The Slowdown

Today's poem is Dream Song 1 by John Berryman, with special guest David Duchovny. You know him from his breakout role as Fox Mulder on The X-Files, as well as appearances on other hit series like Californication and Twin Peaks. Here's an extended conversation with David that we hope you enjoy.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, David shares… “I remember when I first read "Dream Song 1" by John Berryman in high school. I think I understood that I was coming out of the Eden of childhood in a way and having these complicated thoughts, more complicated thoughts than I'd had as a child. And not that I would've put it in words that I just put it in now, but there was a loss involved that was moving to me.”This show is supported by gifts from listeners. Support The Slowdown with a donation today. Slowdownshow.org/donate

Today's poem is Dream Song 1 by John Berryman, with special guest David Duchovny. You know him from his breakout role as Fox Mulder on The X-Files, as well as appearances on other hit series like Californication and Twin Peaks. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, David shares… “Every day is a loss. We can focus on love and focus on positives, but the fact is we're living in time, and things are being stripped away from us constantly. And it can lead to either depression or to valuing things — it just depends on your psychology, your worldview, the rigorousness of your yearning to want to be on the positive side of things and not depress yourself too much.” This show is supported by gifts from listeners. Support The Slowdown with a donation today. Slowdownshow.org/donate

Today's poem is Crossing the Line by E. Ethelbert Miller. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Today's poem reads to me like a love poem, a tribute, to a long friendship. It reminds me that part of how we know ourselves is through the people who know us best, and who have loved us through our changes.”This show is supported by gifts from listeners. Support The Slowdown with a donation today. Slowdownshow.org/donate

Today's poem is Earth Shovel by Dan Albergotti. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Today's poem, which looks at the fragility of our planet, begins with two epigraphs. One is from American astronomer Carl Sagan, from his book Pale Blue Dot. The other is the famous line from politician Michael Steele.” This show is supported by gifts from listeners. Support The Slowdown with a donation today. Slowdownshow.org/donate

Today's poem is Lotioning My Mother's Back by Ama Codjoe. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “The world feels like a hard place right now—a not very soft and tender place. In times that feel difficult, it's tempting to retreat, to harden ourselves, to “numb out.” But I think, more and more, that tenderness is what we need—toward one another, and toward ourselves. We need touch. We need connection. We need soft places to land. We need to hold on to one another.”Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Today's poem is at the baggage claim in JFK by Lo Naylor. This episode was originally released on April 24, 2026.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “When I'm preparing for a multi-city book tour, I'm not nervous about reading in front of people or answering questions or finding my way around a strange place. I'm nervous about getting where I'm going. And with somewhat regular government shutdowns impacting TSA these days, those nerves aren't coming from nowhere! But there are so many beautiful moments in airports, if you pay attention: parents comforting children, or occupying them with silly games; couples excited to be going on a trip together; teams of uniformed student athletes traveling to, or from, a big game.” This show is supported by gifts from listeners. Support The Slowdown with a donation today. Slowdownshow.org/donate

Today's poem is Hackberry by Cecily Parks. This episode was originally released on January 29, 2026.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Today's poem is a kind of love poem—to a beloved tree, and to the sense of home it created.” This show is supported by gifts from listeners. Support The Slowdown with a donation today. Slowdownshow.org/donate

Today's poem is Panegyric by Leila Farjami. This episode was originally released on July 28, 2026.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Poems that engage with war and grief are texts that communicate to us in ways that news articles about war, and loss, and grief cannot. An article might tell us what happened, who died, how many casualties there were. It should provide facts as to who, what, where, when, and how. It might even attempt the why. But a poem sings to us. A poem sits with us. Holds us, even.” This show is supported by gifts from listeners. Support The Slowdown with a donation today. Slowdownshow.org/donate

Today's poem is How to Dress a Star by Nicholas Goodly. This episode was originally released on May 4, 2026.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Today's poem reminds me to feel tenderness toward the earlier versions of me. It reminds me that we should acknowledge our past selves more. Just think of what earlier versions of you were able to endure. Bless them for that.” This show is supported by gifts from listeners. Support The Slowdown with a donation today. Slowdownshow.org/donate

Today's poem is Animal Prudence by Kathy Fagan. This episode was originally released on September 8, 2025.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Today's poem is a favorite of mine for its associative leaps—the way it carries us from image to image, memory to memory. I admire the way it uses the language we encounter in our lives to make those leaps: road signs, the names of streets and flowers, the lists we find in our pockets.” This show is supported by gifts from listeners. Support The Slowdown with a donation today. Slowdownshow.org/donate

Today's poem is I Find Myself Defending Pigeons by Keith S. Wilson. This episode was originally released on August 22, 2025. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “One thing I love about poems is how they give us the opportunity to take our time, to dial in, to look and listen closely. Not everything screams to be noticed. Some things barely whisper! Or they might just squawk or coo now and then.” This show is supported by gifts from listeners. Support The Slowdown with a donation today. Slowdownshow.org/donate

Today's poem is Six Hours Lost, Land Between the Lakes by Kathleen Driskell. This episode was originally released on October 8, 2025. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Today's poem tells a story about a tense encounter in the woods. I so admire how this poet unfolds the narrative, then leaves me sighing deeply at the end.” This show is supported by gifts from listeners. Support The Slowdown with a donation today. Slowdownshow.org/donate

Today's poem is The New City by Hieu Minh Nguyen. This episode was originally released on May 21, 2026.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “There's a very specific pleasure in doing things alone. Going to the movies by yourself, sitting in the dark with your own drink and popcorn or candy that you don't have to share, and sitting anywhere you want in the theatre without asking a companion where they want to sit. Or having a meal on your own, party of one, just people watching and enjoying the ambience without the need to make conversation.” This show is supported by gifts from listeners. Support The Slowdown with a donation today. Slowdownshow.org/donate

Today's poem is Ledge (ars poetica) (love poem) (true story) by Amorak Huey. This episode was originally released on December 15, 2025. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Today's poem calls itself an ars poetica, a love poem, and a true story. That's a lot of work for one poem to do — a lot of layers of meaning! But this poet does speak to the precarity of it all: writing, and loving, and living.” This show is supported by gifts from listeners. Support The Slowdown with a donation today. Slowdownshow.org/donate

Today's poem is A toast to something beautiful flapping in the wind by J. Hope Stein. This episode was originally released on January 5, 2026. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Once upon a time, I was a new mother with a baby girl in my arms, and I was her whole world. It was seventeen years ago, but sometimes I swear I can transport myself back there just by closing my eyes and taking a deep breath. I remember reading that a baby's first three months of life are called the fourth trimester. Three trimesters are spent in the mother's body, bobbing around like a little fish, but the "fourth trimester" is when everyone is adapting to life in the outside world. The babies seem bewildered, trying to adjust to nursing and sleeping, but I think parents are just as bewildered.” This show is supported by gifts from listeners. Support The Slowdown with a donation today. Slowdownshow.org/donate

Today's poem is The Plum You're Going to Eat Next Summer by Gayle Brandeis. This episode was originally released on April 10, 2026. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “I know optimism can be a tough sell when there's so much suffering, so much difficulty, in the world. But this brokenness is exactly why we need more poems, more paintings, more films, more plays. More art. To make things that don't exist yet — and don't need to exist, because that is the very definition of art — and to send them out into the world is wildly, impractically, gorgeously hopeful.” This show is supported by gifts from listeners. Support The Slowdown with a donation today. Slowdownshow.org/donate

Today's poem is Parts of a Body House by Erika Meitner. This episode was originally released on September 23, 2025. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “It struck me recently how much technology has changed our relationships with our bodies. There are devices that tell us how well (or poorly) we slept the night before, how many steps we took in a given day, what our heart rate is when we work out. We have access to more data about our physical selves than ever, and we don't even need to go to the doctor to get that data. We also have access to our own image more than ever before. I know that technology has made me more aware of my body and my face, because I see myself so often: on Zoom, on Facetime, in selfies.” This show is supported by gifts from listeners. Support The Slowdown with a donation today. Slowdownshow.org/donate

Today's poem is If Night You Were a City by Adam Wiedewitsch. This episode was originally released on March 17, 2026.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “I've always loved myths, legends, fables, and fairy tales. When I was young, the myth of Icarus was one that captured my imagination.” This show is supported by gifts from listeners. Support The Slowdown with a donation today. Slowdownshow.org/donate

Today's poem is For You Who Have Loved Old Dogs by Silas House. This episode was originally released on September 29, 2025.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “My Boston terrier, Phoebe, is about to turn eleven, so if she were a human, she'd be a 77 year old woman. If Phoebe were one of the Golden Girls, she'd probably be Rose: quirky, loyal, a little dim-witted. We adopted her from a Boston terrier rescue organization when she was one and a half, in the spring of 2016. When people assumed that the best thing to happen to me in 2016 was my poem “Good Bones” going viral, I have to correct them. “Good Bones” changed my life, to be sure, but the best thing to happen to me that year was Phoebe. As she grows older—silver muzzle now, too—I get emotional when I'm reminded that my years with her are limited. We only have so much time.” This show is supported by gifts from listeners. Support The Slowdown with a donation today. Slowdownshow.org/donate

Today's poem is Protection Spell Jar by Cynthia Marie Hoffman. This episode was originally released on October 14, 2025.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this encore episode, Maggie writes… “Today's poem is from a collection of prose poems that chronicles a woman's journey through obsessive-compulsive disorder, from childhood into adulthood. I admire the way we're invited into the speaker's consciousness, to see her mind at work.” This show is supported by gifts from listeners. Support The Slowdown with a donation today. Slowdownshow.org/donate

Today's poem is WHITMAN: by Larry Levis.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Myka Kielbon writes… “Every year, the Association of Writers and Writing Programs holds a conference in a different American city. A few years ago, when the literary industry descended on Kansas City, a poet I know posted on Instagram that he wanted to go to Charlie Parker's grave. The pilgrimage was based on a Larry Levis poem. I threw my hat in the ring to join him.” This show is supported by gifts from listeners. Support The Slowdown with a donation today. Slowdownshow.org/donate

Today's poem is Dialogue on Violence by Jayne Cortez.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Myka Kielbon writes… “If you're listening to this episode first thing in the morning or as you go to sleep, looking for something easeful, I should apologize. Today's poem is not that. It is a grim litany. But I think by naming our harsh reality, it holds out hope for a different world. It will be read to you in just one voice, my voice, but the title calls it a dialogue. I want you to consider, while you're listening, whom the dialogue might be between.” This show is supported by gifts from listeners. Support The Slowdown with a donation today. Slowdownshow.org/donate

Today's poem is Missed Time by Ha Jin.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Myka Kielbon writes… “I love to journal as documentation. To remember what happened in my day-to-day, even the small things I see and feel. I can thus make my own life real to myself. This is something I've worked out over time. When I look back at my first blue notebook, the recollections are fragmentary and melodramatic. They hardly make sense as a record. However much I feel a positive value in the process, if I look back at most of my journals, I would think that my life is miserable. Because I often turn to the page when I'm having a tough time, when I have difficult experiences to work through. I love to be alone, but it seems I write the most when I'm feeling lonely in the worst way. Today's poem considers, joyously, the anonymous effect that this dynamic could have.” This show is supported by gifts from listeners. Support The Slowdown with a donation today. Slowdownshow.org/donate

Today's poem is Are You Not Tired Yet? by Mohammed al-Khatib.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Myka Kielbon writes… “Though under ceasefire at the time of this recording, Gazans are still living in unimaginably difficult conditions, largely uprooted from their homes and experiencing limited access to resources and information. There has been a massive loss of human life in Palestine in the last three years, making it impossible for anyone to be without personal grief. The awareness of loss and trauma is undeniably constant.” This show is supported by gifts from listeners. Support The Slowdown with a donation today. Slowdownshow.org/donate

Today's poem is Visitor's Center by T Bambrick.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Myka Kielbon writes… “Today's poem takes me back to a specificity of a Washington State public school education: learning the intricacies of salmon, sturgeon, dams, ecology, and electricity. What I didn't see then, that I see now, is the tension between control and appreciation of the natural world. That our modern lives rely on a system built by lionizing the will of man. The speaker, here, wonders: At what cost?” This show is supported by gifts from listeners. Support The Slowdown with a donation today. Slowdownshow.org/donate

We're bringing you a preview of the new series from the podcast, Death of An Artist. In February 2024, celebrated children's book author and illustrator Petra Mathers and her husband, photographer Michael Mathers, mailed letters to dozens of friends and family members to let them know they had died by suicide. Petra and Michael were by all accounts healthy, happy, and in love. Why did they choose to die together? And what did that decision do to the people left to mourn them? Journalists Leon Neyfakh and Alice Gregory set out to interview everyone who got one of Petra and Michael's letters — as one married couple trying to understand another. Through intimate conversations with Petra and Michael's friends and family about their own relationships to aging, grief, death, and the friends they thought they knew, Death of an Artist weaves together a portrait of a community grappling with the Mathers' deaths and the final words they left behind. Done entirely in recordings, Death of an Artist is as much a love story as one about death. Listen to Death of An Artist wherever you get podcasts. And if you want to hear the full story right now, ad-free, you can binge the entire season with a Pushkin+ subscription — sign up on the Death of an Artist show page on Apple Podcasts or at pushkin.fm/plus.

Today's poem is Stop Thinking & End Your Problems by Elisa Gabbert.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Myka Kielbon writes… “So often my mind feels crowded. Busy. Like a rush hour intersection of internal monologue. I've tried lots of strategies. I'm still trying new strategies. Blocking out focus time, tweaking notifications, using restrictions. My favorite strategy is keeping an art book on my desk. When I feel the desire to distract from the onslaught, or when I hit a mental block, I open up the book to a random painting. I don't stop thinking; I change the shape of my thinking — by looking at art and avoiding words for a moment.”This show is supported by gifts from listeners. Support The Slowdown with a donation today. Slowdownshow.org/donate

Today's poem is Story of My Life by Jameson Fitzpatrick.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Myka Kielbon writes… “Today's poem shows us how our desires are about both projection and possession.” This show is supported by gifts from listeners. Support The Slowdown with a donation today. Slowdownshow.org/donate

Today's poem is Rain by Jennifer Grotz.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Myka Kielbon writes… “Loss of possibility is one of the greatest heartbreaks we can face. But today's poem knows the bittersweet secret: that our memories of the possible are ours to keep.” This show is supported by gifts from listeners. Support The Slowdown with a donation today. Slowdownshow.org/donate

Today's poem is Lover of Cars by Olivia Sokolowski. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Myka Kielbon writes… “I keep today's poem taped on my wall. I thought it spoke to me because it connects my father's love of cars to my own love of poetry. But I realized, in writing this, that what it does on a craft level is what knocks me off my feet every time.” This show is supported by gifts from listeners. Support The Slowdown with a donation today. Slowdownshow.org/donate

Today's poem is Portrait of the Speaker Riding a Greyhound Bus by Eduardo Martinez-Leyva. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Myka Kielbon writes… “In the seemingly endless spring of 2020, my roommate and I briefly decamped Los Angeles and holed up with her family in Southern Oregon. The town was already quiet during the best of times; that spring, it was even quieter. We plugged away at our desk jobs that we'd taken with us. We knew we were lucky, but still the days felt very long. At the foot of the bed in the room where I slept was a framed photograph of a dinghy in a body of water. The water was still, and the colors were a bit washed out. It was so serene. And still, it was full of potential. The photograph lacked horizon — there was smooth water all the way to each matted edge. And the dinghy was empty, yet equipped with oars.” This show is supported by gifts from listeners. Support The Slowdown with a donation today. Slowdownshow.org/donate

The Slowdown is taking a break. We'll be back soon with new episodes. This encore episode was originally released on April 3, 2026.Today's poem is from Perihelion: A History of Touch by Franny Choi. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Today's poem is about the snow moon, the first full moon of February. The explanation behind the name “snow moon” is fairly straightforward: February is often the snowiest month. After reading this quiet stunner of a poem, I was inspired to turn on one of my favorite Nick Drake songs, “Pink Moon.” I highly recommend this poem/song pairing.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

The Slowdown is taking a break. We'll be back soon with new episodes. This encore episode was originally released on January 20, 2026.Today's poem is The Long Now by Robin Beth Schaer.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Today's poem addresses a child—a child full of questions about the world. It reminds me that as parents, we don't need to have the answers, and we don't need to pretend to have them. Instead we can listen, stay open, and honor our kids' curiosity and wonder. Honor the poets and philosophers that they are.” This show is supported by gifts from listeners. Support The Slowdown with a donation today. Slowdownshow.org/donate

The Slowdown is taking a break. We'll be back soon with new episodes. This encore episode was originally released on September 18, 2026.Today's poem is Rancho Bar by Margot Kahn.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Today's poem looks, tenderly, at two siblings attempting to close the distance between them. The poem is made even more poignant by the fact that its setting, a bar in California, has since burned down in a wildfire.” This show is supported by gifts from listeners. Support The Slowdown with a donation today. Slowdownshow.org/donate

The Slowdown is taking a break. We'll be back soon with new episodes. This encore episode was originally released on August 28, 2025.Today's poem is From the Sky by Sara Abou Rashed. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “When I think about ways to foster empathy, perspective, and care, one of those ways is poetry. I know poetry can't stop bombs from falling, and it can't feed the starving, and it can't evacuate people to safety. I know this. But poetry can change our inner world. We need that change, one person at a time. We need to reclaim our humanity.” This show is supported by gifts from listeners. Support The Slowdown with a donation today. Slowdownshow.org/donate

The Slowdown is taking a break. We'll be back soon with new episodes. This encore episode was originally released on February 25, 2026.Today's poem is Somewhere Else by Adam J. Gellings. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “I was born at 4:30 in the afternoon on a cold Sunday in February. All of this is either useless information — time of day, day of the week, month of the year — or it's part of our own myth-making.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

The Slowdown is taking a break. We'll be back soon with new episodes. Today's encore episode was originally released on February 27, 2026.Today's poem is Poem about everything except— by Amy Lemmon.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “I was drawn to today's poem from the get-go because of its title: ”Poem about everything except—.” I went in anticipating maximalism — “everything but the kitchen sink,” as the saying goes, and the poem delivered.” This show is supported by gifts from listeners. Support The Slowdown with a donation today. Slowdownshow.org/donate

The Slowdown is taking a break. We'll be back soon with new episodes. Today's encore episode was originally released on March 30, 2026.Today's poem is XII. Southern Constellations by Brandon Kilbourne. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “No matter where I am in the world, no matter what beautiful landscape I might find myself in, no matter what new experience I might be having, I feel the pull of home. I don't mean home as in place. I mean home as in people.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

The Slowdown is taking a break. We'll be back soon with new episodes. Today's encore episode was originally released on December 4, 2025.Today's poem is Go by Kathleen Ossip.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Other poems are like strands of pearls, long and lustrous and nearly impossible to gather into your hands all at once.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

The Slowdown is taking a break. We'll be back soon with new episodes. Today's encore episode was originally released on November 3, 2025.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.” This show is supported by gifts from listeners. Support The Slowdown with a donation today. Slowdownshow.org/donate

The Slowdown is taking a break. We'll be back soon with new episodes. Today's encore episode was originally released on March 4, 2026. Today's poem is Pardon My Heart by Marcus Jackson. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “If I had a different kind of heart, a tougher heart, would I be able to see what's happening in the world around me and not feel so brokenhearted? What would it be like to be able to sleep through the night, unbothered? I can't imagine feeling less, or caring less. That's not the heart I have.” This show is supported by gifts from listeners. Support The Slowdown with a donation today. Slowdownshow.org/donate

Today's poem is What I Am Telling You, Jessica, Is That Those Chickens Are Fine by K.T. Landon.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Several of our neighbors have backyard coops, and occasionally we're offered fresh eggs. Unfortunately, the raccoons and possums (and maybe even a fox) have encountered the chickens, too. There are fewer now.” This show is supported by gifts from listeners. Support The Slowdown with a donation today. Slowdownshow.org/donate