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American Public Media

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

The Slowdown: Poetry & Reflection Daily

Today’s poem is The Night Angler by Geffrey Davis.

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “My name is Maggie—not Margaret, just Maggie—but the name I hear most often on a daily basis might be Mom. I have my children to thank for that name, because they made me a mother. In this way, we birthed each other. And we continue to shape each other, over the years. Surely I would be different if I had different children. Surely they would be different with other parents.” 

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

1395: The Night Angler by Geffrey Davis

Today’s poem is Puerto Rico Goes Dark by Juan J. Morales. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Given the misinformation that circulates on the internet, often unchecked, I’d like to preface today’s poem with a fact: Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens. Our struggles are bound because we are citizens, together, of this nation.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

1394: Puerto Rico Goes Dark by Juan J. Morales

Today’s poem is The Night Where You No Longer Live by Meghan O’Rourke. 

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “The speaker of today’s poem addresses her late mother, asking questions that are devastating and relatable. While we don’t have access to the answers, this poem is a beautiful place for the questions to live.” 

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

1393: The Night Where You No Longer Live by Meghan O’Rourke

Today’s poem is Local Mission by Kai Carlson-Wee. 

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “I’m someone who likes to read a book without having read any reviews or think pieces about the book or the author. Sometimes I prefer to engage with art—to listen to a record or see a film—without expectations. With a relatively clean slate. I want you to have that experience with today’s poem, a longer one, so I’m going to get out of the way. Listen and let its many pleasures find you.”

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

1392: Local Mission by Kai Carlson-Wee

Today’s poem is Never-ending Birds by David Baker. 

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Today’s poem is one I’ve carried around in my mind for years, one whose language I flash to instinctively when I see a flock of birds, especially a murmuration of starlings. I think of the phrase “never-ending birds”—a phrase coined not by the speaker of this poem, but by the speaker’s child.” 

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

1391: Never-ending Birds by David Baker

Today’s poem is The Poem Climbs the Scaffold and Tells You What It Sees by Natasha Oladokun. 

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “There is power in naming, as today’s poem reminds us. Once you’ve seen the violence tucked inside the place name Lynchburg, barely hidden at all—hidden in plain sight—I don’t think you’ll be able to see or say the word the same way again. Once you see it, you can’t unsee it. Nor should you.”

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

1390: The Poem Climbs the Scaffold and Tells You What It Sees by Natasha Oladokun

Today’s poem is Sehnsucht by Michael Dumanis. 

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Today’s poem introduced me to a new word for longing or yearning—and it showed me a way to use that expansive desire as a frame for the magic of everyday life.”

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

1389: Sehnsucht by Michael Dumanis

Today’s poem is When I Learn Catastrophically by Martha Silano.

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Today’s poem unexpectedly merges the playfulness of anagrams with the gravitas of a terminal diagnosis—the weight of reckoning with the end of one’s life. But when you think about it, an anagram isn’t just play. It’s a way of making a thing out of something else entirely. A way of seeing—and creating—other possibilities. A way of containing multitudes.” 

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

1388: When I learn Catastrophically by Martha Silano

Today’s poem is Different Kinds of Sadness by Jenny Molberg. 

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “When I lost my joy, my generous friends were there. It can be so hard to accept help from others, especially if you pride yourself on being self-sufficient, but I took them up on their offers of meals, and company, and advice. And I’m so glad I did, because these things were all lifesaving. All of these things, in their own ways, helped me close some wounds. All, in their own ways, restarted my heart.” 

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

1387: Different Kinds of Sadness by Jenny Molberg

Today’s poem is Night of the Living, Night of the Dead by Kim Addonizio.

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “It might surprise you to know that one of my favorite genres is the zombie movie. I like my zombies fast, like in ‘Train to Busan’ and ‘28 Days Later,’ and I like my zombies slow, like in the old classics directed by George Romero. In ‘Night of the Living Dead,’ the zombies shamble so slowly, people can run right by them. They seem unable to figure out doorknobs and fence latches and cars. It’s black-and-white, so the gore isn’t that gory: the blood and guts are gray, after all! It’s still scary, though—because the zombies are seemingly uncontainable. They just keep coming at you. Today’s poem has been a favorite of mine for years, and it seemed like the right choice for Halloween.” 

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

1386: Night of the Living, Night of the Dead by Kim Addonizio

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

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. We're currently taking a break and will be back soon with new episodes. This week, we’re revisiting some favorites from Major’s time as host. Today’s episode was originally released on March 31, 2023.

In this episode, Major writes… “When I arrived in Eugene, Oregon after an arduous yet stunning road trip of camping and driving through the midwest, the Rockies, the Arches National Park, Death Valley, and up California’s Route 101, I felt oddly reborn into an existence and landscape that felt like it was always a part of me. Today’s illuminating poem contends with that normal yet emotional experience of children leaving home, and posits that this wanderlust is maybe, genetically encoded in our natal spirit of adventure and discovery.” 

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

[encore] 846: Some Madness There by Charlotte Pence

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