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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 Gloria Mundi by Michael Kleber-Diggs. 

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “I have sort of an odd confession: I have a funeral playlist—a list of songs I want played at whatever my memorial service turns out to be. Occasionally I add to it, and now and then I remove songs once they’ve lost their shine. My kids have laughed about this—“Mom, you’re so dark”—but I don’t find it morbid at all, really. I think of my funeral as the last party I’ll ever throw, and I’ll be there—in spirit, at least. (How’s that for a mom joke?)” 

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

1402: Gloria Mundi by Michael Kleber-Diggs

Today’s poem is LeaveTaking by Rita Dove. 

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Today’s poem dreams its way into an imagined scenario: finding oneself on this planet, an alien, a stranger, and doing one’s best to be seen as belonging, so as to stay.” 

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

1401: LeaveTaking by Rita Dove

Today’s poem is The Eulogy I Didn’t Give (I) by Bob Hicok.

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes … “I’m here, and you’re here, so I’d call us “poetry people.” But even people who don’t think of themselves as “poetry people,” people who don’t spend time with poetry each day, do turn to poems when they’re grieving or celebrating: at weddings, funerals, and other occasions that call for something more than we’re able to achieve with our own words. Grief, love, longing, gratitude—these are universal human emotions, and yet they are difficult to articulate! More than any genre, perhaps, poetry can help us say the unsayable. It helps to let poets take the reins.” 

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

1400: The Eulogy I Didn’t Give (I) by Bob Hicok

Today’s poem is Alarm Clock by Jennifer Maier.

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes … “When I travel away from my kids, I have to coordinate our calls, which means demystifying the difference between my time and their time. “I’m three hours behind you in California” or “I’m seven hours ahead of you in Greece.” All of this talk about “my time” and “your time” is so odd, anyway, when you think about it—as if any time is ours. That’s ours, O-U-R-S. No pun intended.”

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

1399: Alarm Clock by Jennifer Maier

Today’s poem is A dead whale can feed an entire ecosystem by Rachel Dillon.

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “To ask, “What can a poem do to help?” is to gesture toward a bigger question: “What can art do?” What can literature, or music, or film, or performance, or visual art do for us, particularly when we are struggling, individually and collectively? I think art can articulate the beauty and horrors of being alive. I think it can make people feel seen and understood, and therefore less alone. I think it can bear witness to what our planet is enduring.” 

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

1398: A dead whale can feed an entire ecosystem by Rachel Dillon

Today’s poem is Palinode by Lisa Low. 

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes … “Today’s poem is a kind of poem called a palinode. In a palinode, a writer changes her mind by retracting a viewpoint expressed in one of their earlier pieces of writing. Today’s poem makes us consider how we write about other people. It “flip-flops,” in a sense, but it certainly does so in an effective and artful way.” 

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

1397: Palinode by Lisa Low

Today’s poem is Panama by Sarah Green. 

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “There's a distinct disenchantment when the spell of the relationship has broken, and the magic’s gone. You’re not seeing the world through love’s rosy lens anymore. You wonder about what you might have overlooked, or misinterpreted, or just got wrong. I mean, I’ve been there. Most of us have been there more than once. It can take a lot of time and a lot of work, and maybe some therapy, to get to a place of acceptance, let alone contentment, after an important relationship ends. It can take even longer to get to a place of gratitude: to be able to parse how or why it ended from what it WAS. To be able to separate the END of the story from the story as a whole. To be grateful for what the relationship gave you and taught you.” 

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

1396: Panama by Sarah Green

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

The Slowdown is currently taking a break. We’ll be back soon with new episodes from a new host. This week, we’re revisiting some favorites from Major Jackson’s time as host. Today’s episode was originally released on June 4, 2024. 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

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

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