. Finding myself not home, again, my spirit was trending a Willy Loman aesthetic. A ‘disassociation of self’ often reminds me I am due for a reboot.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4sy

May 10, 2024 • 5:57

1114: The Mothers by Jill Bialosky

Today’s poem is The Mothers by Jill Bialosky.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem beautifully captures those complex emotions of watching our children emerge into themselves — and its threat to our identity.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

May 9, 2024 • 5:29

1113: Egrets, While War by Tishani Doshi

Today’s poem is Egrets, While War by Tishani Doshi.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s compelling poem honors the ancient and indomitable essence of human beings who continue on even in the face of tragedy, who crossover into the perfect fullness of their truth and emotions.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

May 8, 2024 • 6:24

1112: Sl(e)ight by Alice White

Today’s poem is Sl(e)ight by Alice White. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “We recognize the vulnerability in children. Our natural impulse is to protect them from the troubles and potential harms that will come their way, knowing that suffering is an inevitable part of their journey. For this reason, the speaker in today’s poem is on alert, like any parent, knowing that the tricks of the world, and of people, disguise the most horrid possibilitie

May 7, 2024 • 6:46

1111: The Nation by Roy Fisher

Today’s poem is The Nation by Roy Fisher.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “It’s important for us to avoid what Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka once phrased as “saline consciousness,” that is, the belief that only what lies within our boundaries is worth noticing. We can roam beyond our familiar provinces. Today’s poem satirizes a vision of nationhood that only sees itself in relation to the known and all that has been sanctioned.” Celebrate the power

May 6, 2024 • 5:23

1110: Blue Hour by Chanda Feldman

Today’s poem is Blue Hour by Chanda Feldman. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Although about the birth of a child, what I love about today’s poem is how it parallels my growing sense of care for natural environments. When my children were born, their bodies demanded a softness from my body, not to mention a constant attention.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/r

May 3, 2024 • 6:09

1109: Never Did Say So by Caridad Moro-Gronlier

Today’s poem is Never Did Say So by Caridad Moro-Gronlier. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem explores the depths of its speaker by applying the lyrics of an iconic artist who gets that indomitable spirit of smart, independent women.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

May 2, 2024 • 5:50

1108: Life on Earth by Dorianne Laux

Today’s poem is Life on Earth by Dorianne Laux. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Poems buttress me against the hurt and the harm and the uncertainty of life itself. I fear that the global conflicts we’re witnessing are negatively impacting the health and mental wellbeing of people who are susceptible to the frailty of this moment. I read poetry profusely during times like these.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Eve

May 1, 2024 • 6:13

1107: Accessory to War by Kim Stafford

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

Apr 30, 2024 • 5:43

1106: Life In The Gush Of Boasts by Elijah Burrell

Today’s poem is Life In The Gush Of Boasts by Elijah Burrell. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Most writers are not “All eyes on me,” but the psychology of the social media “like” and “follower” becomes validation, it seems, between books.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Apr 29, 2024 • 5:56

1105: Self-Portrait with Tumbling and Lasso by Eduardo C. Corral

Today’s poem is Self-Portrait with Tumbling and Lasso by Eduardo C. Corral.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… "These days, we are loving reading and writing self-portrait poems, what I call the “verbal selfie.” It allows the author to be the runway, to elevate themselves into the frame of language. In so doing, the poet, like the author of today’s poem, experiments with perceptions of the self. I like how the poet in Rembrandt-fashion mythologi

Apr 26, 2024 • 6:40

1104: Black Book of Creation by Shanta Lee Gander

Today’s poem is Black Book of Creation by Shanta Lee Gander.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem builds on the belief that imagining is a kind of magic and time travel, that listening to the soil and all the voices within is a monumental way into both history, and our future.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Apr 25, 2024 • 6:49

1103: Chaos Theory by Clint Smith

Today’s poem is Chaos Theory by Clint Smith.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Occasionally, I try to follow the series of decisions that led me to this present, however triumphant or painful. My life wavers between fate and destiny. But then again, poetry brings me to the belief that some mysterious force is at work, below, that unveils a spiritually deeper meaning to it all." Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Ev

Apr 24, 2024 • 6:27

1102: How to Be a Good Savage by Mikeas Sánchez, translated by Wendy Call and Shook

Today’s poem is How to Be a Good Savage by Mikeas Sánchez, translated by Wendy Call and Shook.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… "Today’s poem ironizes the lens through which the colonizer sees Indigenous peoples as uncivilized. It is a horrible term that diminishes a people’s humanity and ascribes assimilation as the cure of a presumed inferiority. It is an example of a poem that my friend Willie Perdomo describes as a poetry of “decolonial pr

Apr 23, 2024 • 4:54

1101: 1971 Pontiac LeMans by Thomas Bolt

Today’s poem is 1971 Pontiac LeMans by Thomas Bolt. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… "Today’s poem reminds me how, in some instances, automobiles are charged with a certain kind of masculinity that can be beautiful and destructive at the same time." Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Apr 22, 2024 • 5:58

1100: Ode to The Lone Star State by Jubi Arriola-Headley

Today’s poem is Ode to The Lone Star State by Jubi Arriola-Headley.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… "On a flight to Kansas City just before the most recent Super Bowl, the pilot taunted Chiefs football fans. Just before takeoff, he donned his Dallas Cowboys baseball cap. In jest, he claimed, despite not having made it to the Superbowl, his team still carried the banner as “America’s Team.” Half the plane booed. He announced those who booed co

Apr 19, 2024 • 6:39

1099: Something by Andrea Cohen

Today’s poem is Something by Andrea Cohen.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… "On a long drive through upstate New York, I ran out of podcasts, six hours in. So, I asked Siri to tell me a joke. She said, “Why did the meatball tell the spaghetti to go to sleep,” then answered, “It was pasta bedtime.” I thanked Siri for keeping me company… then became self-conscious about speaking to an artificial being.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift t

Apr 18, 2024 • 6:09

1098: Rant by Nathalie Anderson

Today’s poem is Rant by Nathalie Anderson.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… "It feels like many people are passing from our lives. Not that the death of a poet is any more devastating, but when a poet dies, my grief is heavier. The year 2023 saw the loss of many poets I admire, including Benjamin Zephaniah and Louise Glück. When poet Donald Hall died in 2018, I noticed a great shift of voices, one generation exiting as another emerged. We will

Apr 17, 2024 • 6:23

1097: Mercy, Mercy Me by Olatunde Osinaike

Today’s poem is Mercy, Mercy Me by Olatunde Osinaike.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… "The speaker in today’s poem survives by an adherence to their values — but also by a willingness to adopt new codes, to risk new experiences, to take on new attitudes.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Apr 16, 2024 • 5:58

1096: Gacela of the Dark Death by Federico García Lorca, translated by Merryn Williams

Today’s poem is Gacela of the Dark Death by Federico García Lorca, translated by Merryn Williams.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… "Today’s poem has me recall a pilgrimage to the home of a cherished poet, whose mystery is the very fire that channels my faith in poetry as nothing less than pure feeling.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Apr 15, 2024 • 5:33

1095: Nameless Places by Tony Petrosky

Today’s poem is Nameless Places by Tony Petrosky. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… "This summer, I get to write in a castle in Italy at an artist retreat. I am hoping my assigned room is in a dungeon. Otherwise, I am afraid high ceilings will mean high windows, which will mean a room flooded with light. I wish to arrive at light like a burst that suddenly suffuses my eyelids; I want the page to contain inexpressible awe at our existence, to e

Apr 12, 2024 • 5:44

1094: 00000000 by Erin Marie Lynch

Today’s poem is 00000000 by Erin Marie Lynch.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… "Today’s poem disentangles the quest for money, transactional desire, and lyric subjectivity. Its teasing interplay of language brings into close proximity art, social class, and manners of currency.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Apr 11, 2024 • 7:00

1093: When Your Month is Lonely… by Christine Kwon

Today’s poem is When Your Month is Lonely… by Christine Kwon. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… "I read all those articles that proclaim how lonely we are becoming; I believe there’s some truth to it. Here’s my fear: all my work is making me alien to myself and others. I’m happy people are in my life. I wish not to skirt over their humanity, nor my own. I do not want our relationship to devolve to obligation, or come off as transactional. But

Apr 10, 2024 • 5:48

1092: Eid Mubarak by Fady Joudah

Today’s poem is Eid Mubarak by Fady Joudah.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… "Today’s poem makes a profound commitment to carry the living and the dead in language forward into time, to record our presence, to meld the collectivity and richness of humanity into a singular vision that feels like love.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Apr 9, 2024 • 6:19

1091: To Find Stars in Another Language by Elizabeth Bradfield

Today’s poem is To Find Stars in Another Language by Elizabeth Bradfield.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… "Sometimes it is necessary to create our own stories and poems that account for our reality, for who we are, presently, in the 21st century. Our dreams and imagination serve as a bridge in expanding conceptions of the self. One of my favorite poets once declared “The dream of every poem is to be a myth.” I like this idea, that poems can

Apr 8, 2024 • 5:51

1090: My Life by Water by Lorine Niedecker

Today’s poem is My Life by Water by Lorine Niedecker.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Victoria Chang writes… "I admit, I spent much of my childhood imagining my future away from Michigan. But now, I only have positive memories of my childhood landscape. The Michigan landscape is my country. We are all always living and writing from somewhere, and thus we are being defined by our landscapes. We wouldn’t be someone without a somewhere." Celeb

Apr 5, 2024 • 5:10

1089: The Loquat Trees & The Boy Next Door by Saúl Hernández

Today’s poem is The Loquat Trees & The Boy Next Door by Saúl Hernández.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Victoria Chang writes… "Today’s poem reminds me of how, under every tree that bears fruit, there are secret stories of desire, of loss, and of love." Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Apr 4, 2024 • 5:35

1088: Perhaps the World Ends Here by Joy Harjo

Today’s poem is Perhaps the World Ends Here by Joy Harjo.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Victoria Chang writes… "Today’s poem is an ode to the kitchen table and all the ways that a table holds everything in our lives — all the pain of the world, its history, and all the beauty at once." Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Apr 3, 2024 • 5:32

1087: After She Died by Mary Szybist

Today’s poem is After She Died by Mary Szybist.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Victoria Chang writes… "As the years have gone by since my mother’s passing, since my father’s passing, something else has bloomed unexpectedly, which is a connection with others who have experienced deep loss. The details of other people’s losses are always different, but the feelings are familiar. These shared experiences are the things that tie us to each other. I

Apr 2, 2024 • 5:49

1086: It's This Way by Nâzim Hikmet

Today’s poem is It's This Way by Nâzim Hikmet, translated by Randy Blasing and Mutlu Konuk.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Victoria Chang writes… "I have begun to think that hope is a presentness, that perhaps hope is within the present, not the future, not in the subjunctive, the what if? For there is beauty all around us all the time. To have hope is to wake up and perceive in the now, instead of spending the little mindspace we have caug

Apr 1, 2024 • 4:33

1085: Spring View by Du Fu, translated by Arthur Sze

Today’s poem is Spring View by Du Fu, translated by Arthur Sze. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Victoria Chang writes… “I have always loved imagining how people lived a long time ago, what they thought about, how they dressed, what they ate. One of the best ways to see how people really lived is through poems, really old poems. Du Fu is a poet who lived during the Tang Dynasty in China from 721 to 770, A.D. He was one of the three most prominent poe

Mar 29, 2024 • 5:35

1084: Mahmoud by Maya Abu Al-Hayyat, translated by Fady Joudah

Today’s poem is Mahmoud by Maya Abu Al-Hayyat, translated by Fady Joudah. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Victoria Chang writes… “As an adult, one of the things I’ve always wondered about was the baby boy we lost to a miscarriage. He was almost three months old by the time he passed away. I still carry the hospital bracelet in my wallet, the one that says simply, “baby boy.” Some days, I still wonder about him — what he would have looked like as a t

Mar 28, 2024 • 6:40

1083: first person by Ed Roberson

Today’s poem is first person by Ed Roberson. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Victoria Chang writes… “How can we learn if no one helps us to learn? How can we help each other learn if we don’t speak up, if we don’t talk to each other honestly? How can we learn if we don’t look harder at ourselves and the things we do or don’t do, know or don’t know, every single day?” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation make

Mar 27, 2024 • 5:38

1082: A Certain Light by Marie Howe

Today’s poem is A Certain Light by Marie Howe. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Victoria Chang writes… “Today’s poem always moves me. I love the way this poem so lyrically depicts the surprising beauty and connection that can emerge amidst the deepest darkest moments of illness.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Mar 26, 2024 • 6:34

1081: The Leaving by Brigit Pegeen Kelly

Today’s poem is The Leaving by Brigit Pegeen Kelly. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Victoria Chang writes… “This is a poem that seems so easy to describe, yet it’s so hard to pin down–my favorite kind of poem–both clear and mysterious. It’s dreamlike, mystical, biblical, and so much more. It magically depicts what it’s like to be a child on the cusp of something, in the face of the largeness of the world.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to

Mar 25, 2024 • 5:11

1080: Dream Song 14 by John Berryman

Today’s poem is Dream Song 14 by John Berryman. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “I miss being bored. I miss idly sitting in a chair, looking out a window, wondering what next to do with myself. I want the feeling of time as an endless desert — nothing in sight, nothing on the horizon.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Mar 22, 2024 • 6:41

1079: Cassandra by Sasha West

Today’s poem is Cassandra by Sasha West. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “The speaker in today’s poem, taken from Greek mythology, has sight beyond the veil. Their relationship to objects points to the kind of clairvoyance that artists exercise, connecting our physical, emotional, and spiritual worlds.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Mar 21, 2024 • 6:23

1078: Ferment by Monica Rico

Today’s poem is Ferment by Monica Rico. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “As a person who sticks to the recipe, step by step, exact measurements and all, I appreciate how today’s poem lifts up the magic of feeling and improvisation, of putting one’s whole body into a task.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Mar 20, 2024 • 5:44

1077: “Something About…” by Peter Kahn

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Why is it so hard to write a love poem? Well, I think sentimentality is often the culprit. Today’s poem, by contrast, avoids sentimentality by showing how our perceptions change when we fall in love, how the inner and outer worlds come to reflect each other.”Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Mar 19, 2024 • 4:38

1076: a story from the eighties by Debra Marquart

Today’s poem is a story from the eighties by Debra Marquart. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Occasionally, I pretend to resist feelings of nostalgia. Somehow, I got it in my mind that remembrances of things past prevented me from standing fully in the here and now — that musings about foregone events would eclipse any potential value I placed in the present."Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation make

Mar 18, 2024 • 5:43

1075: Translation by Anne Spencer

Today’s poem is Translation by Anne Spencer.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “The last time I camped, a wolf’s howl gave me chills; it brought me closer to some primitive ancestor. I fell asleep to fantasies of leading a pack through boreal forest. The last time I camped, I gazed on evening stars blinking their wondrous code, jeweling the dark sky.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference:

Mar 15, 2024 • 5:14

1074: My Father and I Drive to St. Louis for His Mother's Funeral and the Wildflowers by Chaun Ballard

Today’s poem is My Father and I Drive to St. Louis for His Mother's Funeral and the Wildflowers by Chaun Ballard.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Current global conflicts and discussions of borders spotlight the privilege of mobility. An American passport admits entry into 184 countries. Yet, even movement within the United States, for some people, is unsafe. Race and other identity markers, even today, circumscribe where people can travel an

Mar 14, 2024 • 7:46

1073: Great Question by Lisa Olstein

Today’s poem is Great Question by Lisa Olstein. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Why do we lean on love so much for sustenance? When passion dwindles to a set of burned twigs, where once there was a raging fire; it’s as though a theft has occurred, the result of which makes us homesick for ourselves.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Mar 13, 2024 • 5:22

1072: Under the Bed by Kirun Kapur

Today’s poem is Under the Bed by Kirun Kapur.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “While not the equivalent of glimpsing the spirit world cleave the air, the insight of poets amounts to a kind of clairvoyance. They make connections that close the gap between the known and the unknown.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Mar 12, 2024 • 5:51

1071: Ode to the Idea of France by Dan Alter

Today’s poem is Ode to the Idea of France by Dan Alter. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “At parties, I jokingly discuss with friends about collectively purchasing property, maybe even a castle. I want us to live out our days together, to communally enact our shared values. They… are not convinced. I romanticize social utopias, especially those that, guided by equity and love, espouse alternative ways of coexisting with each other and the land.” C

Mar 11, 2024 • 5:51

1070: Thirteen by Anna V.Q. Ross

Today’s poem is Thirteen by Anna V.Q. Ross. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem celebrates the glow and growth of daughters, their energy and curiosity, their intuition and vulnerability.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Mar 8, 2024 • 6:11

1069: An Exchange by Corey Marks

Today’s poem is An Exchange by Corey Marks. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “After a decade and a half of living in Vermont, one morning I thought, “Road signs all over the state and still no sighting of a moose?” Then, one morning, a large four-legged bulk of an animal appeared at the edge of a clearing along the road. I saw it from a distance as I rounded an ascending curve on Route 125. I slowed to a stop, and looked it over. We were eye-to-ey

Mar 7, 2024 • 5:52

1068: Fish Pier, Santa Monica by Vernon Duke

Today’s poem is Fish Pier, Santa Monica by Vernon Duke, translated by Boris Dralyuk. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem taps into the beauty and spirit of California seaside beaches, whose amassed mythology and symbolism feeds so much of how we imagine and hear America.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Mar 6, 2024 • 5:46

1067: blues-elegy for cheryl by Evie Shockley

Today’s poem is blues-elegy for cheryl by Evie Shockley. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Despite the attacks on academic institutions, despite the diminishing power of free inquiry, scholarly work benefits us all. So much critical inquiry is born out of wonder and curiosity, like a crackling in the soul. Curiosity leads to exploration and research.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference

Mar 5, 2024 • 6:17

1066: Casual Labor by Sandy Solomon

Today’s poem is Casual Labor by Sandy Solomon. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s wonderful poem models a courageous leap beyond fear into a wholehearted kindness. The poem invites us to lean into each other with generosity so that we no longer flinch at the messy richness of our humanity.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Mar 4, 2024 • 6:06

1065: First of March by Stacie Cassarino

Today’s poem is First of March by Stacie Cassarino. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “I learned from all those mornings of weekly commuting — living in Burlington, Vermont and teaching in New York City — that my passions run in every direction. To the critique and dismay of friends, I would simply say, travel fulfills the country-mouse-city-mouse in me.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a differe

Mar 1, 2024 • 6:43

1064: Dry Spell by Lisa Sewell

Today’s poem is Dry Spell by Lisa Sewell. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Like so much of what our teachers share as advice about our writing, today’s poem can also be applied to our life off the page.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Feb 29, 2024 • 8:45

1063: Love Poem by Sophie Cabot Black

Today’s poem is Love Poem by Sophie Cabot Black. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem reminds me of the daunting and ongoing and heartrending work of preparing ourselves to love and to dare to receive it, if we can.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Feb 28, 2024 • 5:27

1062: A Response to the Misguided Student by Wesley Rothman

Today’s poem is A Response to the Misguided Student by Wesley Rothman. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “I gain as much, if not more, from my students as I believe they receive from me. Sometimes, a truly breathtaking poem lands on my desk, and I am utterly grateful for the miracle of language: a student writing about her developmentally disabled uncle and his heartbreaking kindness, a mother who emotionally wrestles with the challenges and joys o

Feb 27, 2024 • 5:55

1061: Mirror, Mirror by Tom Healy

Today’s poem is Mirror, Mirror by Tom Healy. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s fine poem balances humor with hard truth-telling. It revives in me the bravery of boldly saying that which dignifies our existence with clarity. ” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Feb 26, 2024 • 5:26

[encore] 996: Portable Paradise

Today’s poem is Portable Paradise by Roger Robinson. 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 11/10/2023.In this episode, Major writes… “As so much poetry reminds us, suffering is at the core of being human. Yes, we fumble along. We live a melancholic existence. Some of us protest, confess, and bring the news in our works. Yet, today’s poem wi

Feb 23, 2024 • 6:12

[encore] 1008: Kinds of Silence

Today’s poem is Kinds of Silence by Elisabeth Murawski. 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 11/28/2023.In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem captures that feeling of expectancy and uncertainty, a feeling that resonates lately, as I find myself wondering about the future — with so much of the earth and its inhabitants hurting, yet al

Feb 22, 2024 • 5:50

[encore] 923: A Funeral Ending with Beyoncé

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 th

Feb 21, 2024 • 5:27

[encore] 990: Feeding the Koi

Today’s poem is Feeding the Koi by Rosanna Young Oh. 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 11/02/2023.In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem exemplifies those moments when sometimes we cannot speak or act on our truth because of debilitating fears. And on occasion, art is what provides clarity when we seek signs beyond the surface of o

Feb 20, 2024 • 5:34

[encore] 929: this is a library

Today’s poem is this is a library by Asiya Wadud. 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 07/26/2023.In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s empathetic poem, which takes the tone of an elementary school primer, encourages a greater noticing of those who are leastwise among us, who fall outside the social fabric of our care. In doing so, hopefu

Feb 19, 2024 • 6:24

[encore] 966: Love Poem, with Birds

Today’s poem is Love Poem, with Birds by Barbara Kingsolver. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. This week, in honor of Valentine’s Day, we’re revisiting some of our favorite episodes on love. This episode was originally released on September 15, 2023.In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem gives voice to the intimidating feeling of competing with a partner’s personal passion. However begrudgingly we come around to their idiosyncratic awarenesses, such an intense engagement i

Feb 16, 2024 • 6:05

[encore] 955: Love Sits by My Father

Today’s poem is Love Sits by My Father by Qutouf Elobaid. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. This week, in honor of Valentine’s Day, we’re revisiting some of our favorite episodes on love. This episode was originally released on August 31, 2023.In this episode, Major writes… “People in love are complicated; no one knows this more than the children, who get a front row seat to how affection plays itself out in the home, or not. Which influences how they interact and understand int

Feb 15, 2024 • 5:38

[encore] 807: Short Essay on Love

Today’s poem is Short Essay on Love by Sarah Manguso. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. This week, in honor of Valentine’s Day, we’re revisiting some of our favorite episodes on love. This episode was originally released on February 6, 2023.In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem understands to the core that love requires, even anticipates failure. But maybe, even too, that a commitment to finding happiness and joy with someone requires failing and doing it again.” Celebrat

Feb 14, 2024 • 6:08

[encore] 1003: Without Name

Today’s poem is Without Name by Pauli Murray. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. This week, in honor of Valentine’s Day, we’re revisiting some of our favorite episodes on love. This episode was originally released on November 21, 2023.In this episode, Major writes… “Today, words lead me to pockets of understanding, which I've carefully cultivated through writing poetry. The journey to insights and those momentary stays against confusion are often filled with inarticulate, way

Feb 13, 2024 • 5:38

[encore] 917: Love and the Deli Counter

Today’s poem is Love and the Deli Counter by Jill McDonough. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. This week, in honor of Valentine’s Day, we’re revisiting some of our favorite episodes on love. This episode was originally released on July 10, 2023.In this episode, Major writes… “I love the spaces we enter, in which we feel a rich sense of our differences, of our collective humanity, and a lightness of being. Today’s poem exhibits the kind of love and care and humor that passes thro

Feb 12, 2024 • 5:33

1060: Perhaps

Today’s poem is Perhaps by Wen Yiduo, translated by Arthur Sze. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem takes me to the ancient grounds of the imagination, and a cultivated wonder that brings us closer to its magic and possibility.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Feb 9, 2024 • 6:14

1059: Love and the Moon

Today’s poem is Love and the Moon by Nan Cohen. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Sometimes, every which way we turn, the world reminds us that we carry a wounded heart. Love is beautiful until it is not, and then we are handed a chainmail of armor along with our insecurities. When we stumble out of those woods, we bring along burrs and nettles, but also, too, faded reminiscences of favorite activities, gestures, habits, and memories that once bon

Feb 8, 2024 • 5:36

1058: The Dangers of Contemplation

Today’s poem is The Dangers of Contemplation by Ron Slate. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Every poem is a map, a transcription of a contemplative and roaming mind. I am curious about the images that arise out of the poet’s subconscious and the associative thoughts that follow. I particularly delight in the poet whose brain works at scale, a mind that soars from the granular level to expansive ideas, and hovers in between.” Celebrate the power o

Feb 7, 2024 • 5:31

1057: Facebook Status

Today’s poem is Facebook Status by Adrian Blevins. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “It is human to be curious about each other’s lives, to celebrate our friends’ wins and mourn, along with them, their losses. To acknowledge our inevitable changes. Today’s poem hilariously explains why our internet connections are like electrical wires that thread the night, connecting all of our lives.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown tod

Feb 6, 2024 • 5:44

1056: Ghazal for Mothers & Tongues

Today’s poem is Ghazal for Mothers & Tongues by Sahar Muradi. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s fine poem is gorgeous for many reasons, but one is the way the poet enriches our ears with the sounds of words. Poems that are designed like today’s poem turn language into more than just a tool of communication — and into a ceremonial and opulent form of human address.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every d

Feb 5, 2024 • 5:48

1055: Dancing at The Get Down by Cat Wei

Today’s poem is Dancing at The Get Down by Cat Wei. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Recently, my seventy-three-year-old father called to tell me how much fun he had at a local dance club. I was envious. He used to swim daily, but after health challenges, getting on the dancefloor, beneath swirling lights among deep shadows, is his preferred workout. Physical benefits aside, I think he also likes the attention of younger people at his moves. At w

Feb 2, 2024 • 6:04

1054: Hunger

Today’s poem is Hunger by Ryler Dustin. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem reveals how our appetites take us beyond considerations of the earth and its resources. What we leave in our wake is a record of our cravings and our misguided sense of a limitless world.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Feb 1, 2024 • 6:23

1053: Why Write Love Poetry in a Burning World

Today’s poem is Why Write Love Poetry in a Burning World by Katie Farris. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Art is unequivocal evidence of our sanctity, of our ability to feel, to go beyond forbidden precincts into the depth of our emotions. I wish we would put a moratorium on questions of relevance of the arts and realize the gift of beauty that artists grant. One need not listen to a lecture on the philosophy of glass by a glassblower to know th

Jan 31, 2024 • 5:20

1052: Body's Ken

Today’s poem is Body's Ken by Simon West. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Poets thrive in that energy between knowing and not knowing. They attempt to convey a sense of awakening by marking language and their experiences and thoughts as memorable, as sacred, while honoring the conditions that urged them into song.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Jan 30, 2024 • 6:33

1051: Venus's Flytraps

Today’s poem is Venus's Flytraps by Yusef Komunyakaa. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Some poems have a hold on us, their lines haunt, like the chorus from a favorite song. They cling to the mind like burrs. I’ve said them to myself lying motionless in bed at night, and while tying my shoes in the morning. They keep giving; they console when I need them to and anchor me in the familiar when all feels adrift. In music, we call them earworms.”

Jan 29, 2024 • 5:23

1050: To The Woman Crying Uncontrollably in the Next Stall

Today’s poem is To The Woman Crying Uncontrollably in the Next Stall by Kim Addonizio. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. This week, we’re sharing listener stories from the Twin Cities Book Festival. In this episode, our producer, Myka Kielbon, writes… “I think some poets will come at me for this, but for a lot of reasons, poetry is like the original meme. Memes are by definition a form, much like a poetic form. You can put different text upon the same picture, and the picture in

Jan 26, 2024 • 6:30

1049: [I wandered lonely as a Cloud] or Daffodils

Today’s poem is [I wandered lonely as a Cloud] or Daffodils by William Wordsworth. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. This week, we’re sharing listener stories from the Twin Cities Book Festival. In this episode, our producer, Myka Kielbon, writes… “Today’s poem is by a poet famous, in his time, for using what was called “plain language.” It still sounds a bit… formal today, but the images ring timeless and true, personifying nature as full of joy in a way that pulls the speaker,

Jan 25, 2024 • 5:47

1048: You & the Donkey Cart

Today’s poem is You & the Donkey Cart by Rosa Alcalá. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. This week, we’re sharing listener stories from the Twin Cities Book Festival. In this episode, our producer, Myka Kielbon, writes… “We carry stories across our individual realities. And, like our listener, Margaret said, we carry our family stories, our habits and practices. They live across generations, across borders and across seas. What we carry is often what brings us to poetry, wha

Jan 24, 2024 • 6:16

1047: To The Stone-Cutters

Today’s poem is To The Stone-Cutters by Robinson Jeffers.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. This week, we’re sharing listener stories from the Twin Cities Book Festival. In this episode, our producer, Myka Kielbon, writes… “Our listener, Morgan, found writing poetry to be a tool to connect not only with her father’s homeland, but to connect with the people in her life, with her poetic lineages, with the body, and with nature. By focusing on the way poetry feels in the body, Morga

Jan 23, 2024 • 6:01

1046: After, We Try to Switch Our Hearts Back On

Today’s poem is After, We Try to Switch Our Hearts Back On by Joy Sullivan. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. This week, we’re sharing listener stories from the Twin Cities Book Festival. In this episode, our producer, Myka Kielbon, writes… “Today’s poem reads almost like a bullet journal, a rapid log of experiences in a day. Through that we hear the speaker take hold of small pleasures. And in the noise of what once was ordinary, it makes space for questions about how different

Jan 22, 2024 • 6:05

1045: Sonnet for Ochún

Today’s poem is Sonnet for Ochún by Leslie Sainz.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “In today’s poem, I hear a shared melancholy, a world-weariness where the edges of life fail to offer answers. Yet, I detect, too, in the presence of a deity, the transits and rituals of hope and renewal.”Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Jan 19, 2024 • 6:42

1044: Mixed Marriage

Today’s poem is Mixed Marriage by Nick Laird. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Some days, we bicker, nothing major (pun intended). Often, it’s minor: control of the thermostat, recycling duty, my general proclivity to forget. On very rare occasions, we hit upon a disagreement that requires work — where we need to figure out why we react so strongly. I have not been in a romantic relationship that did not require work. I mean come-to-your-maker ki

Jan 18, 2024 • 5:15

1043: from “Listen to the Golden Boomerang Return” by CAConrad

Today’s poem is from “Listen to the Golden Boomerang Return” by CAConrad.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem inhabits the breathlessness and press of love, that is creatively generative, that is organic in its speed and purpose, that is feverish and holy in its corporeal intensity.”Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Jan 17, 2024 • 5:25

1042: Ode to Badminton

Today’s poem is Ode to Badminton by Prageeta Sharma.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “If it were up to me, everything I love would have a poem in praise of it. I mean everything: homemade chocolate cookies, park benches, sinuous roads beside city rivers — even to that clear plastic cap on a newly purchased deodorant stick, that this morning I only figured out the best way to remove. Turn the dial.”Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Sl

Jan 16, 2024 • 5:42

1041: By Then

Today’s poem is By Then by David Rivard.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “I love the clarity in today’s poem, in how it nurtures self-awareness in the wake of emotional turmoil and growth.”Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Jan 15, 2024 • 6:15

1040: The Idea of Order at Key West

Today’s poem is The Idea of Order at Key West by Wallace Stevens. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “When a performer brings their whole self the planets align. Life magically makes sense. Today’s famous poem ponders one of those moments in which, through another’s expression, all agonies and confusions give way to a dignified stasis.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl

Jan 12, 2024 • 6:52

1039: What Good Is Silence

Today’s poem is What Good Is Silence by Phuong T. Vuong. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem illustrates returning to listening as a ventilation of the soul, sublimating the ego in the interest of interacting with more than just our thoughts.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Jan 11, 2024 • 5:51

[encore] 877: The Lifeline

Today’s poem is The Lifeline by Pádraig Ó Tuama.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “When natural disaster occurs, when catastrophe falls upon us, we humans lean into life. We need the counterbalancing force of creation and renewal to tilt the world back toward meaning and light. We pursue activities that resist a chaos of the mind and spirit, some endeavor that gives us a foothold on the unthinkable, an anchor, a reminder of the eternal nature of ex

Jan 10, 2024 • 5:18

1038: The Book of Barely Imagined Beings

Today’s poem is The Book of Barely Imagined Beings by Ailish Hopper.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “With great courage, writers, activists, and poets choose to speak for peace and the value of human life; yet they face being ostracized and harassed for their views. Today’s poem reminds me of the value of ethical resistance and the valor of asserting a fundamental belief in life.”Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Eve

Jan 9, 2024 • 6:12

1037: An Open Call to Single Daughters of Single Mothers

Today’s poem is An Open Call to Single Daughters of Single Mothers by Katie Marya.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… "Today’s poem broadcasts a necessary remembrance and mapping of our mother’s physical selves, bodies that perhaps not only gave us life, but in all their manifestations served as the source of our stability and gains." Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://

Jan 8, 2024 • 5:49

1036: Pleasure

Today’s poem is Pleasure by Victoria Redel. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem celebrates that maturing sensibility of being present and open, especially when your pleasures go beyond the pursuits of desire and the body.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Jan 5, 2024 • 6:02

1035: The Darkling Thrush

Today’s poem is The Darkling Thrush by Thomas Hardy.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “The late poet Donald Hall said that “A poem is one inside talking to another inside.” We live chiefly in our own minds, but poetry allows us to make public our most intimate thoughts. Our true feelings struggle to find expression; our dreams are a valve. But poetry, too, acts as a channel by which we begin to hear ourselves and hear others. ” Celebrate the power

Jan 4, 2024 • 5:42

1034: Cliché

Today’s poem is Cliché by V. Penelope Pelizzon. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem makes use of the ocean as a paradoxical symbol of healing and regeneration yet, too, a site of debris and decay.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Jan 3, 2024 • 5:42

1033: On Meeting My Biological Father

Today’s poem is On Meeting My Biological Father by Sarah Audsley.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “No adoptee’s experience is the same. Today’s poem portrays a meeting with a birth parent — the kind of encounter we seek to gain new information, but, it often does more to help us live, every day, with what we already knew.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4syn

Jan 2, 2024 • 5:45

1032: Counting, This New Year’s Morning, What Powers Yet Remain To Me

Today’s poem is Counting, This New Year’s Morning, What Powers Yet Remain To Me by Jane Hirshfield. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “The clocks have struck another year. Soon, I will box up and archive 2023 in the mental basement of my mind, although I'm sure certain events of the past 365 days will reverberate in both predictable and not-so-predictable ways into the future. Today’s poem makes a powerful assertion that maybe what we bring to

Jan 1, 2024 • 5:46

1031: Objects in the Mirror are Closer Than They Appear

Today’s poem is Objects in the Mirror are Closer Than They Appear by Alleliah Nuguid. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem reminds me of wildlife and humans who exist in our imagination as dangerous, how we eradicate or disappear those we fear, in our efforts to control our environments. Yet, their presence is magic, and can be irrepressible joy. ” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a dif

Dec 29, 2023 • 6:29

1030: Fourth Wall Arpeggio

Today’s poem is Fourth Wall Arpeggio by A. Van Jordan.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Sometimes, a speaker in a poem will acknowledge its own artificiality by addressing the reader directly or by making a self-referential remark, all to say, Hey, reader; I know you’re there, listening in. Breaking the fourth wall in poetry removes pretense and lays bare a vulnerability that creates an intimacy and collapses distance.” Celebrate the power of poem

Dec 28, 2023 • 5:46

1029: If I Told Him, A Completed Portrait of Picasso

Today’s poem is If I Told Him, A Completed Portrait of Picasso by Gertrude Stein. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem is a touchstone example of art that altered how we hear words, but also, how we perform language to transform words into elements of our yielding and will.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Dec 27, 2023 • 7:19

1028: Yet, the Loveliness

Today’s poem is Yet, the Loveliness by Michelle Bitting.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem reminds me of the power of granting forgiveness, of liberating each other from the confines of guilt, and of surrendering ourselves to each other’s humanity. That is its own ceremony of renewal and supplication.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Dec 26, 2023 • 5:34

1027: The Memory of the Young

Today’s poem is The Memory of the Young by Maria Hummel.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “With enough concentration, I can vividly recall my youth while writing. But lately, that mental time travel occurs even when I’m not at my desk. While performing the most mundane of duties, images overlay onto the present, like a form of augmented reality. Poems contain time, time which we feel palpably in its cadences and imagery.” Celebrate the power of poe

Dec 25, 2023 • 6:03

1026: Ode to Bones

Today’s poem is Ode to Bones by Lynne Thompson.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem riffs off a childhood name, to caravan us to all the possibilities of association which brings the speaker back to the uniqueness and individual nature of their being.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Dec 22, 2023 • 6:13

1025: I Am Trying to Love the Whole World

Today’s poem is I Am Trying to Love the Whole World by Jenny Browne.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “If only we viewed observations of the natural world and meditations on birds, mammals, and plant life as equally, critically urgent, we might awaken to the necessity of caretaking of our planet and each other. Birdwatching does not have to be a form of looking away, it can be an antidote for our spirit.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to

Dec 21, 2023 • 6:22

1024: Ashes

Today’s poem is Ashes by Rahma O. Jimoh. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “As a poet, how can you write into that catastrophe? How can a poem artfully contain the struggle between the sanctity of nature and the unfettered business practices of corporations that put humans and the environment in harm’s way?” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Dec 20, 2023 • 5:52

1023: Hurrying Toward the Present

Today’s poem is Hurrying Toward the Present by Suzanne Lummis. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “At a young age, I saw that the pain of rage and resentment is not just in your body. It can course through your actions, and send askew the course of your life. I’ve experienced my fair share of slings and arrows, wrongs done to me. As much as they hurt in the moment, I know they do not belong on the back of my future self.” Celebrate the power of poem

Dec 19, 2023 • 5:41

1022: Two Shadows

Today’s poem is Two Shadows by Maurice Manning.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “I want someone in my daughter’s life who will sing to her when she is most full of doubts and uncertainties, when storms inevitably arrive. Today’s poem gorgeously anticipates the day ahead when our children will pursue their own loves, and what magic we might model for them.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a diffe

Dec 18, 2023 • 5:33

1021: Making Things

Today’s poem is Making Things by Major Jackson. This moment of pause is a shortened version of an interview with Minnesota Public Radio’s Kerri Miller. The full version of this interview is available in the Big Books & Bold Ideas podcast feed, and as a video on our YouTube channel.Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Dec 15, 2023 • 9:15

1020: Ithaka

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

Dec 14, 2023 • 5:56

1019: Ambition

Today’s poem is Ambition by Sarah Wetzel.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem illustrates the extent to which people will fabricate narratives to come off more gallant, more caring, more whatever, or simply not what they actually are. And yet, it unearths the human desires that show us why we lie.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Dec 13, 2023 • 5:35

1018: Cuffing Season

Today’s poem is Cuffing Season by Lisa Fay Coutley.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Love is a force that reconciles what is, in contradistinction, wrong in the world. Because I know that love is real, and that love is right. But sometimes finding love is a journey that takes longer than some but is worth it. Today’s poem wrestles with the tentativeness by which relationships are pursued, given the scariness of their potential outcomes.” Celebrate

Dec 12, 2023 • 5:10

1017: Parallel Worlds

Today’s poem is Parallel Worlds by Lester Graves Lennon. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “In today’s poem, a harrowing car ride spawns questions of meaning and purpose, and the possibilities of our cosmic connections in the face of that which is unknown.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Dec 11, 2023 • 5:46

1016: In the Seam of Life

Today’s poem is In the Seam of Life by Rachel Galvin. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “A recent YouTube search for something else led me to an how-to video on land transference and group deeds . . . in the virtual world known as Second Life. Turns out, one can purchase everything from biscuits for their avatar dog, to a virtual silver-studded leather jacket, to a renovated kitchen for one’s imaginary urban loft. The virtual world turned twenty ye

Dec 8, 2023 • 6:08

1015: Death Letter #2

Today’s poem is Death Letter #2 by Sean Thomas Dougherty. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “We are lucky to hear in a poem one piece of wisdom to carry into our day. Today's poem yields so many, spoken from the protective spirit and love of a father and husband. It is a poem that is relentless in its simple truths, and thus, life-affirming at every turn.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a d

Dec 7, 2023 • 7:49

1014: Date

Today’s poem is Date by Taneum Bambrick. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “There’s nothing wrong with being attracted to people, but there is something wrong with acting on that attraction in a way that reduces them. Today’s poem invokes that captive feeling, and asks what it leaves just under the surface.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Dec 6, 2023 • 5:27

1013: Reading Poetry in Illness

Today’s poem is Reading Poetry in Illness by Anya Krugovoy Silver. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “These are poems that are meant to enter the body at the right time, to exist there, to do their healing and be on their way; they are not for close reading or exegesis. They protect the threshold between the living and the dead. They remind one of old roads. They return the frog to his kingdom.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowd

Dec 5, 2023 • 5:26

1012: Morning Glory

Today’s poem is Morning Glory by Patricia Spears Jones. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem highlights the fierce omnipresence of nature, even in environments where we are trained not to notice, or are too busy to do so.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Dec 4, 2023 • 6:09

1011: Bloodroot

Today’s poem is Bloodroot by Mary-Alice Daniel. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual.In this episode, Major writes… “Bluegrass conjures up the past in ways that feel both celebratory and painful. They call it mountain music, and some believe the creeks, rivers, valleys, and woods carry a hurt that one hears in all that fiddling, a sentimental history of Appalachia, but also a palpable history of poverty, subjugation, bondage, and musical ingenuity. That haunting, for me, is embedded

Dec 1, 2023 • 6:33

1010: Self-care Bucket List

Today’s poem is Self-care Bucket List by Nancy K. Pearson. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Bucket lists orient people toward the future, true. They can sweep one ahead into a momentum of deserved recognition. Yet, how powerful to live without the aid, or, the loom, of an imagined inventory of milestones.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Nov 30, 2023 • 5:53

1009: Teleology

Today’s poem is Teleology by Willie Lin. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “We’ve so much between us: awards shows, music, art, weather, and a final breath we do not know when will befall us. And yet, some remain alien and indifferent to others, incurious—sometimes for money, but sometimes, by choice. How we cherish our isolation.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com

Nov 29, 2023 • 6:08

1008: Kinds of Silence

Today’s poem is Kinds of Silence by Elisabeth Murawski. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem captures that feeling of expectancy and uncertainty, a feeling that resonates lately, as I find myself wondering about the future — with so much of the earth and its inhabitants hurting, yet also, working towards a peaceful vision of our humanity." Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a differe

Nov 28, 2023 • 5:50

1007: To Do: Write Cephalopod Poem

Today’s poem is To Do: Write Cephalopod Poem by Eleni Sikelianos. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem beautifully speaks to the notion of writing toward a future self, and understands that the echoes, even, of one’s breathing, are found in patterns of our thinking.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Nov 27, 2023 • 5:28

1006: Something Sweet

Today’s poem is Something Sweet by Hannah Lowe. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem, a sonnet, holds the truth that the world is capable of awakening us out of our petrified states. We can be charmed back into our bodies and repaired, so that we feel again, sometimes acutely, the sweetness of our existence more than the hostile and profane.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a differenc

Nov 24, 2023 • 5:47

1005: eco-hood

Today’s poem is eco-hood by Melania Luisa Marte. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem dignifies the lives of people in low-income neighborhoods whose early practices of thrift and ingenuity created intrinsic values of sustainability, personal style, and care for human habitats.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Nov 23, 2023 • 4:50

1004: What to Do With the Hedges

Today’s poem is What to Do With the Hedges by Bernard Ferguson. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem acknowledges the complex task of committing to the earth, which means committing to a sustainable future but also, identifying the entangled histories of colonization — of both people and of natural habitats.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Nov 22, 2023 • 5:57

1003: Without Name

Today’s poem is Without Name by Pauli Murray. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today, words lead me to pockets of understanding, which I've carefully cultivated through writing poetry. The journey to insights and those momentary stays against confusion are often filled with inarticulate, wayward wanderings and long stretches of speechlessness. Part of my love of poetry is owed to how it stages eloquence and puts a finishing touch on the thing

Nov 21, 2023 • 5:38

1002: Secular and Inconsolable

Today’s poem is Secular and Inconsolable by Noah Blaustein. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Some mornings I wake and say, “Today is the day I will turn off the phone. I will ignore alerts to meetings. I will not open the laptop. Today I’ll disregard all that beckons — coworkers, friends, family, pets too.” But of course… I hop up, brew coffee, feed the dog, sharpen some pencils, and get to work answering emails. For those, like me, like most eve

Nov 20, 2023 • 5:48

1001: To the bartender who tends to more than just the bar

Today’s poem is To the bartender who tends to more than just the bar by Annie Marhefka. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem celebrates one of the quiet purveyors of our sometimes much-needed fun, the bartender who knows our name, who listens to our lives, and brings more than just a smile to our day.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Nov 17, 2023 • 6:04

1000: I Hear America Singing

Today’s poem is I Hear America Singing by Walt Whitman. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… "We, here, at the Slowdown are celebrating our 1000th episode. This is a milestone deserving of its own reflection. I’ve three observations before we raise our public media coffee mugs or flutes of sparkling cider for a communal toast. 1. One thousand poems are in circulation with opening remarks in what effectively is an audio anthology on our website. F

Nov 16, 2023 • 6:02

999: clap-on

Today’s poem is clap-on by LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem reminds me to be on the lookout for such unsavory business practices, dominant in industries where we are most vulnerable.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Nov 15, 2023 • 6:28

998: A Computerized Jet Fountain in the Detroit Metro Airport

Today’s poem is A Computerized Jet Fountain in the Detroit Metro Airport by Sidney Wade. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem of rhyming quatrains is a perfect example of linguistic beauty; its precise rhymes and conversational meter give the poem a kinetic energy, a lyrical wonder of motion and music.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Nov 14, 2023 • 5:40

997: Letter to the Editor

Today’s poem is Letter to the Editor by Andrea Gibson. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “I am sappy when it comes to romance. I chalk it up to the R&B music of my youth, songs about longing that anchor tenderness as essential, and hone in on loneliness as the bluesy aftermath of love gone awry. Today’s poem knows both that softness, and that messiness.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a diff

Nov 13, 2023 • 5:34

996: A Portable Paradise

Today’s poem is A Portable Paradise by Roger Robinson. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “As so much poetry reminds us, suffering is at the core of being human. Yes, we fumble along. We live a melancholic existence. Some of us protest, confess, and bring the news in our works. Yet, today’s poem wisely announces that we should always keep that place which feels like heaven within sight. We should maintain an inner utopia, even if hidden from others.

Nov 10, 2023 • 6:12

995: Dear—,

Today’s poem is Dear—, by DéLana R.A. Dameron. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem of rhyming couplets speaks a truth about loneliness; the wish for a sustaining love and companionship motivates us to work through our differences sometimes at the expense of our emotional health.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Nov 9, 2023 • 5:56

994: ACT! pose with fingers as though cigarette (puff puff)

Today’s poem is ACT! pose with fingers as though cigarette (puff puff) by India Lena González. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “If I could change careers as an artist, I’d likely want to become an actor — something about all those voices and the power of speaking in relationship to my feelings and those of others — to have all those characters bouncing around in my body.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donat

Nov 8, 2023 • 5:44

993: Bundt Cake from Sam's Club

Please note that today’s episode contains mentions and descriptions of suicide. If this topic is difficult for you, please feel free to skip. We will be back tomorrow with more poems. Today’s poem is Bundt Cake from Sam's Club by Lotte Mitchell Reford. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem unpacks the workings and limitations of sacred spaces — and the unexpected emotions they evoke.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Sl

Nov 7, 2023 • 6:03

992: Imago

Today’s poem is Imago by Sandra Alcosser. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem draws attention to a moment in our evolution, when we feel ourselves closer to our true essence, especially in the presence of others.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Nov 6, 2023 • 5:38

991: Googling Ourselves

Today’s poem is Googling Ourselves by Philip Schultz. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “It’s become common now to check our digital footprint, to seek evidence of ourselves in cyberspace, a place where we might also encounter our namesakes. Today’s poem delves into the psychological roots of this self-searching.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Nov 3, 2023 • 6:58

990: Feeding the Koi

Today’s poem is Feeding the Koi by Rosanna Young Oh. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem exemplifies those moments when sometimes we cannot speak or act on our truth because of debilitating fears. And on occasion, art is what provides clarity when we seek signs beyond the surface of our worlds.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Nov 2, 2023 • 5:34

989: Signs, Music

Today’s poem is Signs, Music by Raymond Antrobus. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “I believe life, even the cosmos, is saturated with sound. I’m not alone. The ancient mathematician Pythagoras and his followers discovered that a harmony of sounds exists in our solar system, based on each planet’s orbit around the sun.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Nov 1, 2023 • 6:07

988: Hillwood

Today’s poem is Hillwood by Mark Jarman. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem calls us to the sounds of the earth and its creatures, where the imagination takes over as we doze off. Mind and body are primed for that somnambulant journey that is the unconscious.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Oct 31, 2023 • 5:18

987: Totalitarian

Today’s poem is Totalitarian by Tyler Mills. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem makes the case that there are occasions in which I cannot let apathy rule, that the assaults on human dignity are so large, I must speak through my stunned witnessing.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Oct 30, 2023 • 6:19

986: EGGSHELLS

Today’s poem is EGGSHELLS by Michael Kleber-Diggs. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual.In this episode, guest host Shira Erlichman writes… “This poem makes me consider the great tension between one’s vision and one’s reality. I feel profundity in that the assertion of I will has lead to landing on distant moons.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Oct 27, 2023 • 7:12

985: Might Kindred

Today’s poem is Might Kindred by Mónica Gomery. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Shira Erlichman writes… “Today’s poem is a seeking of belonging. My favorite part about it is how shyness and a longing for friendship coexist.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Oct 26, 2023 • 5:57

984: Poem at the Top of a Mountain

Today’s poem is Poem at the Top of a Mountain by Angel Nafis. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Shira Erlichman writes… “Today’s poem is about a prayerful space which offers not just withdrawal, but perspective. I see in this poem what it was that I found on my walk to my high school art room sanctuary. What appears to be aloneness is actually a deepening camaraderie.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation mak

Oct 25, 2023 • 6:06

983: Things Haunt

Today’s poem is Things Haunt by Joshua Jennifer Espinoza. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Shira Erlichman writes… “To meet one’s eyes in the mirror while grieving is to meet parts of the self that are unbearable, raw, jagged, self-judging and perhaps even unforgiving. Today’s poem reckons with one’s own gaze, but also with the warped gaze of others.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference:

Oct 24, 2023 • 5:55

982: Rain

Today’s poem is Rain by Adrian Keith Smith. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Shira Erlichman writes… “Today’s short poem is by an extraordinary young monk, four year old Adrian Keith Smith. He may not be ordained, but he is a tremendously wise noticer. Like the Buddha, by simply observing the world around him, he grasps a mammoth truth that most adults struggle to accept.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donatio

Oct 23, 2023 • 5:20

981: Through a closed mouth the flies enter

Today’s poem is Through a closed mouth the flies enter by Pablo Neruda. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Shira Erlichman writes… “Knowing is often heralded as more valuable than not knowing. So questions become an underground currency for those of us that appreciate a different way of being. Today’s poem understands that if a question is a jawbreaker you turn over and over, at its center is not an answer, but humility.” Celebrate the power of poems

Oct 20, 2023 • 7:04

980: Villanelle

Today’s poem is Villanelle by Michelle Lin. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Shira Erlichman writes… “Today’s poem centers around the defining relationship of a mother and child. To bring obsession into language, Lin masterfully uses the repetitive poetic form of the villanelle. They fling open doors only to quickly shut them. I know this dance well. The dance of longing and revelation.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today

Oct 19, 2023 • 5:56

979: The Listening World

Today’s poem is The Listening World by Hannah Emerson. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Shira Erlichman writes… “I turn to poetry to be among deep feelers and open-hearted world-experiencers––to feel connected. But I think I also turn to poetry because, at its best, it teaches me the rigorous, risky, and stunning craft of listening.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.co

Oct 18, 2023 • 6:07

978: And the Beautiful

Today’s poem is And the Beautiful by Paul Celan. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Shira Erlichman writes… “The work of today’s poet, Paul Celan, was marked by genocide. This small poem by Celan reckons with what is brutally taken, what is lost. He doesn’t offer us superficial answers to endless grief. He offers only questions. And I sense, inside the questions, the immense task of facing a violent and brutal world.” Celebrate the power of poems with

Oct 17, 2023 • 5:59

977: sights and sounds on my way to you

Today’s poem is sights and sounds on my way to you by Geleisa George. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Shira Erlichman writes… “There are things we come to see only by slowing down. Today’s poem is an ode to observation. As the speaker makes moves to meet her beloved, we get lost in her quiet noticing, which is, in and of itself, an arrival.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://t

Oct 16, 2023 • 5:15

976: Wonder Wheel

Today’s poem is Wonder Wheel by Wo Chan. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Late spring, I attended a brilliant performance of Pretend It’s a Boat Poetry Tour, featuring comedian/poet Derrick C. Brown and actress/poet Amber Tamblyn at Coop Gallery. They stood behind a makeshift boat fashioned from a card table turned on its side and invited everyone to imagine they were in it. We were no longer in a gallery but on the seas, being carried along by t

Oct 13, 2023 • 6:52

975: Love after Love

Today’s poem is Love After Love by Derek Walcott. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem dramatizes the important act of rediscovering and intimately coming to love who one is, in all our complexities. It’s a famous poem that teaches devotion of self before we make ourselves available to others.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Oct 12, 2023 • 5:25

974: Did you want to come in?

Today’s poem is Did you want to come in? by Temperance Aghamohammadi. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Is there any situation more vulnerable for potential, amorous partners than that moment ending an evening of performative first impressions? Personally, I’ve experienced everything from a soft kiss to awkward hugs to clammy handshakes to goodbyes from the driver’s seat followed by screeching tires… which is the equivalent of don’t call us, and w

Oct 11, 2023 • 6:18

973: Sword Swallowing Lessons

Today’s poem is Sword Swallowing Lessons by Judy Kaber. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “There is no shortcut to virtuosity. Today’s visceral poem points to the all important fact that with any artistic activity or pursued talent, the quest is the reward.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Oct 10, 2023 • 5:51

972: Light Upon The Body

Today’s poem is Light Upon The Body by Alison Braid. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual.In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem speaks a truth about bodies. Illness, occasionally, makes them seem like their own entities; they speak the languages of pain and discomfort that need translation into a music. Music that ushers us back to familiarity and recovery.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/

Oct 9, 2023 • 5:23

[encore] 936: Voyeuristic Intentions

Today’s poem is Voyeuristic Intentions by Adele Elise Williams. This episode was originally released on August 4, 2023. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “If the Yoruba proverb, character is beauty, is true, then, given the hostilities in the world and mass indifference, a bright spirit, full of warmth and compassion, is likely forged over time out of suffering. Such a soul exudes empathy and light. And thus, we acknowledge and survive off each oth

Oct 6, 2023 • 6:34

[encore] 929: this is a library

Today’s poem is this is a library by Asiya Wadud. This episode was originally released on July 26, 2023. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s empathetic poem, which takes the tone of an elementary school primer, encourages a greater noticing of those who are leastwise among us, who fall outside the social fabric of our care. In doing so, hopefully, we might reverse prevailing attitudes toward the unhoused, who often are the target of violence

Oct 5, 2023 • 6:24

[encore] 909: My Dearest Black-Billed Streamertail

Today’s poem is My Dearest Black-Billed Streamertail by Michelle Whittaker. This episode was originally released on June 28, 2023. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “The speaker in today’s epistolary poem turns to the hummingbird as an avatar of their own wish to soar.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Oct 4, 2023 • 5:43

[encore] 935: Happy Campus

Today’s poem is Happy Campus by Rodrigo Toscano. This episode was originally released on August 3, 2023. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem of self-mocking irony makes the connection between our daily routines and the natural and artificial environments that we navigate—how we negotiate a dissonance that complicates our sense of what’s real and what’s unreal.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donati

Oct 3, 2023 • 6:02

[encore] 904: The Statues and Us

Today’s poem is The Statues and Us by Yannis Ritsos, translated by Martin McKinsey. This episode was originally released on June 21, 2023. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “My life is a constant stream of deadlines, such that I am forever trying to fit in what I love most — writing poetry. When I worked in the corporate finance office of a popular clothing retail store , I worked a regular 9-5. Back then, my life was more structured, and poetry bo

Oct 2, 2023 • 5:56

971: On Mars

Today’s poem is On Mars by Ariana Benson. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “I’ve come to believe our galaxy serves as a destination for our imaginations; it inspires our conjecture about the universe; it is where we land all of our queries about the meaning and origins of life, where we construct narratives that give us solace.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/r

Sep 29, 2023 • 7:00

970: Ungendered 2

Today’s poem is Ungendered 2 by Kwame Sound Daniels. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem rightly resists labels that limit our lived experiences, and rallies for us setting our own terms for how we are viewed in society.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Sep 28, 2023 • 6:03

969: Us

Today’s poem is Us by Zaffar Kunial. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Since moving to the quaint village of Rochester, I come to expect visible signs of welcome everywhere. What matters in life is that space between us, formulated by philosopher Martin Buber as I-Thou. It’s a sacred space of shared existence where we feel each other’s uniqueness and feel our common humanity. Today’s attentive poem fosters a consciousness in which we view our live

Sep 27, 2023 • 6:00

968: The Long Goodbye

Today’s poem is The Long Goodbye by Diana Whitney. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem spotlights a multigenerational family, where the daily demands of domestic and long-term care are challenging enough, but at the center is the familial promise of unconditional love.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Sep 26, 2023 • 5:56

967: Ode to Purple Summer

Today’s poem is Ode to Purple Summer by Sabrina Benaim. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “For me, the pendulum swing that is emotional health deprives me of the world’s splendor. The hummingbird flitting about the garden is no longer enchanting to me, a bite of a perfect brick oven pizza is just food, mere nourishment, not a crispy, aromatic experience of basil, tomato sauce, mozzarella on its way to becoming a culinary memory. Planning travel to

Sep 25, 2023 • 5:32

[encore] 806: Polycardial

Today’s poem is Polycardial by James Hoch. This episode was originally released on February 3, 2023. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem, is a sort of sentimental journey which ponders that tenderness of our youth, when it seems like our hunger for love and touch and connection peak. The poem realizes, too, that perhaps we eventually lose the ability to feel with such depth and intensity.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The

Sep 22, 2023 • 7:18

[encore] 822: Cricket Song

Today’s poem is Cricket Song by George Kalogeris. This episode was originally released on February 27, 2023. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “At times, no words exist to capture our rapid, forward-marching world. Life outpaces language. It is then we attempt to create fresh language or rinse cycle words until we have a new purchase on old concepts. For example, for about a decade, I’ve been trying to formulate a word that explains the phenomenon

Sep 21, 2023 • 5:46

[encore] 804: Foxglove

Today’s poem is Foxglove by Ambalila Hemsell. This episode was originally released on February 1, 2023. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “In today’s brilliant poem, the speaker wrestles with the self-perception of how our hungers as humans nascently contribute to the disruption of the natural world, and whether or not we have proprietary rights to those natural places.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation

Sep 20, 2023 • 7:07

[encore] 870: Hymn to Church Basements

Today’s poem is Hymn to Church Basements by Joan Kwon Glass. This episode was originally released on May 4, 2023. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem exalts the unadorned spaces where those on the journey to recovery find acceptance and community.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Sep 19, 2023 • 6:34

[encore] 812: September

Today’s poem is September by Nathaniel Perry. This episode was originally released on February 13, 2023. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s gorgeous poem invokes the enigmatic energy of an impending storm, the kind that mesmerizes, that beckons us to read the symbolism of nature, that points to both destruction and life.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/r

Sep 18, 2023 • 6:58

966: Love Poem, with Birds

Love Poem, with Birds by Barbara Kingsolver. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem gives voice to the intimidating feeling of competing with a partner’s personal passion. However begrudgingly we come around to their idiosyncratic awarenesses, such an intense engagement is exactly what attracts us in the end.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Sep 15, 2023 • 6:05

965: from "Excess Sonnets"

Today’s poem is from "Excess Sonnets" by Isabel Prioleau. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem dramatizes the vulnerability of our most extreme emotions as revealed on various platforms, such that no layered extravagance of mystery exists between us.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Sep 14, 2023 • 5:54

964: abundance of light

Today’s poem is abundance of light by erica lewis. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “I hear in today’s poem a haunting, reckoning, and nostalgia – dominant themes among poets on the road. On stages and podiums, we traded poems about heartbreak, childhood memories, and personal loss. What emerges is a triumphant questioning spirit that overcomes grief and uncertainty.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation m

Sep 13, 2023 • 5:52

963: Frederick Douglass

Today’s poem is Frederick Douglass by Robert Hayden. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s monumental poem keeps alive the fighting spirit of one of the great minds of the 19th century, whose eloquent speeches and books brought into focus freedoms we sometimes take for granted.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Sep 12, 2023 • 6:03

962: Afternoon in Andalusia

Today’s poem is Afternoon in Andalusia by Sahar Romani. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem also provides us with a sense of how the mind and heart make from symbols and patterns a space beyond our reach, where we fleetingly glimpse, if not encounter, the divine.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Sep 11, 2023 • 4:57

961: Nocturne

Today’s poem is Nocturne by Oliver Baez Bendorf. 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 b

Sep 8, 2023 • 6:28

960: I’m Nobody! Who are you? (260)

Today’s poem is I’m Nobody! Who are you? (260) by Emily Dickinson. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s popular poem encourages a kind of disappearance from life rather than a need for attention. Cosmologically speaking, there’s a virtue in acknowledging one’s insignificance, maybe, too, in instigating others to enjoy the pause of anonymity and quietness of being." Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every don

Sep 7, 2023 • 5:09

959: On Earth

Today’s poem is On Earth by Andrew McFadyen-Ketchum. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “After my last heartbreak, before I even tried to enter into a new relationship, my friend Victoria noted how she and I never give up on love, which we both know is not found in any one person, but an aspirational state two people can achieve when they partner on an authentic journey together. Although the insidious and unprocessed hurts from past relationships t

Sep 6, 2023 • 5:03

958: Alain Locke in Stoughton Hall

Today’s poem is Alain Locke in Stoughton Hall by John Keene. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s dramatic monologue reminds me that poets are also archivists, storytellers who celebrate the past. We go beyond our self as subject matter to become humanity’s finest chroniclers.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Sep 5, 2023 • 6:25

957: Rooms by the Sea

Today’s poem is Rooms by the Sea by Lauren Aliza Green. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “My early adult years were a stream of impulsive decisions. Some worked out and many did not — for example, the used car with the too-good-to-be-true price tag, as well as my brief career as an accountant. The speaker in today’s poem also realizes our best laid plans are often thwarted by unforeseen consequences. Some decisions work out, some do not. Even well

Sep 4, 2023 • 5:38

956: Hair

Today’s poem is Hair by Clarence Major. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem reminds me of what my mother, who knew our heads to be sacred and mystical, told me years ago: you don't just let anyone in your hair.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Sep 1, 2023 • 6:08

955: Love Sits by My Father

Today’s poem is Love Sits by My Father by Qutouf Elobaid. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “People in love are complicated; no one knows this more than the children, who get a front row seat to how affection plays itself out in the home, or not. Which influences how they interact and understand intimacy operating, or not, around them. Many psychological experts suggest making affection and tenderness appropriately visible in the lives of children.

Aug 31, 2023 • 5:38

954: In Praise of Mystery: A Poem for Europa

Today’s poem is In Praise of Mystery: A Poem for Europa by Ada Limón. This June, the US Poet Laureate and former host of The Slowdown, Ada Limón, unveiled a poem that she wrote for NASA's Europa Clipper, a poem that will be inscribed in her own hand on the side of the spacecraft set for Jupiter's water moon, 1.8 billion miles away. Her work is partnered with the Message in a Bottle project, which invites anyone to have their name etched on the microchip mounted to the outside of

Aug 30, 2023 • 13:52

953: Two Photographs

Today’s poem is Two Photographs by Theresa Lola. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Susan Sontag, writing about Robert Mapplethorpe, once wrote, “a [photograph] convey[s] a truth about the subject, a truth that would not be known were it not captured. . . All such claims, however contradictory, are claims of power over the subject.” The speaker in today’s poem remarks how photographs, be they selfies or those professionally rendered, capture our gr

Aug 29, 2023 • 6:03

952: Failed Essay on Privilege

Today’s poem is Failed Essay on Privilege by Elisa Gonzalez. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “We are in the midst of an attack on perceived advantages. Earlier this year, the U.S. Supreme Court ended race conscious admissions in higher education. The decision is sure to have a domino effect in our society. The ruling closed one of the proven means to economic and upward mobility for everyone, but especially talented youth of various backgrounds b

Aug 28, 2023 • 6:02

951: I wanted music

Today’s poem is I wanted music by Sarah Ruhl. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Shira Erlichman writes… “The doorbell rings. It’s my childhood friend, Jake. Where any two friends would exchange hellos, he and I say nothing. We get in his car without a word. There are only 3 rules at a Silence Party: 1) no talking 2) hang out 3) listen. Because we aren’t trying to fill the air with words––our observations, what we like or dislike––we are left to experi

Aug 25, 2023 • 6:46

950: from FIXER

Today’s poem is from FIXER by Edgar Kunz. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Shira Erlichman writes… “In our old apartment, if it wasn’t one thing, it was another. Besides being old and hardly-maintained by management, the building was a living being, prone to moods. To fix her was an illusion. What we did was temporarily subdue, patch up, cover over.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: ht

Aug 24, 2023 • 5:51

949: Thirty-Fifth Year

Today’s poem is Thirty-Fifth Year by Charif Shanahan. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Shira Erlichman writes… “As each birthday arrives, what do we expect from our new age, its vantage point? Today’s poem unspools a wealth of questions, both practical and existential.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Aug 23, 2023 • 5:41

948: Willing in the Orisha

Today’s poem is Willing in the Orisha by Camonghne Felix. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Shira Erlichman writes… “Do we reach for ritual to melt paralysis? Do we reach for ritual when our personhood is fragmented, or lost to us? Today’s poem explores the daring act of ritual. I love its decision to move toward incantation, toward worship.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tin

Aug 22, 2023 • 6:16

947: Famous

Today’s poem is Famous by Naomi Shihab Nye. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Shira Erlichman writes… “What makes someone famous? The dictionary says it’s the “state of being known or talked about by many people.” Today’s poet resituates our cultural obsession with stardom and flips on its head who gets to be fanatically revered.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm

Aug 21, 2023 • 5:33

946: Crackerbell

Today’s poem is Crackerbell by Mary Ruefle. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Shira Erlichman writes… “Today’s poem confronts the fork in the road where we are pushed to change. And though this push is ruthless and confusing and total, the speaker humbly persists. I learn a lot from that persistence, which could also be called self-love.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl

Aug 18, 2023 • 5:57

945: The Jungle

Today’s poem is The Jungle by Carrie Fountain. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Shira Erlichman writes… “Today’s poet reflects on a girlhood lived in contrast to boys. What does it mean to be a girl, then a woman, then a mother to a son in this culture, this chaos, this jungle?” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Aug 17, 2023 • 5:38

944: Sonnet written walking under the mess some magnolia made

Today’s poem is Sonnet written walking under the mess some magnolia made by Jay Deshpande. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Shira Erlichman writes… “Today’s poem understands not just the bloom of romantic love, but the rot and mess and grit that’s just as worthy of our praise, of the glorious spending of our hearts.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Aug 16, 2023 • 5:43

943: The Dictator in Prison

Today’s poem is The Dictator in Prison by Adélia Prado, translated by Ellen Doré Watson. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Shira Erlichman writes… “In one lifetime we’re tasked with bearing a range of horrors. It amazes me that underneath it all––the denial, dissociation, or rage––the heart keeps going. I used to think this gust of empathy was my weakness. I now know it’s a superpower.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. E

Aug 15, 2023 • 6:24

942: Very Large Moth

Today’s poem is Very Large Moth by Craig Arnold. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Shira Erlichman writes… “Today’s poem teaches us that you can’t choose your holy moments. The poet is a sudden citizen of bewilderment. When it comes time to express a kinship across species, he finds himself bereft.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Aug 14, 2023 • 5:42

941: After We Buried The Dog In The Dark

Today’s poem is After We Buried the Dog in the Dark by Jin Cordaro. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “My family has a shelf of movies to test whether someone new to our orbit has a heart. At the top of this short list is the film Hachi: A Dog’s Tale. based on the true story of a white Akita dog named Hachiko. If said person is not bawling their eyes out by the end of this movie they just might not have a pulse. The movie is in its own category of

Aug 11, 2023 • 5:22

940: Survivor

Today's poem is Survivor by Geffrey Davis. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “These days, whenever I sit down to dinner with my kids or am fortunate to catch them in their busy lives, I wistfully recall the pleasures of becoming a father… and the shock of it. Not that Langston was an abstract idea for nine months, but when your child, pretty much a biological speculation grown into a creature, is placed in your arms for the first time screaming

Aug 10, 2023 • 5:33

939: A Guy in a Black SUV

Today’s poem is A Guy in a Black SUV by William J Harris. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem, through use of hyperbole, voice, and tone, arrives at visualization as a form of retribution. Its strong cinematic action subverts and upends gender norms. The poem reminds me how we stretch our minds to manifest feelings and unknown states within—a power that affords us catharsis.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown toda

Aug 9, 2023 • 5:03

938: Sorcery

Today’s poem is Sorcery by Jessica Hagedorn.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem cautions us to the bewitching, yet striking, perfection of art and beauty. We are susceptible to its magic, and even sometimes, to the magic of its maker.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Aug 8, 2023 • 5:30

937: While Shaving

Today’s poem is While Shaving by Alfredo Aguilar. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes "Today’s poem beautifully illustrates a startling recognition: parents provide us with the skills they’ll need us to perform when they are no longer independent, the lessons we will remember them by when they are no longer with us." Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4syn

Aug 7, 2023 • 5:23

936: Voyeuristic Intentions

Today’s poem is Voyeuristic Intentions by Adele Elise Williams.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “If the Yoruba proverb, character is beauty, is true, then, given the hostilities in the world and mass indifference, a bright spirit, full of warmth and compassion, is likely forged over time out of suffering. Such a soul exudes empathy and light. And thus, we acknowledge and survive off each other’s radiance, a moral beauty, as the ancient Greeks beli

Aug 4, 2023 • 6:34

935: Happy Campus

Today’s poem is Happy Campus by Rodrigo Toscano.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem of self-mocking irony makes the connection between our daily routines and the natural and artificial environments that we navigate—how we negotiate a dissonance that complicates our sense of what’s real and what’s unreal.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Aug 3, 2023 • 6:02

934: Labor Theory of Value

Today’s poem is Labor Theory of Value by Angie Sijun Lou.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poet sees the field—or the writing of poetry—as a means of strengthening our bonds, our Platonic love. It’s a labor of seeing that transforms those fragmented moments, and unconnected objects in the world into an ever-expansive, idealized symbol of desire and understanding.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donati

Aug 2, 2023 • 6:06

933: Penmanship

Today’s poem is Penmanship by Allison Joseph.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem venerates the power of writing as an exchange with the world, how our thoughts travel outward, but then, in the end, bring us to the center of our own existence.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Aug 1, 2023 • 5:40

932: Letter to my sister

Today’s poem is Letter to my sister by Trapeta B. Mayson.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “My mother did not live long enough to read my poems about her. I like to think that she would have appreciated how I processed our shared history and relationships, even the difficult moments. I like to think she’d have granted me the latitude to craft the poems I needed to write, and possibly understood that the practice of poetry is one of imagining and co

Jul 31, 2023 • 6:10

931: Epilogue

Today’s poem is Epilogue by Robert Lowell.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem affirms the simple approach of narrating our lives as a means of shining a light on our complex era. Given our quick passage on earth, the poem argues that to tell our stories and name the people who populate our lives is noble and rewarding enough.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tiny

Jul 28, 2023 • 6:40

930: elegy for the moaner, 2016

Today’s poem is elegy for the moaner, 2016 by Airea D. Matthews.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Grieving the death of a relative, or friend, is hard work. Work made even more difficult by the sudden and complex task of interring a body and its belongings. The living are thrust into the minutiae of funeral proceedings, caterers, florists, lawyers, movers, and estate professionals. All the while, hearts are heavy.” Celebrate the power of poems wit

Jul 27, 2023 • 5:54

929: this is a library

Today’s poem is this is a library by Asiya Wadud. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s empathetic poem, which takes the tone of an elementary school primer, encourages a greater noticing of those who are leastwise among us, who fall outside the social fabric of our care. In doing so, hopefully, we might reverse prevailing attitudes toward the unhoused, who often are the target of violence and intolerance.” Celebrate the power of poems with a

Jul 26, 2023 • 6:24

928: Prayer

Today’s poem is Prayer by Philip Metres.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem follows a long tradition of devotional poetry. In such poems, often a speaker asks for intervention, relief, and renewal. It is a human call out into the empty immensity of the universe. It is one of the things we do during quiet acts of meditation. We ask for help in dealing with our human cares. We ask to have our fears dissolved, to be shown a way, to break o

Jul 25, 2023 • 4:49

927: Via Politica

Today’s poem is Via Politica by Luljeta Lleshanaku, translated by Ani Gjika.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Everyday, people around the world are living through astonishing crises, both multi-generational and personal, vast and siloed. Today’s poem speaks to the all-encompassing and leveling despair we carry when we are survivors, or the descendents of survivors.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation mak

Jul 24, 2023 • 6:17

926: from "The Garden of Limbs"

Today’s poem is from "The Garden of Limbs" by Cristina Pérez Díaz. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem, which alludes to the biblical story of Adam and Eve and the first garden, celebrates the carnal sweetness of those chill days with a beloved. The poem brazenly proclaims the power (and maybe even recklessness) of sensuous mating that is its own form of world-building, voyage, and cultivation.” Celebrate the power of poems wi

Jul 21, 2023 • 6:49

925: Country of Water

Today’s poem is Country of Water by Mahogany L. Browne. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Sometimes, I walk down the street, rooting for myself. Sometimes, it takes being in your own corner, especially when faced with a challenge for which nothing less than an attitude of absolute confidence will do. Today’s poem is all about self-blessing. Far from boasting or ego-tripping, the speaker makes an incantation out of self-affirmation.” Celebrate the

Jul 20, 2023 • 6:47

924: Theme for the nautical cowboy

Today’s poem is Theme for the nautical cowboy by Kinsale Drake.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “One of the reasons why I'm drawn to poetry is because it invites a scale of seeing that sometimes might go undetected. The work of our guest, Leah Thomas, allows folks to engage in what might be hidden. Today’s poem, one by a poet featured on Season Three of As She Rises, invites that same scale of seeing and care, not only across universes, but al

Jul 19, 2023 • 9:36

923: A Funeral Ending with Beyoncé

Today’s poem is A Funeral Ending with Beyoncé by Karisma Price. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. 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 our

Jul 18, 2023 • 5:27

922: Not It

Today’s poem is Not It by Caitlin Doyle.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Memories of our youth make the journey to adulthood seem like a flicker. One minute you’re ten years old, rounding 2nd base or performing Sleeping Beauty in a ballet recital… the next, you’re sitting on a call with colleagues, talking marketing strategies or marveling at the swiftness of time with family and friends.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown

Jul 17, 2023 • 6:01

921: Dear Red

Today’s poem is Dear Red by Jonathan Maule.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem understands the sacred exchange of contemporary literature. It is a spiritual and creative dowry of the mind and heart that is consecutively passed from writer to writer, from writer to reader.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Jul 14, 2023 • 6:54

920: Invented Landscape

Today’s poem is Invented Landscape by L.A. Johnson.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Each generation of poets rewrites the function of poetry in society. And this episode isn’t the first time I’ve chimed in. I once wrote: “poetry, like all imaginative creations, divines the human enterprise. This is poetry's social function.” I still believe that, but also know that poems which attempt to re-envision a better world, one that is kinder, more hu

Jul 13, 2023 • 5:57

919: Take This Poem

Today’s poem is Take This Poem by Elizabeth Willis. This episode was recorded live, in-person, at On Air Fest 2023. Onstage, Major described that “In coming to this role, I've been thinking a lot about how poetry shifts from the page to the voice. How the words hold different meanings written versus spoken. For when we speak out loud the words of the poets, we access their freedom and consciousness and rage for order. As my friend Robert Pinsky tells us, “poetry’s medium is the indi

Jul 12, 2023 • 8:10

918: Vision from the Blue Plane-Window

Today’s poem is Vision from the Blue Plane-Window by Ernesto Cardenal, translated by Jonathan Cohen.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “On a recent return flight to Nashville, I secured a window seat. I looked out as the jet sped up the runway, as the nose pointed skyward, and the earth receded. That’s when the fantasy began. My whole life I have imagined a world without war.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every don

Jul 11, 2023 • 5:30

917: Love and the Deli Counter

Today’s poem is Love and the Deli Counter by Jill McDonough. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “I love the spaces we enter, in which we feel a rich sense of our differences, of our collective humanity, and a lightness of being. Today’s poem exhibits the kind of love and care and humor that passes through us out in the world.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4s

Jul 10, 2023 • 5:33

916: from "fabula: towards a black mirror”

Today’s poem is from "fabula: towards a black mirror” by Victoria Adukwei Bulley. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “For both poet and reader, the best poems can offer a pathway out of the prison of false assumptions and the dangers of snapshot generalizations.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Jul 7, 2023 • 6:53

915: Who Among You Knows the Essence of Garlic?

Today’s poem is Who Among You Knows the Essence of Garlic? by Garrett Hongo. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem exemplifies the kind of deep historical and sensory awareness only possible when one has turned their senses into a laboratory of feeling and wonder.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Jul 6, 2023 • 5:54

914: Voices of the Air

Today’s poem is Voices of the Air by Katherine Mansfield. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “When we discover the reach of our voices, we disturb the silence around us. We experience self-possession. Today’s poem makes an allegory of small creatures who also render their presence both meaningful and heard.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Jul 5, 2023 • 5:38

913: America, I Do Not Call Your Name without Hope

Today’s poem is America, I Do Not Call Your Name without Hope by Dean Rader. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem encourages us to do more than celebrate the narrative of our country, to reflect on our sacred inheritance with its sacred past.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Jul 4, 2023 • 5:48

912: Poem

Today’s poem is Poem by Jorie Graham. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “As readers of poetry, we get to engage with and listen to the mind of a poet who, in the normal course of a day, we might not casually encounter. For this reason, I treasure the anonymity of the page. We meet the speaker in the poem on their own terms without any preconceived notions.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a diffe

Jul 3, 2023 • 5:30

911: The Messenger

Today’s poem is The Messenger by Brynn Saito. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem renders visible the change that needs to happen — the vows we make to ourselves in order to grow, to become the person we were meant to be; however painful, however triumphant.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Jun 30, 2023 • 6:11

910: How Long Could I Have Been Weightless?

Today’s poem is How Long Could I Have Been Weightless? by Colin Channer. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “​​Today’s poem reminds us that despite the wonders of engineering, our lives are fragile. It suggests that, maybe, we should avoid the false protections our modern age promises, that maybe we should live patiently and slowly within the bounds of ourselves.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a

Jun 29, 2023 • 6:07

909: My Dearest Black-Billed Streamertail

Today’s poem is My Dearest Black-Billed Streamertail by Michelle Whittaker. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “The speaker in today’s epistolary poem turns to the hummingbird as an avatar of their own wish to soar.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Jun 28, 2023 • 5:43

908: After the Farm was Sold to FedEx

Today’s poem is After the Farm was Sold to FedEx by Carlie Hoffman. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Often, nostalgia can look like that woodblock key handed to us at the interstate rest stop. It opens a door, but the past is really a little room and kind of smelly, yet, in our mind, exists as a golden age. One we urgently grasp for.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyur

Jun 27, 2023 • 5:21

907: A State of Permanent Visibility

Today’s poem is A State of Permanent Visibility by Steve Healey.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem guides us to the revelation that we become the machines we dream, especially when what drives us is to be seen. We find ourselves contending with the mechanization of human behavior that divorces us from our power, which is the very real bodies we live in, and not the projected images of ourselves on screens.” Celebrate the power of poems

Jun 26, 2023 • 5:26

906: Self-Portrait as Derivatives Trader

Today’s poem is Self-Portrait as Derivatives Trader by José Edmundo Ocampo Reyes. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Change and adventure are important aspects of a poets’ growth. To write against convention is to test the limits of poetic form, of language, of our imagination. Sometimes that risk looks like writing in forms different than what is generally expected. Sometimes, shaking it up is approaching topics that feel vulnerable, both personal

Jun 23, 2023 • 6:46

905: Voyeur

Today’s poem is Voyeur by Paige Taggart. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem could be interpreted as an allegory for narcissistic personalities — how they violently demand our attention, and how we give it.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Jun 22, 2023 • 6:28

904: The Statues and Us

Today’s poem is The Statues and Us by Yannis Ritsos, translated by Martin McKinsey. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “My life is a constant stream of deadlines, such that I am forever trying to fit in what I love most — writing poetry. When I worked in the corporate finance office of a popular clothing retail store, I worked a regular 9-5. Back then, my life was more structured, and poetry bookended my days. I arose in the dark of morning and scri

Jun 21, 2023 • 5:56

903: Boy Shooting at a Statue

Today’s poem is Boy Shooting at a Statue by Billy Collins. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “How do we foster a greater belief in each other rather than in our guns? How might we come to live without fear of each other? I have no solutions. Today’s poem points to the conundrum of guns in society and points to the possibility of our imaginations to release us from their hold.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every do

Jun 20, 2023 • 5:08

902: Morning in a City

Today’s poem is Morning in a City by J. Mae Barizo. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem, an homage to poet Robert Hass, suggests one possible way of retaining is to live in the music of our existence, where memories though fleeting and at our peripheries, still carry indulgences of delight.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Jun 19, 2023 • 5:33

901: The Poet

Today’s poem is The Poet by Bert Meyers. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “How do we celebrate our teachers? We pass down their advice. We recall legendary moments in the classroom. We discuss the brilliance of their poems, and sometimes, we gossip about their failures and triumphs. We keep their poems alive in public. When poets die, we also mourn the loss of great friends. Today’s poem is by a Los Angeles poet, one whose life and work are the su

Jun 16, 2023 • 6:31

900: In An Elevator with Ashbery, Crossing Stanzas, Bashfully

Today’s poem is In An Elevator with Ashbery, Crossing Stanzas, Bashfully by Alina Stefanescu. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem gently refuses to consign poetry to the world of philosophical musing, semiotics, and language games, which many have experienced in the difficult and wildly associative poetry of the great American poet, John Ashbery.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a dif

Jun 15, 2023 • 5:24

899: Areyto for the Shipwrecked: The Case for Spanglish

Today’s poem is Areyto for the Shipwrecked: The Case for Spanglish by Vincent Toro. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem celebrates the power of speaking multiple languages, of having options to fulfill poetry’s demand to achieve ever more expression of human emotion.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Jun 14, 2023 • 5:42

898: from THIRSTY

Today’s poem is from THIRSTY by Dionne Brand. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “I love the beauty of natural spaces, and will never jettison the sense of sacred communion there, but cities serve as staging grounds for my feelings of agape, the benevolence I feel from and extend to fellow human beings.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Jun 13, 2023 • 5:38

897: Emptying

Today’s poem is Emptying by Aaron Zhang. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “I know that when I cannot write, when the words fail to arrive, something intangible is obstructing passage to the areas of my brain and heart. It hijacks my ability to imagine, to really hear the poetry of the world around me.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Jun 12, 2023 • 5:44

896: Portrait of My Father With the Letter V

Today’s poem is Portrait of My Father With the Letter V by Bill Hollands. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Who we are today, and eventually, who we are in memory, grants our loved one’s access to modes of living. We can connect in remembrance of traditions of existence that affirm who we fundamentally are and what we could possibly become.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://

Jun 9, 2023 • 5:39

895: Burnt Plastic

Today’s poem is Burnt Plastic by Sean Singer. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Jason Schneiderman writes… “Today’s poem is by Sean Singer, who, like me, is a teacher, but at a certain point he became a cab driver to support himself. In his poems about driving a cab, he experiences not a lilting relational arc of guiding students through a semester, but a staccato chord of intense contact, a brief and unguarded glimpse into a life, one in which he is

Jun 8, 2023 • 5:05

894: Part

Today’s poem is Part by Phillis Levin. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Jason Schneiderman writes… “Today’s poem uses the form of a dictionary definition the way other poems use the form of the sonnet or villanelle. Instead of starting with a highly technical and specific word, like “irony” or “cardiovascular,” Phillis Levin starts with the seemingly simple word “Part,” a common word that, it turns out, can mean many things.” Celebrate the power of p

Jun 7, 2023 • 5:19

893: To the Friend Who Is Crying on the Phone

Today’s poem is To the Friend Who Is Crying on the Phone by Vanessa Angélica Villarreal. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Jason Schneiderman writes… “In today’s poem, the poet looks at what it means for things to change—what it means to live in the present and to plan for the future—and how painful and destabilizing it can be when what we expected, planned for, worked for, and dreamed of—is suddenly taken away.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gi

Jun 6, 2023 • 5:36

892: in the dormitories after dark

Today’s poem is in the dormitories after dark by James Fujinami Moore. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Jason Schneiderman writes… “In today’s poem, the poet revisits a childhood experience in which the youthful collective exerts its power by ganging up on another boy. Notice how the poem moves from observation, to complicity, and then to how a youthful wound might take a lifetime to heal.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown tod

Jun 5, 2023 • 5:22

891: Uh Huh: Hi, Hula Tooth

Today’s poem is Uh Huh: Hi, Hula Tooth by K. Silem Mohammad. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Jason Schneiderman writes… “Today’s poem is part of a series that the poet calls Sonnagrams. He uses a program to rearrange the letters in each of Shakespeare’s sonnets to get a whole new poem, and then he makes a title out of the letters he didn’t use yet. Without knowing that the poem is an anagram of sonnet 135, it might not make a lot of sense. But knowi

Jun 2, 2023 • 6:18

890: Simulation Theory by Leigh Stein

Today’s poem is Simulation Theory by Leigh Stein. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Jason Schneiderman writes… “At the center of the Matrix is the idea that contemporary life is actually a computer simulation, and today’s whip-smart poem takes that idea as its starting point. The speaker looks at the oddly contemporary problem of people who can’t tell the difference between life and art. Instead of asking how can this help us rethink our reality, they

Jun 1, 2023 • 5:30

889: Short Talk on Waterproofing by Anne Carson

Today’s poem is Short Talk on Waterproofing by Anne Carson. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Jason Schneiderman writes… “In today’s poem, Anne Carson engages Franz Kafka, but not directly. Carson calls our attention to a small act of care, the tiny detail of a loving act taking place against a background of atrocity. It reminds us that sometimes the best way to see clearly is to look from the side.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slo

May 31, 2023 • 5:18

888: Sorrow Is Innate in the Human

Today’s poem is Sorrow Is Innate in the Human by Francesca Bell. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Jason Schneiderman writes… “Today’s poem is about motherhood. The speaker focuses less on what it means to her to be a mother, than on what her child is experiencing, and what her child might know and might need.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

May 30, 2023 • 5:02

887: Where are the girls who were so beautiful? from “33”

Today’s poem is Where are the girls who were so beautiful? from “33” by Julia Alvarez.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Jason Schneiderman writes… “Lately, I’ve heard many bemoan the end of movie stardom, but it’s comforting to remember that it’s an old argument. Three decades ago, we were already wondering what had happened to the glamor and melodrama of 1950’s Hollywood and Hollywood stardom that we were sure had so much to teach us.” Celebrate the

May 29, 2023 • 5:45

886: Stereo

Today’s poem is Stereo by Anne Waldman. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “‘Tis the season of weddings! In years past, I’ve poured libations; I’ve even read a poem, but this summer, I have the privilege and am hugely excited to officiate the nuptials of our friend and digital producer of The Slowdown, James Napoli and fiancé Britta Greene. Regarding, I’ll just say this: Love is an unrestrained force of tenderness and light in our world.” Celebrate

May 26, 2023 • 6:59

885: Dear Past and Future Metastasis,

Today’s poem is Dear Past and Future Metastasis, by Chiyuma Elliott. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s fine poem makes delicate use of captured dialogue. The poem reveals our clumsy attempts to render legible who we are. Mostly we pass expected, typical speech between us but, occasionally, we make utterances so clear that they startle even ourselves.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a di

May 25, 2023 • 6:14

884: He Laughed With A Laugh

Today’s poem is He Laughed With A Laugh by JonArno Lawson. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Myka and I rescued today’s fun poem from the cutting floor of our children’s poetry episodes. We present it to you today. Enjoy!” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

May 24, 2023 • 5:38

883: Extreme Close-up

Today’s poem is Extreme Close-up by Susan Rich. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Noticing and paying attention to my surroundings is more than for the purpose of writing poems. I’m trying to bring the world closer to me. To call up daily experience by zooming in, by locating language that is as lush as life yet elegantly sparse, well, then, that is an act of love and reciprocity.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Ev

May 23, 2023 • 5:31

882: The Pathology of Currency

Today’s poem is The Pathology of Currency by Matthew Lippman. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem humorously parodies the secret nature of money and the endless, if not stressful, cycle of working and spending.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

May 22, 2023 • 6:00

881: She Loves Me, She Love Me Not

Today’s poem is She Loves Me, She Love Me Not by Desirée Alvarez. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Why do we make bad decisions, whether reasoned or rash, when we know deep down that they are not sound? I don’t believe people when they announce they have no regrets. I find feelings of regret slightly useful. They help us muse over missed opportunities or hasty actions. Regrets remind us to do better. To be more careful.” Celebrate the power of po

May 19, 2023 • 6:10

880: The Figure of a Man Being Swallowed by a Fish

Today’s poem is The Figure of a Man Being Swallowed by a Fish by Joshua Weiner. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem dramatizes the hidden transaction of our obsessions. We are claimed by the world as much as we take in — sometimes, even more.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

May 18, 2023 • 5:21

879: For the Poet Who Is Your High School English Teacher

Today’s poem is For the Poet Who Is Your High School English Teacher by Gary Margolis. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem honors the teachers among us who are also poets, whose passion for poetry helps students to reimagine and change their world.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

May 17, 2023 • 5:45

878: This Is My Vow

Today’s poem is This Is My Vow by Lucia Mae Pitts. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem, though written nearly one hundred years ago, knows that to live today is to heroically make a pledge of hope, to seek the positives, to practice the gospel of joy, and in doing so to defeat pessimism and stave off an all-consuming gloom.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyur

May 16, 2023 • 5:42

877: The Lifeline

Today’s poem is The Lifeline by Pádraig Ó Tuama. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “When natural disaster occurs, when catastrophe falls upon us, we humans lean into life. We need the counterbalancing force of creation and renewal to tilt the world back toward meaning and light. We pursue activities that resist a chaos of the mind and spirit, some endeavor that gives us a foothold on the unthinkable, an anchor, a reminder of the eternal nature of e

May 15, 2023 • 5:18

876: Nowhere Else to Go

Today’s poem is Nowhere Else to Go by Linda Sue Park. This week’s episodes are for, and feature, young poets. Climate change is an urgent issue for everyone — and our best reminder of this is the young people who are pushing for action. Today’s co-host, Durete, is one of those young people who has marched on the front lines. Her story, and today’s poem, point out a critical factor of this fight: that it is one we must take up hand in hand with our best friends.We would love to hear your

May 12, 2023 • 11:04

875: Olympians vs. Modernity

Today’s poem is Olympians vs. Modernity by Adelaide Sendlenski. This week’s episodes are for, and feature, young poets. Adelaide, today’s co-host, is a dedicated tennis player. She’s so busy with school and sports that she writes poetry in the minutes between, thinking up lines while in motion. Today’s poem is one of her own, a poem which deftly connects the power of the Greek gods to the power we aim to claim through consumer culture.We would love to hear your thoughts on these special

May 11, 2023 • 9:54

874: Ozymandias

Today’s poem is Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley. This week’s episodes are for, and feature, young poets. Ever since taking on the role as host of The Slowdown, I’ve been thinking a lot more about the importance of performance in poetry. An organization that teaches this art to young people is Poetry Out Loud, for which I’ve served as a national judge; today’s co-host, Cat, participated as a performer, winning her region in New York. Her reading of Ozymandias reminded me of something

May 10, 2023 • 10:07

873: Occasional Poem

Today’s poem is Occasional Poem by Jaqueline Woodson. This week’s episodes are for, and feature, young poets. Today’s co-host, Jasper, and I share an entry point to poetry – music. In the songs he’s written, he seeks an honesty and perspective in relationships, which reflects so many great poems. Sometimes, the best way to make sense of something is to bring sound to it – whether the spoken word, a guitar strum, or an onomatopoeia. We would love to hear your thoughts on these special ep

May 9, 2023 • 9:21

872: Jabberwocky

Today’s poem is Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll. This week’s episodes are for, and feature, young poets. Our producers met up with Nova at the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens while the cherry blossoms were in full bloom. And as much as she loved the pink blossoms, the poetry she’s created there comes from more unexpected places. She is a pro at embracing the strangeness of the world, at finding the quiet places so she can really listen to that weirdness. I think this is a lesson that everyone can

May 8, 2023 • 9:28

871: Flesh (“You in your ecstasy of coffee”)

Today’s poem is Flesh (“You in your ecstasy of coffee”) by Deborah Landau.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “When summer arrives, I run as fast as I can into its lushness. I am making new memories with family and friends that involve nights of alfresco dining, remote beaches, mountain ranges, and sun-drenched cocktail parties. Summer is the season that beckons most my senses; all that fruit bursting its wild colors: strawberries, apricots, and peac

May 5, 2023 • 6:45

870: Hymn to Church Basements

Today’s poem is Hymn to Church Basements by Joan Kwon Glass.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem exalts the unadorned spaces where those on the journey to recovery find acceptance and community.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

May 4, 2023 • 6:34

869: Ethnic Arithmetic

Today’s poem is Ethnic Arithmetic by Sara R. Burnett.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “One of the deeply harmful and insidious ways white supremacy wounds people is having them believe they are superior to (or less than), based merely on skin color. There’s a deep sadness in not seeing each other as whole human beings, in not recognizing the gift and potential beyond bureaucratic designations that confine us. Even here, I almost wrote “define us.”

May 3, 2023 • 5:52

868: The Half-Finished Heaven

Today’s poem is The Half-Finished Heaven by Tomas Tranströmer.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… "Contemporary art and poetry encourage uncertainty and a spirit of inquiry. If we are willing to let go of our frustration, abandoning the quest for meaning can be its own spiritual reward. Today’s extraordinary poem constructs a fascinating and dreamy space where images sharpen into an immense and profound notion of the land and human interdependen

May 2, 2023 • 6:31

867: Four-in-Hand

Today’s poem is Four-in-Hand by Kweku Abimbola.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… "When I was young, I played basketball for hours. As much as I enjoyed playing back then with my friends, I loved shooting hoops even more with my dad. In my youth, we never lived together. I wince when I think of myself back then, always trying to dazzle him during visits or whenever I spent time at his home. I continually tried to prove myself worthy of his affe

May 1, 2023 • 5:21

866: Tea with Ann

Today’s poem is Tea with Ann by Mary Brancaccio.In this episode, Major writes… “I had always thought my friendships would last forever, but life subverts the noblest of intentions. So, kudos to all those who have stayed friends without the aide of an algorithm or social media platform.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Apr 28, 2023 • 6:22

865: Worry (the Dybbuk)

Today’s poem is Worry (the Dybbuk) by Anthony Immergluck.In this episode, Major writes… “After living through all manner of personal and communal tribulations, I’ve come to believe things will work themselves out. Yet, it’s not that the worries have gone away. Just like in my early days, I’ve learned to find ways to ease the burdens and uneasiness of living. Of course, I’m not trying to find a fully anxiety-free existence; it’s good to have a barking dog occasionally at one’s heels. I j

Apr 27, 2023 • 5:43

864: To the Buyer of Our Old Home

Today’s poem is To the Buyer of Our Old Home by Helen Pruitt Wallace.In this episode, Major writes… “If you are a writer, old houses are more than quaint. They send the imagination down the corridors of time. What did the children dream of? Which songs were sung? What stories did the elders share? What sadness fell upon their souls and how did they tend to their wounds?” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.co

Apr 26, 2023 • 5:50

863: La Peste

Today’s poem is La Peste by Marilyn Nelson.In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem states a truth about turbulent times. After sadness, fear, and uncertainty, we will inevitably feel that distinct sense of having surmounted some great hardship. This suffering makes life precious, and above all, makes our friends treasured. And may I suggest, that to follow this episode, you might queue up Destiny’s Child’s iconic song “Survivor.”” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slo

Apr 25, 2023 • 6:13

862: Last Night I Had Such Good Dreams

Today’s poem is Last Night I Had Such Good Dreams by Jennifer Perrine.In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem points out that sometimes that voice streaming in our heads isn’t even our own. Sometimes words directed back to ourselves as lack of worth, the self-critiques that we vocalize, though of our own making, are sentiments put there by someone else.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Apr 24, 2023 • 5:44

861: Apologia

Today’s poem is Apologia by Cherene Sherrard.In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem, drawn from the language of biology, contains a strong and simple message about diversity in society.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Apr 21, 2023 • 6:40

860: Learning Money in Reverse

Today’s poem is Learning Money in Reverse by Stephanie Niu. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s ingenious poem calls attention to the lived realities of financial literacy, how it’s touch and go, and how it’s thrust upon us if we are not fortunate to receive those lessons in our home.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Apr 20, 2023 • 6:21

859: Diving at Blue Hole

Today’s poem is Diving at Blue Hole by Ally Young.In this episode, Major writes… “In the spirit of Walt Whitman who heard the chorus of voices that made America and its geography, today’s poem continues the rich tradition of celebrating a poetry of place, utterly unique and rich for its ability to cultivate its poets to sing our land into our literary record.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Apr 19, 2023 • 5:36

858: from BOOK OF THE OTHER

Today’s poem is from BOOK OF THE OTHER by Truong Tran.In this episode, Major writes… “Names carry family histories, maybe even indicate what region of the country we reside in, or from where our ancestors traveled. This is why it comes as an affront when someone fails to learn how to say our name or worse, makes up a name for us, like my fourth-grade teacher who, instead of learning to pronounce the “ethnic” names of her students, renamed all of us after French painters.” Celebrate the

Apr 18, 2023 • 6:09

857: And Everywhere Offering Human Sound

Today’s poem is And Everywhere Offering Human Sound by Joan Houlihan.In this episode, Major writes… “Through my many years of reading poetry, I feel as though I’ve absorbed other people’s stories and feelings. I strongly believe this has fortified me with a spirit of kindness, poetry as a daily pill of compassion. This is a grounding tenet in my belief in poetry as a communal and righteous good. We get to see through each other’s eyes and feel through each other’s hearts.” Celebrate the

Apr 17, 2023 • 6:26

856: The "I Want" Song

Today’s poem is The "I Want" Song by Rachel Richardson. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “On occasion, I question whether or not my desires are my desires. Or has my subconscious merely given into the massive amounts of stimuli of our modern age? For example, take this almond milk grande cappuccino with one-pump sugar-free vanilla syrup. Now that it sits on my desk, half-full and cold as a wet day on the beach, I am not convinced I reall

Apr 14, 2023 • 6:13

855: Placebo

Today’s poem is Placebo by Preeti Vangani. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “When medical science runs its course, we desperately pursue other pathways to healing. Such was the case with my grandmother. Today’s poignant narrative poem highlights the extent of our vulnerability when we wish to save those we love.”

Apr 13, 2023 • 5:55

854: To be brave, I look to the daffodil

Today’s poem is To be brave, I look to the daffodil by Susan Nguyen. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “I live in that between space of Play it safe and Go for it. I mostly proceed with caution but then again, foolishly, I brave activities that put life and limb at risk, like jumping off a cliff into an unknown depth of water. Literally and figuratively. I’ve never jumped out of an airplane, and I probably would be that guy who’d need to be pushed

Apr 12, 2023 • 5:51

853: from LET IT BE BROKE

Today’s poem is from LET IT BE BROKE by Ed Pavlić. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem celebrates the bonding that occurs when music and art are at the center of our treasured relationships. There is gratitude for the ways we learn to talk to each other as family and friends, that make music a spiritual bridge across time.”

Apr 11, 2023 • 5:45

852: Forestbathing (or Trees)

Today’s poem is Forestbathing (or Trees) by francine j. harris. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “As we stroll slowly beneath the earth’s giants, amidst fungi, moss, lichen, and ferns, we are being workshopped in dappled light. What’s restorative isn’t merely the smells and sounds of woodlands, chirping birds and glimpses of wildlife. We are forced to confront the illusions of modern life. We are awash with a simplicity that takes us to idylls of

Apr 10, 2023 • 5:58

851: I Was Wrong About So Much

Today’s poem is I Was Wrong About So Much by Eugenia Leigh. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem exquisitely models one of my new and favorite acts of speech, that moment when we hold ourselves accountable for our mishaps and make amends — which feels like taking time to grow.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Apr 7, 2023 • 6:34

850: Split

Today’s poem is Split by Paul Hlava Ceballos. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poet makes use of the poem as a repository of autobiographical facts, all while dramatizing larger questions of origin, citizenship, immigration, and nationhood.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Apr 6, 2023 • 5:56

849: If There Is Another World

Today’s poem is If There Is Another World by Malena Mörling. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s compelling poem makes an implicit argument—that evidence of a parallel world might just be in front of our eyes. Instead of smashing atoms, we merely need to observe and record our daily singularities, which feel, at times, surreal and otherworldly. As with life, every decision made in a poem creates a new universe.” Celebrate the power of poems

Apr 5, 2023 • 6:06

848: Six for Gold

Today’s poem is Six for Gold by Kate Hanson Foster. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Confession: As a young parent, when my children barraged me with questions, so many times, I wanted to [poof] disappear. We’ve all experienced this moment (right?) when a child suddenly becomes a human question generator or a “you-think-you’re-smart-but-I’m-going-to-bring-you-to-your-knees-in-recognition-of-your-ignorance” kind of a child? No, there was never mal

Apr 4, 2023 • 6:11

847: Liturgy for Family Circles

Today’s poem is Liturgy for Family Circles by Joanna Currey.

Apr 3, 2023 • 6:40

846: Some Madness There

Today’s poem is Some Madness There by Charlotte Pence.

Mar 31, 2023 • 7:05

845: Dear Future Me (#12)

Today’s poem is Dear Future Me (#12) by Lena Moses-Schmitt. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Writing poetry is chiefly a search for language that makes a tidy explanation of both the present and the past, with the hope our mind grabs on so that the poem emerges also as a visceral experience of thinking, that is, thinking as an unfolding and awakening, both for the author and the reader or in this instance, a listener. But then occasionally, writi

Mar 30, 2023 • 6:29

844: A Ruin

Today’s poem is A Ruin by Paul Muldoon.

Mar 29, 2023 • 6:06

843: Family Court

Today’s poem is Family Court by Patricia Kirkpatrick. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s heartbreaking poem conveys those acute emotional feelings of failure and sheer disbelief that arrive when a marriage is irreparably damaged. Once again, poetry, in its restorative powers to name the inner life, sets us on a journey to restoration and rebuilding.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a diff

Mar 28, 2023 • 6:39

842: Zelda Fitzgerald

Today’s poem is Zelda Fitzgerald by Aria Aber. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “We have a long history in American poetry of dramatic monologues, of taking on a character in our own expression. Lately, however, I’ve had trouble working out the ethics of portraying someone other than myself. And yet, as one poet says, the dramatic monologue has been an important tool in recuperating silenced voices. Today’s phenomenal poem does just that. It avoid

Mar 27, 2023 • 5:59

841: The Whole World is the Best Land I Ever Lived

Today’s poem is The Whole World is the Best Land I Ever Lived by Lynn Melnick.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “I’m always looking for people who don’t want to retreat from the world, but to charge into it with gusto and love. I want to learn their secret. Today’s poet helps me learn. She meditates on being so devoted to the world that she decided to bring someone else into it. To offer the unlikeliness of being to her daughter out of love and won

Mar 24, 2023 • 6:02

840: Agoraphobia

Today’s poem is Agoraphobia by Natasha Sajé. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Jason Schneiderman writes… “I didn’t learn to drive until I was twenty-seven. It’s not because I’m a New Yorker—I finished High School in Maryland, and it’s not because I had a principled opposition to fossil fuels, though I wish I could say it was. It’s because I was in a car accident when I was seventeen. I didn’t learn to drive not because I was afraid of driving, but be

Mar 23, 2023 • 6:51

839: Pietà by Michelangelo: Marble, 1499

Today’s poem is Pieta by Michelangelo: Marble, 1499 by Darrel Alejandro Holnes. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Jason Schneiderman writes… “Today’s poem considers an unpainted statue by Michelangelo, depicting Mary holding her son Jesus just after his removal from the cross. I remember seeing this statue when I was very young and being deeply moved both by the posture of Mary’s sorrow, and by the incredible skill of sculpting, by which the cold marb

Mar 22, 2023 • 5:26

838: The Truth

Today’s poem is The Truth by Natasha Rao. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “A pretty common response to loss is to encourage other people to cherish what…and whom… they still have. When someone loses a parent, they remind the people around them to call their own mom and dad more often, or they post on social media to exhort you to hold your loved ones a little bit closer tonight. It’s not bad advice, of course, but in my experience, it’s not the s

Mar 21, 2023 • 4:45

837: Fire Destroys Beloved Chicago Bakery

Today’s poem is Fire Destroys Beloved Chicago Bakery by Nathan McClain. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Jason Schneiderman writes… “Today’s poem starts with a conceit, an idea or premise that motivates the poem. The speaker misreads the word “fire” as “father”— and then proceeds along the twin lines of malapropism and Freudian slip. At times the usage is funny and clever, and at times dire and significant, and sometimes — because this is a poem — it

Mar 20, 2023 • 5:25

836: A City Like a Guillotine Shivers on Its Way to the Neck

Today’s poem is A City Like a Guillotine Shivers on Its Way to the Neck by Ilya Kaminsky. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Jason Schneiderman writes… “Today’s poem is from a sequence of poems about a town that has been invaded by an occupying force. Both sides believe that they are on the side of right, and both sides justify their violence by calling it a response to the other side’s violence. The poet’s sympathy is certainly with the occupied people, and as a

Mar 17, 2023 • 5:58

835: "anyone can be beautiful:

Today’s poem is "anyone can be beautiful: by Kay Gabriel. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Jason Schneiderman writes… “Today’s poem is from a sequence of sonnets celebrating Candy Darling. The poet starts her poems with a quote from Darling’s diaries, engaging her intellect, but never forgetting the beautiful surface she presented to the world.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: ht

Mar 16, 2023 • 5:11

834: Two Boys Ago

Today’s poem is Two Boys Ago by Kazim Ali. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Jason Schneiderman writes… “There’s something wonderful about having no context, about the first time you encounter an idea in art or life, that shock of recognition and that glimpse of a new world, but there’s also something wonderful about being able to see how that idea fits into a bigger picture. Today’s poem offers us those puzzle pieces one by one, but as a negative. In

Mar 15, 2023 • 6:15

833: The Railroad Worm

Today’s poem is The Railroad Worm by Kimiko Hahn. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Jason Schneiderman writes… “Night can be cozy or night can be sexy, and night is always spiked with a little bit of danger. Night has always felt full of possibility to me. In college, I loved coming back to the dormitories at night, seeing the lights on in my friends’ windows. We humans are fascinated by anything that illuminates the darkness. We love the moon, and we

Mar 14, 2023 • 5:19

832: The Illiterate

Today’s poem is The Illiterate by William Meredith. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Jason Schneiderman writes… “Today’s poem is about taking time to turn over and over the mysteries of gratitude and the ways in which desire makes us strange to ourselves. The poet uses the mysteries of writing and the figure of illiteracy not to pin down what it meant for him to know love, but to open up the space where love might be seen in all its confusions.” Cele

Mar 13, 2023 • 5:13

831: Panama Hat

Today’s poem is Panama Hat by David Lehman. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s instructive poem realizes that sometimes, simply saying what happened with accuracy is the poem, naming in such a way that we become enchanting to ourselves.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Mar 10, 2023 • 7:12

830: What's Been Caged

Today’s poem is What's Been Caged by Jamaica Baldwin.

Mar 9, 2023 • 6:50

829: Don't Touch

Today’s poem is Don't Touch by Sarah Carson. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “When I hear of violent shootings in some part of the country, places of worship in Pittsburgh and Charleston, or a grocery store in Buffalo, concert venues and clubs, our schools, not only am I devastated and returned to early trauma, I think once again how we continually fail each other by not passing gun control laws that are substantive and impactful — even more,

Mar 8, 2023 • 5:55

828: Against Poetry

Today’s poem is Against Poetry by Diane Seuss. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “The truth is, I have questioned poetry’s value, and my role in making it. I don’t know what to do when people ask “What kind of poetry do you write?” Picture me, wide-eyed blinking with a fake smile, like I was thrust onto a red carpet. Or what to do when someone states with mild revulsion: “I don’t get poetry.” Or, in the company of a contrarian, with a disdain for t

Mar 7, 2023 • 7:15

827: Naming the Waves

Today’s poem is Naming the Waves by Alison Prine. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “The love language in today’s poem can be classified as “words of affirmation” — in this case, words that describe the seaside, but also the world that the speaker and their love share. It models a spirit of full immersion, one in which the power of seeing becomes a vow of commitment and a gorgeous illustration of affection.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift

Mar 6, 2023 • 5:55

826: How

Today’s poem is How by Heid E. Erdrich. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Isn’t it a pleasure sometimes to simply live in the ineffable? I have noticed lately that running to retrieve my phone to source answers short-circuits one of my favorite feelings in life: the evocative experience of being awed, encountering something vast and grand. Today’s poem is full of the music of wonder and the miracle that makes itself visible to us in both the extra

Mar 3, 2023 • 7:13

825: Hotter Than July

Today’s poem is Hotter Than July by DaMaris B. Hill. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “I love my aging body because it is a living record of my growth. It holds all the history of my feelings and perceptions. When I hear music and begin to unselfconsciously dance, that’s my body calibrating once again, tuning. Do I wish to return my body to its former state? Yes, I guess I do, which is why I bike and walk frequently, to bring me closer. But ultima

Mar 2, 2023 • 6:58

824: Head of Anahit / British Museum

Today’s poem is Head of Anahit / British Museum by Peter Balakian. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem imagines a father’s future funeral and voices an intention to both preserve and remember the small moments, that which becomes large once our parents are no longer present in our lives.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Mar 1, 2023 • 7:56

823: Salmon

Today’s poem is Salmon by Gabrielle Bates. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem imagines a father’s future funeral and voices an intention to both preserve and remember the small moments, that which becomes large once our parents are no longer present in our lives.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Feb 28, 2023 • 6:17

822: Cricket Song

Today’s poem is Cricket Song by George Kalogeris. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “At times, no words exist to capture our rapid, forward-marching world. Life outpaces language. It is then we attempt to create fresh language or rinse cycle words until we have a new purchase on old concepts. For example, for about a decade, I’ve been trying to formulate a word that explains the phenomenon of contagious yawning. It’s a thing and I’m haunted by this

Feb 27, 2023 • 5:46

821: I Have No Idea What's Going to Happen

Today’s poem is I Have No Idea What's Going to Happen by Justin Marks. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s understated poem shows us how impromptu encounters with art, those that are unforeseen, disruptive in the best sense, have us dwell outside time and exist within the spirit of the maker, then return us to our days with a new purchase on our lives.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes

Feb 24, 2023 • 6:15

820: Jesus Saves

Today’s poem is Jesus Saves by Jae Nichelle. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s sly poem riffs off that famous setup of three holy men walking into a bar. Instead of a priest, a rabbi, and a minister, Jesus walks in, and instead of a bar, he saunters into a coffee shop. I enjoy when poets ask themselves the question “What if,” which is the crux of any joke, but also of many great poems.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowd

Feb 23, 2023 • 5:04

819: Egrets (in memory of Barry Lopez)

Today’s poem is Egrets (in memory of Barry Lopez) by Ralph Black. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Writers build universes out of letters and words from mere marks of a pen or keystrokes on a keyboard: an interiority to be heard and imagined in the reader’s mind. Which is to say: poets rely on readers to make pictures in their head or to hear the thoughts of the speaker in a poem. Poetry shocks us into a recognition of the world and helps renew o

Feb 22, 2023 • 6:30

818: Everything Lies in All Directions

Today’s poem is Everything Lies in All Directions by Hua Xi.

Feb 21, 2023 • 5:50

817: Context is all

Today’s poem is Context is all by Erica Hunt. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem underscores the implied racial and class dynamics at the center of American life. How we are defined and claimed and rendered opponents; how the ongoing battles and struggles construct an “Us vs Them.” Even when it means abandoning an authentic selfhood separate from, yet a part of, the groups we get put into.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to T

Feb 20, 2023 • 7:27

816: The Freeways Considered As Earth Gods

Today’s poem is The Freeways Considered As Earth Gods by Dana Gioia. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s terrifically imagined poem personifies our system of roads and thoroughfares as commanding mythic figures. In this way, it dramatizes the extent to which we are profoundly enmeshed with and dependent on that system, which has made life convenient for humankind, but in the process, imperiled our planet.” Celebrate the power of poems with a

Feb 17, 2023 • 6:54

815: My Mother Talks to Her Son About Her Heart

Today’s poem is My Mother Talks to Her Son About Her Heart by Kerrin McCadden. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “I marvel at our capacity to love each other, beyond artificial categories and social boundaries. I am awed by how we fill in the gaps for each other.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Feb 16, 2023 • 6:34

814: on persona

Today’s poem is on persona by Raena Shirali. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “I often think about poetry’s distinct ability to mute what estranges and highlight more of what we share. In writing poems about our lives, we provide pathways for others to feel and understand our common journey of breathing together on our shared planet, and in the best case, to inhabit our various freedoms.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown to

Feb 15, 2023 • 5:30

813: Forgiveness, Perhaps

Today’s poem is Forgiveness, Perhaps by Marci Calabretta Cancio-Bello. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem, through repetition, reminds us that forgiveness takes serious effort; it is an ongoing act of affording grace, mercy, and compassion, whose result allows us to live more fully in the present, rather than be destroyed by the past.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: ht

Feb 14, 2023 • 5:30

812: September

Today’s poem is September by Nathaniel Perry. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s gorgeous poem invokes the enigmatic energy of an impending storm, the kind that mesmerizes, that beckons us to read the symbolism of nature, that points to both destruction and life.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Feb 13, 2023 • 6:58

811: Possum

Today’s poem is Possum by Todd F. Davis.

Feb 10, 2023 • 6:25

810: There Is No Touchdown Here, Belichick

Today’s poem is There Is No Touchdown Here, Belichick by Vi Khi Nao.

Feb 9, 2023 • 7:18

809: A Statement from No One, Incorporated

Today’s poem is A Statement from No One, Incorporated by Justin Phillip Reed.

Feb 8, 2023 • 6:29

808: Birds in Home Depot—December

Today’s poem is Birds in Home Depot—December by Richard Maxson.

Feb 7, 2023 • 5:43

807: Short Essay on Love

Today’s poem is Short Essay on Love by Sarah Manguso.

Feb 6, 2023 • 6:08

806: Polycardial

Today’s poem is Polycardial by James Hoch.

Feb 3, 2023 • 7:18

805: Discourse

Today’s poem is Discourse by Orlando White.

Feb 2, 2023 • 5:55

804: Foxglove

Today’s poem is Foxglove by Ambalila Hemsell.

Feb 1, 2023 • 7:07

803: In Light of Stars

Today’s poem is In Light of Stars by Bruce Willard.

Jan 31, 2023 • 5:48

802: Heirloom

Today’s poem is Heirloom by Zeina Hashem Beck.

Jan 30, 2023 • 6:42

801: Landscape with Things

Today’s poem is Landscape with Things by Alexandria Hall.

Jan 27, 2023 • 7:34

800: We Wear the Mask

Today’s poem is We Wear the Mask by Paul Laurence Dunbar

Jan 26, 2023 • 5:39

799: Fragment (Stone)

Today’s poem is Fragment (Stone) by Ann Lauterbach.

Jan 25, 2023 • 6:24

798: Improvement

Today’s poem is Improvement by Danusha Laméris.

Jan 24, 2023 • 5:12

797: Night Terrors in America

Today’s poem is Night Terrors in America by CJ Evans.

Jan 23, 2023 • 5:36

[encore] 740: Shucking Oysters

Today’s poem is Shucking Oysters by Khalisa Rae. This episode was originally released on August 15, 2022.

Jan 20, 2023 • 6:15

[encore] 552: Hammond B3 Organ Cistern

Today’s poem is Hammond B3 Organ Cistern by Gabrielle Calvocoressi. This episode was originally released on November 24, 2021.

Jan 19, 2023 • 5:05

[encore] 630: Don't Think

Today’s poem is Don't Think by Elisa Gabbert. This episode was originally released on March 14, 2022.

Jan 18, 2023 • 5:10

[encore] 691: Final Poem for the "Field of Poetry"

Today’s poem is Final Poem for the "Field of Poetry" by Phillip B. Williams. This episode was originally released on June 7, 2022.

Jan 17, 2023 • 5:01

[encore] 570: Asking About My Mother

Today’s poem is Asking About My Mother by Crystal Wilkinson. This episode was originally released on December 20, 2021.

Jan 16, 2023 • 4:23

[encore] 696: Reading Szymborska at Friday Harbor

Today’s poem is Reading Szymborska at Friday Harbor by Patrycja Humienik. This episode was originally released on June 14th, 2022.

Jan 13, 2023 • 6:35

Returning with new host Major Jackson

In sharing poems, we take a moment to pause and acknowledge the world’s magnitude, and how poets illuminate that mystery. Join The Slowdown's new host, Major Jackson, for new episodes beginning January 23, 2023.

Jan 12, 2023 • 2:21

[encore] 581: Red-ish Brown-ish

Today’s poem is Red-ish Brown-ish by Trevino L. Brings Plenty. This episode was originally released on January 4th, 2022.

Jan 12, 2023 • 5:12

[encore] 625: Not everything is a poem

Today’s poem is Not everything is a poem by Maggie Smith. This episode was originally released on March 7th, 2022.

Jan 11, 2023 • 4:56

796: It Must Be The Supermarket in Me

Today’s poem is It Must Be The Supermarket in Me by Major Jackson. Major Jackson will be the new host of the Slowdown, starting on January 23rd, 2023.

Jan 10, 2023 • 6:20

[encore] 643: Eventually / One Point Where We Arrive

Today’s poem is Eventually / One Point Where We Arrive by Adam Clay. This episode was originally released on March 28th, 2022.

Jan 9, 2023 • 4:56

[encore] 719: Museum of Sex

Today’s poem is Museum of Sex by Ellen Hagan. This episode was originally released on July 15, 2022.

Jan 6, 2023 • 6:15

[encore] 555: Private Property

Today’s poem is Private Property by Analicia Sotelo. This episode was originally released on November 29, 2021.

Jan 5, 2023 • 5:25

[encore] 772: On Friendship

Today’s poem is On Friendship by Hagit Grossman. This episode was originally released on September 28, 2022.

Jan 4, 2023 • 5:00

[encore] 513: Romantics

Today’s poem is Romantics by Lisel Mueller. This episode was originally released on September 30, 2021.

Jan 3, 2023 • 5:43

[encore] 769: Meeting at an Airport

Today’s poem is Meeting at an Airport by Taha Muhammad Ali. This episode was originally released on September 23, 2022.

Jan 2, 2023 • 6:16

[encore] 739: Cherry Blossoms

Today’s poem is Cherry Blossoms by Toi Derricotte. This episode was originally released on August 12, 2022.

Dec 30, 2022 • 5:59

[encore] 573: Bury Me in the Woods of My Childhood

Today’s poem is Bury Me in the Woods of My Childhood by Erin Rodoni. This episode was originally released on December 23, 2021.

Dec 29, 2022 • 5:08

[encore] 562: The Lonely Humans

Today’s poem is The Lonely Humans by Jennifer Chang. This episode was originally released on December 8, 2021.

Dec 28, 2022 • 5:27

[encore] 685: Trees at Night

Today’s poem is Trees at Night by Helene Johnson. This episode was originally released on May 30, 2022.

Dec 27, 2022 • 5:20

[encore] 576: Taking Down the Tree

Today’s poem is Taking Down the Tree by Jane Kenyon. This episode was originally released on December 8, 2021.

Dec 26, 2022 • 5:08

[encore] 627: Don't Say Love Just Signal

Today’s poem is Don't Say Love Just Signal by Tyree Daye. This episode was originally released on March 9, 2022.

Dec 23, 2022 • 5:50

[encore] 584: Marte

Today’s poem is Marte by Gustavo Hernandez. This episode was originally released on January 7, 2022.

Dec 22, 2022 • 4:36

[encore] 699: Photosynthesis

Today’s poem is Photosynthesis by Ashley M. Jones. This episode was originally released on June 17, 2022.

Dec 21, 2022 • 5:42

[encore] 567: Besaydoo

Today’s poem is Besaydoo by Yalie Saweda Kamara. This episode was originally released on December 15, 2021.

Dec 20, 2022 • 4:49

[encore] 511: Present Tense

Today’s poem is Present Tense by Maya Pindyck. This episode was originally released on September 28, 2021.

Dec 19, 2022 • 4:32

[encore] 575: How I Learned Bliss

Today’s poem is How I Learned Bliss by Oliver de la Paz. This episode was originally released on December 27, 2021.

Dec 16, 2022 • 5:37

[encore] 622: Self-Portrait With Woman On The Subway

Today’s poem is Self-Portrait With Woman On The Subway by Hayan Charara. This episode was originally released on March 2, 2022.

Dec 15, 2022 • 4:47

[encore] 692: Other Women's Babies

Today’s poem is Other Women's Babies by Rachel Long. This episode was originally released on June 8, 2022.

Dec 14, 2022 • 4:54

[encore] 547: Travel

Today’s poem is Travel by Edna St. Vincent Millay. This episode was originally released on November 17, 2021.

Dec 13, 2022 • 4:36

[encore] 665: Metro-North

Today’s poem is Metro-North by Jason Barry. This episode was originally released on May 2, 2022.

Dec 12, 2022 • 4:59

[encore] 559: Parable of Childhood

Today’s poem is Parable of Childhood by Wayne Miller. This episode was originally released on December 3, 2021.

Dec 9, 2022 • 5:09

[encore] 649: sunrise through mount vernon, wa.

Today’s poem is sunrise through mount vernon, wa. by Jasmine Khaliq. This episode was originally released on April 8, 2022.

Dec 8, 2022 • 6:01

[encore] 654: In the End You Get Everything Back (Liza Minnelli)

Today’s poem is In the End You Get Everything Back (Liza Minnelli) by Jason Schneiderman. This episode was originally released on April 15, 2022.

Dec 7, 2022 • 6:44

[encore] 717: Afterlife with a Gentle Afterward

Today’s poem is Afterlife with a Gentle Afterward by Matthew Henriksen. This episode was originally released on July 13, 2022.

Dec 6, 2022 • 5:12

[encore] 509: Wondrous

Today’s poem is Wondrous by Sarah Freligh. This episode was originally released on September 24, 2021.

Dec 5, 2022 • 5:10

[encore] 705: The Bats

Today’s poem is The Bats by Mark Wunderlich. This episode was originally released on June 27, 2022.

Dec 2, 2022 • 5:07

[encore] 705: The Bats

Today’s poem is The Bats by Mark Wunderlich. This episode was originally released on June 27, 2022.

Dec 2, 2022 • 5:07

[encore] 634: Nest

Today’s poem is Nest by Sarah Arvio. This episode was originally released on March 18, 2022.

Dec 1, 2022 • 5:45

[encore] 519: Missing Cat

Today’s poem is Missing Cat by Freesia McKee. This episode was originally released on October 8, 2021.

Nov 30, 2022 • 5:04

[encore] 618: Elegy for Kentucky

Today’s poem is Elegy for Kentucky by Joy Priest. This episode was originally released on February 24, 2022.

Nov 29, 2022 • 5:28

[encore] 651: Training

Today’s poem is Training by Diannely Antigua. This episode was originally released on April 12, 2022.

Nov 28, 2022 • 4:48

[encore] 689: Alive at the End of the World

Today’s poem is Alive at the End of the World by Saeed Jones. This episode was originally released on June 3, 2022.

Nov 25, 2022 • 5:57

[encore] 523: Our Valley

Today’s poem is Our Valley by Philip Levine. This episode was originally released on October 14, 2021.

Nov 24, 2022 • 5:04

[encore] 508: Rehearsal for the New World

Today’s poem is Rehearsal for the New World by Hazem Fahmy. This episode was originally released on September 23, 2021.

Nov 23, 2022 • 4:43

[encore] 673: New Town

Today’s poem is New Town by Aleksandar Hemon. This episode was originally released on May 12, 2022.

Nov 22, 2022 • 5:17

[encore] 521: Invocation

Today’s poem is Invocation by W. Todd Kaneko. This episode was originally released on October 12 2021.

Nov 21, 2022 • 4:39

[encore] 662: To Be in Love

Today’s poem is To Be in Love by Gwendolyn Brooks. This episode was originally released on April 27, 2022.

Nov 18, 2022 • 4:55

[encore] 612: After the Fire

Today’s poem is After the Fire by Gregory Fraser. This episode was originally released on February 16, 2022.

Nov 17, 2022 • 5:04

[encore] 549: Mountain Dew Commercial Disguised as a Love Poem

Today’s poem is Mountain Dew Commercial Disguised as a Love Poem by Matthew Olzmann. This episode was originally released on November 19, 2021.

Nov 16, 2022 • 4:47

[encore] 534: The moon rose over the bay. I had a lot of feelings.

Today’s poem is The moon rose over the bay. I had a lot of feelings. by Donika Kelly. This episode was originally released on October 29, 2021.

Nov 15, 2022 • 5:02

[encore] 648: Love is a Luminous Insect at the Window

Today’s poem is Love is a Luminous Insect at the Window by Martín Espada. This episode was originally released on April 7, 2022.

Nov 14, 2022 • 5:02

[encore] 644: Georgia O'Keeffe, "From the Faraway, Nearby," 1937

Today’s poem is Georgia O'Keeffe, "From the Faraway, Nearby," 1937 by Camille Carter. This episode was originally released on April 1, 2022.

Nov 11, 2022 • 6:35

[encore] 611: During the Pandemic I Listen to the July 26, 1965, Juan-les-Pins Recording of A Love Supreme

Today’s poem is During the Pandemic I Listen to the July 26, 1965, Juan-les-Pins Recording of A Love Supreme by Ellen Bass. This episode was originally released on February 15, 2022.

Nov 10, 2022 • 5:31

[encore] 646: every exquisite thing

Today’s poem is every exquisite thing by heidi andrea restrepo rhodes. This episode was originally released on April 5, 2022.

Nov 9, 2022 • 5:27

[encore] 595: Pegasus Autopsy

Today’s poem is Pegasus Autopsy by Julio Pazos Barrera. This episode was originally released on January 24, 2022.

Nov 8, 2022 • 4:58

[encore] 615: The Studio

Today’s poem is The Studio by Cedar Sigo. This episode was originally released on February 21 2022.

Nov 7, 2022 • 5:05

[encore] 629: Halfway

Today’s poem is Halfway by Paula Mendoza.This episode was originally released on 3/11/2022.

Nov 4, 2022 • 6:20

[encore] 683: I Have a Rendezvous With Life

Today’s poem is I Have a Rendezvous With Life by Countee Cullen.This episode was originally released on 5/26/2022.

Nov 3, 2022 • 5:07

[encore] 518: Metamorphosis: The Female Into

Today’s poem is Metamorphosis: The Female Into by Maggie Queeney.This episode was originally released on 10/7/2021.

Nov 2, 2022 • 5:30

636: How to Hold the Heavy Weight of Now

Today’s poem is How to Hold the Heavy Weight of Now by Dana Levin. This episode was originally released on 3/22/2022.

Nov 1, 2022 • 5:00

795: The End of Poetry

Today’s poem is The End of Poetry by Ada Limón.

Oct 31, 2022 • 6:07

794: High Fidelity

Today’s poem is High Fidelity by Tara Betts.

Oct 28, 2022 • 6:03

793: Children Listen

Today’s poem is Children Listen by Roger Reeves.

Oct 27, 2022 • 4:48

792: Trash

Today’s poem is Trash by Joshua Bennett.

Oct 26, 2022 • 5:14

791: Love Poem

Today’s poem is Love Poem by Jayme Ringleb.

Oct 25, 2022 • 5:34

790: Anxiety checks her phone again

Today’s poem is Anxiety checks her phone again by K.A. Hays.

Oct 24, 2022 • 5:46

789: hoop snake

Today’s poem is hoop snake by Rebecca Wee.

Oct 21, 2022 • 6:14

788: John Muir, A Dream, A Waterfall, A Mountain Ash

Today’s poem is John Muir, A Dream, A Waterfall, A Mountain Ash by Robert Hass.

Oct 20, 2022 • 5:13

787: The Orange

Today’s poem is The Orange by Wendy Cope.

Oct 19, 2022 • 5:18

786: Compassion Comes Late

Today’s poem is Compassion Comes Late by Fady Joudah.

Oct 18, 2022 • 5:10

785: Magdalene—The Seven Devils

Today’s poem is Magdalene—The Seven Devils by Marie Howe.

Oct 17, 2022 • 5:43

784: Sex Without Love

Today’s poem is Sex Without Love by Sharon Olds.

Oct 14, 2022 • 6:04

783: The Beginning of the Beginning

Today’s poem is The Beginning of the Beginning by Phuong T. Vuong.

Oct 13, 2022 • 4:35

782: The Strength of U

Today’s poem is The Strength of U by DeShara Suggs-Joe.

Oct 12, 2022 • 5:28

781: Cut Apple

Today’s poem is Cut Apple by Richelle Buccilli.

Oct 11, 2022 • 4:39

780: Edward Hopper Study: Hotel Room

Today’s poem is Edward Hopper Study: Hotel Room by Victoria Chang.

Oct 10, 2022 • 5:05

779: My Rock

Today’s poem is My Rock by Pat Mora.

Oct 7, 2022 • 5:54

778: Batter My Heart, Transgender'd God

Today’s poem is Batter My Heart, Transgender'd God by Meg Day.

Oct 6, 2022 • 5:03

777: The Lightkeeper

Today’s poem is The Lightkeeper by Carolyn Forché.

Oct 5, 2022 • 4:58

776: Bonfire Brides

Today’s poem is Bonfire Brides by Faylita Hicks.

Oct 4, 2022 • 5:52

775: A Case Study of Beethoven's Nine Symphonies

Today’s poem is A Case Study of Beethoven's Nine Symphonies by Keisha Cassel.

Oct 3, 2022 • 6:07

774: Uncertainty Principle at Dawn

Today’s poem is Uncertainty Principle at Dawn by Catherine Barnett.

Sep 30, 2022 • 5:51

773: The Dead Are Beautiful Tonight

Today’s poem is The Dead Are Beautiful Tonight by Luther Hughes.

Sep 29, 2022 • 5:12

772: On Friendship

Today’s poem is On Friendship by Hagit Grossman.

Sep 28, 2022 • 5:00

771: Your Damage

Today’s poem is Your Damage by Mary Biddinger.

Sep 27, 2022 • 4:33

770: And

Today’s poem is And by Nicole Sealey.

Sep 26, 2022 • 5:28

769: Meeting at an Airport

Today’s poem is Meeting at an Airport by Taha Muhammad Ali.

Sep 23, 2022 • 6:16

768: Lately I Am Trying

Today’s poem is Lately I Am Trying by Sanna Wani.

Sep 22, 2022 • 5:15

768: Lately I Am Trying

Today’s poem is Lately I Am Trying by Sanna Wani.

Sep 22, 2022 • 5:15

767: Love Poem

Today’s poem is Love Poem by Megan Fernandes.

Sep 21, 2022 • 5:10

766: All I Know

Today’s poem is All I Know by Paul Guest.

Sep 20, 2022 • 5:25

765: a fishing story.

Today’s poem is a fishing story. by Mia S. Willis.

Sep 19, 2022 • 5:02

764: Fides, Spes

Today’s poem is Fides, Spes by Willa Cather.

Sep 16, 2022 • 6:18

763: Erasure of Girlhood

Today’s poem is Erasure of Girlhood by Sarah María Medina.

Sep 15, 2022 • 5:02

762: Home is still possible there…

Today’s poem is Home is still possible there… by Kateryna Kalytko, translated by Olena Jennings and Oksana Lutsyshyna.

Sep 14, 2022 • 5:11

761: After

Today’s poem After by Andrea Cohen.

Sep 13, 2022 • 5:06

760: Song

Today’s poem is Song by Charif Shanahan.

Sep 12, 2022 • 4:40

759: Gitanjali 60

Today’s poem is Gitanjali 60 by Rabindranath Tagore.

Sep 9, 2022 • 5:24

758: What You Missed That Day You Were Absent from Fourth Grade

Today’s poem is What You Missed That Day You Were Absent from Fourth Grade by Brad Aaron Modlin.

Sep 8, 2022 • 4:49

757: February Augury

Today’s poem is February Augury by Sarah Ghazal Ali.

Sep 7, 2022 • 4:49

756: Songs for the People

Today’s poem is Songs for the People by Frances Ellen Watkins Harper.

Sep 6, 2022 • 4:57

755: On Being Asked, "What Is Your Dream Job?"

Today’s poem is On Being Asked, "What Is Your Dream Job?" by Ally Ang.

Sep 5, 2022 • 5:07

754: from SHIFTING THE SILENCE

Today’s poem is from SHIFTING THE SILENCE by Etel Adnan.

Sep 2, 2022 • 6:33

753: List of Things To Say Instead of "I'm Fine"

Today’s poem is List of Things To Say Instead of "I'm Fine" by Marlin M. Jenkins.

Sep 1, 2022 • 5:34

752: Snow

Today’s poem is Snow by Louis MacNeice.

Aug 31, 2022 • 5:31

751: Behaving Like a Jew

Today’s poem is Behaving Like a Jew by Gerald Stern.

Aug 30, 2022 • 5:24

750: Ars Poetica

Today’s poem is Ars Poetica by Valzhyna Mort.

Aug 29, 2022 • 5:45

749: Sun Goes Up

Today’s poem is Sun Goes Up by Hilary-Anne Farley.

Aug 26, 2022 • 6:08

748: gather them & give them back to me.

Today’s poem is gather them & give them back to me. by Renia White.

Aug 25, 2022 • 5:04

747: The rest of a life

Today’s poem is The rest of a life by Mahmoud Darwish.

Aug 24, 2022 • 4:56

746: A Study of Beauty

Today’s poem is A Study of Beauty by Patrick Rosal.

Aug 23, 2022 • 5:20

745: My Name Is Not The Cruelest Month

Today’s poem is My Name Is Not The Cruelest Month by April Ranger.

Aug 22, 2022 • 4:56

744: Contentment

Today’s poem is Contentment by Rüştü Onur, translated by Hüseyin Alhas and Ulaş Özgün.

Aug 19, 2022 • 6:06

743: And the Word Was God

Today’s poem is And the Word Was God by Savannah Sipple.

Aug 18, 2022 • 4:53

742: In the end we are humanlike: Blade Runner 2049

Today’s poem is In the end we are humanlike: Blade Runner 2049 by Nina Mingya Powles.

Aug 17, 2022 • 4:58

741: Another Attempt at Rescue

Today’s poem is Another Attempt at Rescue by M.L. Smoker.

Aug 16, 2022 • 4:47

740: Shucking Oysters

Today’s poem is Shucking Oysters by Khalisa Rae.

Aug 15, 2022 • 6:15

739: Cherry Blossoms

Today’s poem is Cherry Blossoms by Toi Derricotte.

Aug 12, 2022 • 5:59

738: Park Benches with Teeth

Today’s poem is Park Benches with Teeth by Mohammed El-Kurd.

Aug 11, 2022 • 5:11

737: A Small Moment

Today’s poem is A Small Moment by Cornelius Eady.

Aug 10, 2022 • 4:33

736: For the Korean Grandmother on Sunset Boulevard

Today’s poem is For the Korean Grandmother on Sunset Boulevard by Christine Kitano.

Aug 9, 2022 • 4:50

735: Deep Learning

Today’s poem is Deep Learning by Ryann Stevenson.

Aug 8, 2022 • 4:48

734: A Man in My Bed Like Cracker Crumbs

Today’s poem is A Man in My Bed Like Cracker Crumbs by Sandra Cisneros. Today’s episode features guest host Nate Marshall.

Aug 5, 2022 • 4:22

733: Disease Is Not the Only Thing That Spreads

Today’s poem is Disease Is Not the Only Thing That Spreads by Seema Yasmin. Today’s episode features guest host Nate Marshall.

Aug 4, 2022 • 4:26

732: Caregiving

Today’s poem is Caregiving by Maya Marshall. Today’s episode features guest host Nate Marshall.

Aug 3, 2022 • 4:01

731: no name in the street

Today’s poem is n̶o̶ ̶n̶a̶m̶e̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶s̶t̶r̶e̶e̶t̶ by Aurielle Marie. Today’s episode features guest host Nate Marshall.

Aug 2, 2022 • 4:10

730: Borderland Apocrypha

Today’s poem is Borderland Apocrypha by Anthony Cody. Today’s episode features guest host Nate Marshall.

Aug 1, 2022 • 5:40

729: Fiery Young Colored Girl

Today’s poem is Fiery Young Colored Girl by Alison C. Rollins. Today’s episode features guest host Nate Marshall.

Jul 29, 2022 • 4:45

728: Grief Symphony

Today’s poem is Grief Symphony by Noor Hindi. Today’s episode features guest host Nate Marshall.

Jul 28, 2022 • 4:40

727: Ode to the Crossfader

Today’s poem is Ode to the Crossfader by John Murillo. Today’s episode features guest host Nate Marshall.

Jul 27, 2022 • 4:21

726: After Abolition

Today’s poem is After Abolition by Kyle Carrero Lopez. Today’s episode features guest host Nate Marshall.

Jul 26, 2022 • 4:22

725: Black Light

Today’s poem is Black Light by A. Van Jordan. Today’s episode features guest host Nate Marshall.

Jul 25, 2022 • 5:08

724: Conditionally

Today’s poem is Conditionally by Devin Kelly.

Jul 22, 2022 • 6:01

723: Divorce

Today’s poem is Divorce by José A. Alcantara.

Jul 21, 2022 • 4:44

722: Ghazal for Dogeaters

Today’s poem is Ghazal for Dogeaters by Danni Quintos.

Jul 20, 2022 • 4:59

721: Self-Portrait as Duckie Dale

Today’s poem is Self-Portrait as Duckie Dale by Nicky Beer.

Jul 19, 2022 • 5:25

720: The Trees are Down

Today’s poem is The Trees are Down by Charlotte Mew.

Jul 18, 2022 • 5:31

719: Museum of Sex

Today’s poem is Museum of Sex by Ellen Hagan.

Jul 15, 2022 • 6:15

718: Weeding

Today’s poem is Weeding by Dan Rosenberg.

Jul 14, 2022 • 4:56

717: Afterlife with a Gentle Afterward

Today’s poem is Afterlife with a Gentle Afterward by Matthew Henriksen.

Jul 13, 2022 • 5:12

716: Without

Today’s poem is Without by Joy Harjo.

Jul 12, 2022 • 4:57

715: I Dream of Horses Eating Cops

Today’s poem is I Dream of Horses Eating Cops by Joshua Jennifer Espinoza.

Jul 11, 2022 • 4:53

714: A Personality Test

Today’s poem is A Personality Test by Maureen Thorson.

Jul 8, 2022 • 6:04

713: how to make her stay

Today’s poem is how to make her stay by Shauna M. Morgan.

Jul 7, 2022 • 5:43

712: Saguaros

Today’s poem is Saguaros by Javier Zamora.

Jul 6, 2022 • 5:06

711: Droplet

Today’s poem is Droplet by Caitlin Scarano.

Jul 5, 2022 • 4:47

710: Acknowledgments

Today’s poem is Acknowledgments by Nkosi Nkululeko.

Jul 4, 2022 • 4:57

709: Work Song

Today’s poem is Work Song by Dawn Lundy Martin.

Jul 1, 2022 • 5:29

708: Bruised Peaches

Today’s poem is Bruised Peaches by Bronwen Tate.

Jun 30, 2022 • 4:54

707: Poem for My Children Born During the Sixth Extinction

Today’s poem is Poem for My Children Born During the Sixth Extinction by Laura Cresté.

Jun 29, 2022 • 5:11

706: Scavenged

Today’s poem is Scavenged by Dion O'Reilly.

Jun 28, 2022 • 5:05

705: The Bats

Today’s poem is The Bats by Mark Wunderlich.

Jun 27, 2022 • 5:07

704: Hunter's Moon

Today’s poem is Hunter's Moon by Ansel Elkins.

Jun 24, 2022 • 6:18

703: A Thousand Cardinals

Today’s poem is A Thousand Cardinals by Julian Randall.

Jun 23, 2022 • 5:42

702: Slow Drag with Branches of Pine

Today’s poem is Slow Drag with Branches of Pine by Ama Codjoe.

Jun 22, 2022 • 5:18

701: Summer Sorrow

Today’s poem is Summer Sorrow by Leonora Speyer.

Jun 21, 2022 • 5:29

700: Juneteenth, 2020

Today’s poem is Juneteenth, 2020 by Mariama J. Lockington.

Jun 20, 2022 • 5:48

699: Photosynthesis

Today’s poem is Photosynthesis by Ashley M. Jones.

Jun 17, 2022 • 5:42

698: Morning Freight

Today’s poem is Morning Freight by Sophia Terazawa.

Jun 16, 2022 • 5:20

697: When Light Leaves Her Eyes

Today’s poem is When Light Leaves Her Eyes by Kwame Dawes.

Jun 15, 2022 • 5:07

696: Reading Szymborska at Friday Harbor

Today’s poem is Reading Szymborska at Friday Harbor by Patrycja Humienik.

Jun 14, 2022 • 6:35

695: Pastoral

Today’s poem is Pastoral by Djuna Barnes.

Jun 13, 2022 • 5:57

694: Romance Is in the Air

Today’s poem is Romance Is in the Air by Danny Caine.

Jun 10, 2022 • 5:50

693: Portrait of the Artist

Today’s poem is Portrait of the Artist by Dorothy Parker.

Jun 9, 2022 • 5:22

692: Other Women's Babies

Today’s poem is Other Women's Babies by Rachel Long.

Jun 8, 2022 • 4:54

691: Final Poem for the "Field of Poetry"

Today’s poem is Final Poem for the "Field of Poetry" by Phillip B. Williams.

Jun 7, 2022 • 5:01

690: Deportation

Today’s poem is Deportation by Stella Wong.

Jun 6, 2022 • 5:15

689: Alive at the End of the World

Today’s poem is Alive at the End of the World by Saeed Jones.

Jun 3, 2022 • 5:57

688: [since feeling is first]

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

Jun 2, 2022 • 4:59

687: Ode to a Freckle above My Left Breast

Today’s poem is Ode to a Freckle above My Left Breast by Amy Haddad.

Jun 1, 2022 • 4:49

686: The Wealth

Today’s poem is The Wealth by Bianca Stone.

May 31, 2022 • 5:40

685: Trees at Night

Today’s poem is Trees at Night by Helene Johnson.

May 30, 2022 • 5:20

684: I Would Do Anything For Love, But I Won't

Today’s poem is I Would Do Anything For Love, But I Won't by Traci Brimhall.

May 27, 2022 • 5:46

683: I Have a Rendezvous With Life

Today’s poem is I Have a Rendezvous With Life by ​​Countee Cullen.

May 26, 2022 • 5:07

682: At Forty, the Mountains Are More Green

Today’s poem is At Forty, the Mountains Are More Green by Keetje Kuipers.

May 25, 2022 • 4:44

681: The Point

Today’s poem is The Point by C. Dale Young.

May 24, 2022 • 5:08

680: The Years That The Days and Months Turned Into

Today’s poem is The Years That The Days and Months Turned Into by Shafer Hall.

May 23, 2022 • 5:12

679: Self-Care

Today’s poem is Self-Care by Solmaz Sharif.

May 20, 2022 • 5:51

678: You're the One I Wanna Watch the Last Ships Go Down With

Today’s poem is You're the One I Wanna Watch the Last Ships Go Down With by Brian Tierney.

May 19, 2022 • 4:24

677: Practicing

Today’s poem is Practicing by Ciona Rouse.

May 18, 2022 • 5:25

676: Last Sundays at Bootleggers

Today’s poem is Last Sundays at Bootleggers by Carlos Andrés Gómez.

May 17, 2022 • 4:56

675: [chiasmus with all the other animals]

Today’s poem is [chiasmus with all the other animals] by Brenda Hillman.

May 16, 2022 • 5:04

674: My Ornithology (Orange-crowned Warbler)

Today’s poem is My Ornithology (Orange-crowned Warbler) by Hai-Dang Phan

May 13, 2022 • 6:31

673: New Town

Today’s poem is New Town by Aleksandar Hemon

May 12, 2022 • 5:17

672: The Cattle Dog

Today’s poem is The Cattle Dog by Jenn Givhan

May 11, 2022 • 5:07

671: September

Today’s poem is September by Alexis Sears.

May 10, 2022 • 4:52

670: Think of Me, Laughing

Today’s poem is Think of Me, Laughing by Major Jackson

May 9, 2022 • 5:00

669: Blueberries for Cal

Today’s poem is Blueberries for Cal by Brenda Shaughnessy

May 6, 2022 • 5:07

668: Lament

Today’s poem is Lament by Barbara Jane Reyes.

May 5, 2022 • 4:57

667: Now That You've Met God, Where to Go From Here

Today’s poem is Now That You've Met God, Where to Go From Here by Anthony Aguero

May 4, 2022 • 4:50

666: Against Mastery

Today’s poem is Against Mastery by Brionne Janae.

May 3, 2022 • 5:46

665: Metro-North

Today’s poem is Metro-North by Jason Barry.

May 2, 2022 • 4:59

664: Prayer Beginning with a Line by Czaykowski

Today’s poem is Prayer Beginning with a Line by Czaykowski by Pablo Piñero Stillmann.

Apr 29, 2022 • 5:33

663: The Evening Meeting

Today’s poem is The Evening Meeting by Matthew Zapruder.

Apr 28, 2022 • 5:05

662: To Be in Love

Today’s poem is To Be in Love by Gwendolyn Brooks.

Apr 27, 2022 • 4:55

661: The Field

Today’s poem is The Field by Rick Barot.

Apr 26, 2022 • 5:08

660: Flowers, Poems, Flower Poems

Today’s poem is Flowers, Poems, Flower Poems by Rachelle Toarmino.

Apr 25, 2022 • 4:44

659: soiree

Today’s poem is soiree by caroline sinavaiana-gabbard.

Apr 22, 2022 • 6:52

658: Shot in Sobriety

Today’s poem is Shot in Sobriety by Joan Naviyuk Kane.

Apr 21, 2022 • 6:04

657: Deep in the Rock

Today’s poem is Deep in the Rock by Laura Tohe.

Apr 20, 2022 • 5:45

656: cycle

Today’s poem is cycle by Alexis Pauline Gumbs.

Apr 19, 2022 • 5:52

655: The Frolicsome Crests and Glistening

Today’s poem is The Frolicsome Crests and Glistening by Rena Priest.

Apr 18, 2022 • 5:45

654: In the End You Get Everything Back (Liza Minnelli)

Today’s poem is In the End You Get Everything Back (Liza Minnelli) by Jason Schneiderman.

Apr 15, 2022 • 6:44

653: Get Out of the Water

Today’s poem is Get Out of the Water by Monica Rico.

Apr 14, 2022 • 5:07

652: Credo

Today’s poem is Credo by Alex Lemon.

Apr 13, 2022 • 4:51

651: Training

Today’s poem is Training by Diannely Antigua.

Apr 12, 2022 • 4:48

650: Notes on Self-Care

Today’s poem is Notes on Self-Care by Yesenia Montilla.

Apr 11, 2022 • 5:35

649: sunrise through mount vernon, wa.

Today’s poem is sunrise through mount vernon, wa. by Jasmine Khaliq.

Apr 8, 2022 • 6:01

648: Love is a Luminous Insect at the Window

Today’s poem is Love is a Luminous Insect at the Window by Martín Espada.

Apr 7, 2022 • 5:02

647: Walking Across Fire Island

Today’s poem is Walking Across Fire Island by Shelley Wong.

Apr 6, 2022 • 5:01

646: every exquisite thing

Today’s poem is every exquisite thing by heidi andrea restrepo rhodes.

Apr 5, 2022 • 5:27

645: It’s 9:30am, I’ve ran four miles, cried four times, & eaten two chicken sandwiches

Today’s poem is It’s 9:30am, I’ve ran four miles, cried four times, & eaten two chicken sandwiches by Christian Aldana.

Apr 4, 2022 • 5:15

644: Georgia O'Keeffe, "From the Faraway, Nearby," 1937

Today’s poem is Georgia O'Keeffe, "From the Faraway, Nearby," 1937 by Camille Carter.

Apr 1, 2022 • 6:35

643: Come give me a kiss on the cheek

Today’s poem is Come give me a kiss on the cheek by Manahil Bandukwala.

Mar 31, 2022 • 4:56

642: Burning Duplex

Today’s poem is Burning Duplex by Janiru Liyanage.

Mar 30, 2022 • 5:21

641: Old Growth

Today’s poem is Old Growth by Natasha Rao.

Mar 29, 2022 • 5:08

640: Eventually / One Point Where We Arrive

Today’s poem is Eventually / One Point Where We Arrive by Adam Clay.

Mar 28, 2022 • 4:56

639: An Algorithm Matches Me With a Nice Girl and I Tell Her

Today’s poem is An Algorithm Matches Me With a Nice Girl and I Tell Her by Jireh Deng.

Mar 25, 2022 • 5:54

638: In the Bad Days

Today’s poem is In the Bad Days by Kevin Prufer.

Mar 24, 2022 • 4:52

637: ATLien Freestyles Over "Wheelz of Steel"

Today’s poem is ATLien Freestyles Over "Wheelz of Steel" by Marcus Wicker.

Mar 23, 2022 • 5:14

636: How to Hold the Heavy Weight of Now

Today’s poem is How to Hold the Heavy Weight of Now by Dana Levin.

Mar 22, 2022 • 5:00

635: until the meteor makes a shadow over home

Today’s poem is until the meteor makes a shadow over home by Mihee Kim.

Mar 21, 2022 • 5:06

634: Nest

Today’s poem is Nest by Sarah Arvio.

Mar 18, 2022 • 5:45

633: The Moth

Today’s poem is The Moth by Francisco Márquez.

Mar 17, 2022 • 4:50

632: Touch Cave

Today’s poem is Touch Cave by Erika Meitner.

Mar 16, 2022 • 5:03

631: Every Mourning

Today’s poem is Every Mourning by Michael Kleber-Diggs.

Mar 15, 2022 • 5:05

630: Don’t Think

Today’s poem is Don’t Think by Elisa Gabbert.

Mar 14, 2022 • 5:10

629: Halfway

Today’s poem is Halfway by Paula Mendoza.

Mar 11, 2022 • 6:20

628: I Guess By Now I Thought I’d Be Done With Shame

Today’s poem is I Guess By Now I Thought I’d Be Done With Shame by Franny Choi.

Mar 10, 2022 • 4:50

627: Don't Say Love Just Signal

Today’s poem is Don't Say Love Just Signal by Tyree Daye.

Mar 9, 2022 • 5:50

626: Explication on a Nude Photograph Taken After Hours at the Bright Beach

Today’s poem is Explication on a Nude Photograph Taken After Hours at the Bright Beach by A. Prevett.

Mar 8, 2022 • 5:04

625: Not everything is a poem

Today’s poem is Not everything is a poem by Maggie Smith.

Mar 7, 2022 • 4:56

624: Sunflowers in the Median

Today’s poem is Sunflowers in the Median by Natalie Homer.

Mar 4, 2022 • 6:13

623: What Do You Want to Do Today

Today’s poem is What Do You Want to Do Today by Sean Cho A.

Mar 3, 2022 • 4:27

622: Self-Portrait With Woman On The Subway

Today’s poem is Self-Portrait With Woman On The Subway by Hayan Charara.

Mar 2, 2022 • 4:47

621: The Wrong Question More Than Once

Today’s poem is The Wrong Question More Than Once by Matt Donovan.

Mar 1, 2022 • 5:37

620: Egrets

Today’s poem is Egrets by Kevin Young.

Feb 28, 2022 • 4:59

619: Without Enchantment

Today's poem is Without Enchantment by Víctor Fowler Calzada, translated from the Spanish by Katerina Gonzalez Seligmann.

Feb 25, 2022 • 5:51

618: Elegy for Kentucky

Today's poem is Elegy for Kentucky by Joy Priest.

Feb 24, 2022 • 5:28

617: Places With Terrible Wi-Fi

Today's poem is Places With Terrible Wi-Fi by J. Estanislao Lopez.

Feb 23, 2022 • 4:59

616: flight training

Today's poem is flight training by Shayla Lawz.

Feb 22, 2022 • 4:46

615: The Studio

Today's poem is The Studio by Cedar Sigo.

Feb 21, 2022 • 5:05

614: On Being Asked, "What Is Your Dream Job?"

Today's poem is On Being Asked, "What Is Your Dream Job?" by Ally Ang

Feb 18, 2022 • 4:48

613: City Lake

Today's poem is City Lake by Chelsea DesAutels

Feb 17, 2022 • 5:08

612: After the Fire

Today's poem is After the Fire by Gregory Fraser

Feb 16, 2022 • 5:04

611: During the Pandemic I Listen to the July 26, 1965, Juan-les-Pins Recording of A Love Supreme

Today's poem is During the Pandemic I Listen to the July 26, 1965, Juan-les-Pins Recording of A Love Supreme by Ellen Bass

Feb 15, 2022 • 5:31

610: A Valentine

Today's poem is A Valentine by Priscilla Jane Thompson

Feb 14, 2022 • 5:09

609: 9 dreams

Today's poem is 9 dreams by Nicole Cecilia Delgado.

Feb 11, 2022 • 5:20

608: Las Chácharas They Carried

Today's poem is Las Chácharas They Carried by Antonio de Jesús López.

Feb 10, 2022 • 4:48

607: Chelsea Piers

Today's poem is Chelsea Piers by Joseph O. Legaspi.

Feb 9, 2022 • 4:59

606: The Lunch Counter of Eternal Tears

Today's poem is The Lunch Counter of Eternal Tears by Nikki Wallschlaeger.

Feb 8, 2022 • 4:54

605: Birthday

Today's poem is Birthday by Kathleen Rooney.

Feb 7, 2022 • 5:19

604: The Extravagant Stars

Today's poem is The Extravagant Stars by Nicole Callihan.

Feb 4, 2022 • 5:10

603: Sligo Abbey

Today's poem is Sligo Abbey by Rebecca Lindenberg.

Feb 3, 2022 • 5:11

602: The Tyger

Today's poem is The Tyger by William Blake.

Feb 2, 2022 • 4:47

601: Life Preserver

Today's poem is Life Preserver by Javier Velaza.

Feb 1, 2022 • 5:20

600: I Imagine the Butches' Stripper Bar

Today's poem is I Imagine the Butches' Stripper Bar by Jill McDonough.

Jan 31, 2022 • 4:59

599: Fatherteeth

Today's poem is Fatherteeth by Ashley Brooke Dailey.

Jan 28, 2022 • 4:48

598: Bioluminescence

Today's poem is Bioluminescence by Paul Tran.

Jan 27, 2022 • 5:34

597: Facelift

Today's poem is Facelift by Jennifer L. Knox.

Jan 26, 2022 • 5:05

596: Prayer of the Palo Verde Beetle

Today's poem is Prayer of the Palo Verde Beetle by Felicia Zamora.

Jan 25, 2022 • 4:36

595: Pegasus Autopsy

Today's poem is Pegasus Autopsy by Julio Pazos Barrera.

Jan 24, 2022 • 4:58

594: What Bodies Move

Today's poem is What Bodies Move by Kristene Kaye Brown.

Jan 21, 2022 • 4:50

594: What Bodies Move

Today's poem is What Bodies Move by Kristene Kaye Brown.

Jan 21, 2022 • 4:50

593: Fragments for Subduing the Silence

Today's poem is Fragments for Subduing the Silence by Alejandra Pizarnik.

Jan 20, 2022 • 5:06

592: Lavender

Today's poem is Lavender by Joanna Fuhrman.

Jan 19, 2022 • 6:07

591: The Remaining Facts

Today's poem is The Remaining Facts by Michael Robins.

Jan 18, 2022 • 6:05

590: "Let my anger be the celebration we were never / supposed to have."

Today's poem is "Let my anger be the celebration we were never / supposed to have." by Natasha Oladokun.

Jan 17, 2022 • 5:04

589: addy

Today's poem is addy by moonheart (formerly known as kim mayo).

Jan 14, 2022 • 5:03

588: Good Death

Today's poem is Good Death by Rachel Eliza Griffiths.

Jan 13, 2022 • 5:12

587: An Old Story

Today's poem is An Old Story by Tracy K. Smith.

Jan 12, 2022 • 5:10

586: Poem That Leaves Behind The Ocean

Today's poem is Poem That Leaves Behind The Ocean by Jim Moore.

Jan 11, 2022 • 4:48

585: Complex Nonlinear Systems

Today's poem is Complex Nonlinear Systems by Chelsea Dingman.

Jan 10, 2022 • 4:37

584: Marte

Today's poem is Marte by Gustavo Hernandez.

Jan 7, 2022 • 4:36

583: What We Talk About When We Talk About the Pursuit of Gender Euphoria

Today's poem is What We Talk About When We Talk About the Pursuit of Gender Euphoria by Levi Cain.

Jan 6, 2022 • 4:46

582: Marrying the Wind

Today's poem is Marrying the Wind by Brett Elizabeth Jenkins.

Jan 5, 2022 • 4:57

581: Red-ish Brown-ish

Today's poem is Red-ish Brown-ish by Trevino L. Brings Plenty.

Jan 4, 2022 • 5:12

580: Walking the Dogs

Today's poem is Walking the Dogs by Matthew Dickman.

Jan 3, 2022 • 5:40

579: My Empire

Today's poem is My Empire by Kaveh Akbar.

Dec 31, 2021 • 5:27

578: Setting Lemon Curd

Today's poem is Setting Lemon Curd by Megan Denton Ray.

Dec 30, 2021 • 5:47

577: Poem Beginning to Sound

Today's poem is Poem Beginning to Sound by Wendy Xu.

Dec 29, 2021 • 5:43

576: Taking Down the Tree

Today's poem is Taking Down the Tree by Jane Kenyon.

Dec 28, 2021 • 5:08

575: How I Learned Bliss

Today's poem is How I Learned Bliss by Oliver de la Paz.

Dec 27, 2021 • 5:37

574: Monday

Today's poem is Monday by Alex Dimitrov.

Dec 24, 2021 • 5:07

573: Bury Me in the Woods of My Childhood

Today's poem is Bury Me in the Woods of My Childhood by Erin Rodoni.

Dec 23, 2021 • 5:08

572: Earth Evanescent

Today's poem is Earth Evanescent by Maxwell Anderson.

Dec 22, 2021 • 5:02

571: Golden Age

Today's poem is Golden Age by Chris Santiago.

Dec 21, 2021 • 5:17

570: Asking About My Mother

Today's poem is Asking About My Mother by Crystal Wilkinson.

Dec 20, 2021 • 4:23

569: Let's Crawl Into That Photograph & Stay There for a While

Today's poem is Let's Crawl Into That Photograph & Stay There for a While by Rachel McKibbens.

Dec 17, 2021 • 5:34

568: When You're Young You Always Take Too Much

Today's poem is When You're Young You Always Take Too Much by John McCarthy.

Dec 16, 2021 • 5:14

567: Besaydoo

Today's poem is Besaydoo by Yalie Saweda Kamara.

Dec 15, 2021 • 4:49

566: [little tree]

Today's poem is [little tree] by e.e. cummings.

Dec 14, 2021 • 5:12

565: Go Inward

Today's poem is Go Inward by Jen Levitt.

Dec 13, 2021 • 5:11

564: Spell

Today's poem is Spell by Emma Hine.

Dec 10, 2021 • 5:02

563: Dust of Snow

Today's poem is Dust of Snow by Robert Frost.

Dec 9, 2021 • 5:03

562: The Lonely Humans

Today's poem is The Lonely Humans by Jennifer Chang.

Dec 8, 2021 • 5:27

561: from "frank: sonnets"

Today's poem is from "frank: sonnets" by Diane Seuss.

Dec 7, 2021 • 5:22

560: I, Lover

Today's poem is I, Lover by Elsa Gidlow.

Dec 6, 2021 • 6:04

559: Parable of Childhood

Today's poem is Parable of Childhood by Wayne Miller.

Dec 3, 2021 • 5:09

558: City That Does Not Sleep

Today's poem is City That Does Not Sleep by Federico García Lorca. Translated by Robert Bly.

Dec 2, 2021 • 5:16

557: from A Year

Today's poem is from A Year by Jos Charles.

Dec 1, 2021 • 4:56

556: Our Land

Today's poem is Our Land by Langston Hughes.

Nov 30, 2021 • 5:13

555: Private Property

Today's poem is Private Property by Analicia Sotelo.

Nov 29, 2021 • 5:25

554: Sonoran Desert Poem

Today's poem is Sonoran Desert Poem by Jake Skeets.

Nov 26, 2021 • 5:19

553: Daylight Saving, Age 5

Today's poem is Daylight Saving, Age 5 by James Crews.

Nov 25, 2021 • 4:40

552: Hammond B3 Organ Cistern

Today's poem is Hammond B3 Organ Cistern by Gabrielle Calvocoressi.

Nov 24, 2021 • 5:05

551: Tangerine Peel

Today's poem is Tangerine Peel by Mary Ruefle.

Nov 23, 2021 • 5:00

550: My Standard Response

Today's poem is My Standard Response by Karenne Wood.

Nov 22, 2021 • 5:44

549: Mountain Dew Commercial Disguised as a Love Poem

Today's poem is Mountain Dew Commercial Disguised as a Love Poem by Matthew Olzmann.

Nov 19, 2021 • 4:47

548: I Wonder If I Will Miss The Moss

Today's poem is I Wonder If I Will Miss The Moss by Jane Mead.

Nov 18, 2021 • 5:18

547: Travel

Today's poem is Travel by Edna St. Vincent Millay.

Nov 17, 2021 • 4:36

546: Ouroboros (Or: A Brief Dip Into the Relationship I Have with My Mother)

Today's poem is Ouroboros (Or: A Brief Dip Into the Relationship I Have with My Mother) by Juliette Givhan.

Nov 16, 2021 • 5:07

545: Response, Years Later, to Two Male Poets I Overheard Discussing How Sick They Were of Women's Poems about the Body

Today's poem is Response, Years Later, to Two Male Poets I Overheard Discussing How Sick They Were of Women's Poems about the Body by Meghan Dunn.

Nov 15, 2021 • 4:44

544: Elegy for Estrogen

Today's poem is Elegy for Estrogen by V. Penelope Pelizzon.

Nov 12, 2021 • 5:27

543: The Hummingbird

Today's poem is The Hummingbird by Blas Falconer.

Nov 11, 2021 • 5:17

542: In Gratitude

Today's poem is In Gratitude by Abigail Carroll.

Nov 10, 2021 • 5:19

541: Little Grey Dreams

Today's poem is Little Grey Dreams by Angelina Weld Grimké.

Nov 9, 2021 • 4:31

540: far away from home I am hungry

Today's poem is far away from home I am hungry by Urvi Kumbhat.

Nov 8, 2021 • 5:16

539: Full Moon

Today’s poem is Full Moon by Elinor Wylie.

Nov 5, 2021 • 4:59

538: Declassified

Today's poem is Declassified by Mai Der Vang.

Nov 4, 2021 • 5:34

537: Today I'm Not Thinking About Gender

Today's poem is Today I'm Not Thinking About Gender by Dennison Ty Schultz.

Nov 3, 2021 • 5:18