The Slowdown

Today's poem is Lake by Noah Falck. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes, “Today's poem acknowledges the beauty we have—the view we have. It also mourns the beauty that would exist without our interference. Holding space for both is a feat of empathy and imagination.” 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 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.” 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 Wind-Related Ripple in the Wheatfield by Mikko Harvey. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes, “Who might I have been—or with whom, or where—if the timing had been different? Did I arrive too late to certain parts of my life, or too early? Or am I right on time? The “Choose Your Own Adventure” aspect of life is something on my mind a lot. I suspect it was on this poet's mind, too.” 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 Are you bringing fruits, plants, seeds, by Karen Llagas. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Today's poem looks at the anxiety and the absurdity of America: How many people seem fixated on the dangers outside our borders without acknowledging the dangers within.” 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 New York Address by Linda Gregg. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Today's poem captures that feeling when you've just had it—you've absolutely hit your limit. But at the same time, you realize that you're the only person who can pick yourself back up. You have to keep yourself going.” 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 I Find Myself Defending Pigeons by Keith S. Wilson. 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.” 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 Bonfire Opera by Danusha Laméris. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Yes, I have new lines around my eyes and new glints of silver in my hair, but my body continues to surprise me in wonderful ways, too. It brings me a lot of pleasure—maybe even more pleasure than it did when I was in my teens, twenties, and even thirties. Because I appreciate it. And because I am less self-conscious. That is one of the gifts of aging: Becoming more yourself, and caring less about what others think about you or expect from you.” 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 Étude by Amy Gerstler. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Today's poem is a celebration of sound, and also a celebration of our own power to interpret sound and make meaning—as poets do. Poems, like songs, are meant to live in the air. They are their own music.” 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 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.” 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 Tea by Leila Chatti. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Maybe the ultimate self care is learning to give yourself the respect, the tenderness, and the grace you extend to others. To love yourself the way you love others.” 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 Sex Without Love by Sharon Olds. The Slowdown is currently taking a break. We'll be back on Monday, August 18 with episodes from our new host, Maggie Smith. This week, we're going back into the archive to revisit Ada Limón's time as host. In this episode, Ada writes… “Today's poem is from a dear teacher, Sharon Olds. This poem has stuck with me for years. It examines the honest way in which some people are able to be intimate without all the heavy weight of romance.” 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 Lately I Am Trying by Sanna Wani.The Slowdown is currently taking a break. We'll be back on Monday, August 18 with episodes from our new host, Maggie Smith. This week, we're going back into the archive to revisit Ada Limón's time as host. In this episode, Ada writes… “Today's poem explores how the love of an animal can help us process grief and even remember the precious value of touch.” 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 I Worry My Mother Will Die and I Will Know Nothing by Asa Drake. The Slowdown is currently taking a break. We'll be back on Monday, August 18 with episodes from our new host, Maggie Smith. This week, we're going back into the archive to revisit Ada Limón's time as host. In this episode, Ada writes… “Today's poem centers on ideas of hunger and fullness. It asks what can satisfy us in a world that is often telling us we are not enough and will never have enough.” 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 Trash by Joshua Bennett. The Slowdown is currently taking a break. We'll be back on Monday, August 18 with episodes from our new host, Maggie Smith. This week, we're going back into the archive to revisit Ada Limón's time as host. In this episode, Ada writes… “Today's poem is a perfect example of starting a poem in one place and ending it in another, unexpected place. I admire how this poem reveals a truth and a desire that pulsates under each stanza.” 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 [since feeling is first] by E.E. Cummings.The Slowdown is currently taking a break. We'll be back on Monday, August 18 with episodes from our new host, Maggie Smith. This week, we're going back into the archive to revisit Ada Limón's time as host. In this episode, Ada writes… “I have a friend who will stare at something and say, “Now that's a poem.” A glove in the snow, a bird feather stuck in the fence post, a good meal. It feels like she is blurring the lines between what we think is a poem and what is poetic, between what is real life and the language we use to capture it. Today's poem, by the beloved poet E.E. Cummings, does that work of showing us the resounding “yes” to the poem—and also “yes” to the real, tangible, touchable, life.” 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 Sleeping with the Chihuahua by Tami Haaland.The Slowdown is currently taking a break. We'll be back soon with new episodes from a new host. This week, we're going back into the archive to revisit Tracy K. Smith's time as host. Today's episode was originally released on November 28 2019. In this episode, Tracy writes… “Today's poem describes the joy of falling asleep next to someone you love. Because whether you're snuggled in with pets, people, or some combo of the two, it's bliss when love makes you into a pack.” 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 Fish Heads by R.A. Villanueva. The Slowdown is currently taking a break. We'll be back soon with new episodes from a new host. This week, we're going back into the archive to revisit Tracy K. Smith's time as host. Today's episode was originally released on March 30, 2020. In this episode, Tracy writes… “What is it about food that feeds us? Not just the calories and nutrients, but the deeper yearning certain foods quench?” 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 Thanks by W.S. Merwin.The Slowdown is currently taking a break. We'll be back soon with new episodes from a new host. This week, we're going back into the archive to revisit Tracy K. Smith's time as host. Today's episode was originally released on December 18, 2019. In this episode, Tracy writes… “It takes a wise and gifted poet to create a panoramic portrait of life that allows guilt and anger and shame to occupy the very same space as gratitude. I believe the late W.S. Merwin was such a poet. Reading his poem, “Thanks,” takes courage, because it insists upon a fierce form of moral reckoning.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Today, we're thrilled to share that the new host of The Slowdown is Maggie Smith. We'll be back in your feeds with new episodes on August 18th. 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 was launched nearly seven years ago to find a haven of calm in the middle of this constant storm. Based on the simple idea that reflecting on a poem, every weekday, can connect us to our inner world and the world around us. And hundreds of episodes later, we stay committed to this idea.

Today's poem is Workshop by Jacob Shores-Argüello. The Slowdown is currently taking a break. We'll be back soon with new episodes from a new host. This week, we're going back into the archive to revisit Tracy K. Smith's time as host. Today's episode was originally released on October 22, 2019. 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 Nocturne by Oliver Baez Bendorf. 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 September 8, 2023. 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 bookstore stayed open till midnight. Many nights I closed it down, sitting in a corner reading a paperback, a beer in my pocket or a cup of coffee in my hand. At some point, I knew I needed to make art, to move to celebrating the world's loveliness. I was perpetually hungry to do so.” 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 Accessory to War by Kim Stafford. 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 April 30, 2024. 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

Today's poem is In Love by Chloe Martinez. 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 July 8, 2024. 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/rjm4synp

Today's poem is 00000000 by Erin Marie Lynch. 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 April 11, 2024. 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

Today's poem is eco-hood by Melania Luisa Marte. 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 November 23, 2023. 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

Today's poem is Sunflowers in the Median by Natalie Homer.The Slowdown is currently taking a break. We'll be back soon with new episodes from a new host. This week, we're going back into the archive to revisit Ada Limón's time as host. Today's episode was originally released on March 4, 2022. In this episode, former host Ada Limón writes… “What is it about noticing beauty that brings you out of yourself and returns you to yourself? I love rooting for beauty, for awe, for those unexpected visions that make life a little easier to manage. In today's vibrant poem, we see how the image of sunflowers can allow for a sort of grace. I love this poem for its appreciation of unexpected beauty.” 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 Saudade by Silvia Bonilla.The Slowdown is currently taking a break. We'll be back soon with new episodes from a new host. This week, we're going back into the archive to revisit Ada Limón's time as host. Today's episode was originally released on October 19, 2021. In this episode, former host Ada Limón writes… “There are days I'm prone to see the nostalgia in things, the ache of the moment. Most days, I try to focus on the bright edges, those little seams of joy that vibrate in the world. One of the many reasons I love today's poem is that it is full of that cantaloupe-colored longing and makes no apologies.” 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 It's 9:30am, I've ran four miles, cried four times, & eaten two chicken sandwiches by Christian Aldana.The Slowdown is currently taking a break. We'll be back soon with new episodes from a new host. This week, we're going back into the archive to revisit Ada Limón's time as host. Today's episode was originally released on April 4, 2022.In this episode, former host Ada Limón writes… “Annie Dillard once wrote, “How we spend our days is of course how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour and that one is what we are doing.” I think about this a lot when I'm planning my day and what sort of pleasure I might suck out of its marrow during these tumultuous times of constant upheaval and war. Sometimes that means noticing even the most mundane of tasks in order to know we are alive, that we are living.” 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 Let Me by Camille T. Dungy.The Slowdown is currently taking a break. We'll be back soon with new episodes from a new host. This week, we're going back into the archive to revisit Ada Limón's time as host. Today's episode was originally released on September 27, 2021. In this episode, former host Ada Limón writes… “The thing that makes me break down in tears the most often is not grief, but human resilience. To watch someone dress their kids and get them to school, ship them off with backpacks and N95 masks knowing how hard the world is. To watch someone keep going with some sort of unfathomable fortitude, no matter how rough the human waters, that is what astounds me. And still we go on, the world seems to say.” 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 John Muir, A Dream, A Waterfall, A Mountain Ash by Robert Hass. The Slowdown is currently taking a break. We'll be back soon with new episodes from a new host. This week, we're going back into the archive to revisit Ada Limón's time as host. Today's episode was originally released on October 20, 2022. In this episode, former host Ada Limón writes… “Today's poem by former U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Hass, is a poem that balances the worrisome long threads of our lives against the large wonder of mountains. The poem's title also asks us to question who gets to name, or claim, nature at all.” 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 Another Night at Sea Level by Meg Day.The Slowdown is currently taking a break. We'll be back soon with new episodes from a new host. This week, we're going back into the archive to revisit Tracy K. Smith's time as host. Today's episode was originally released on May 12, 2020. In this episode, Tracy writes… “Written in letter form, today's poem captures and seeks to describe that feeling of the sublime for someone who is far away.” 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 Climbing China's Great Wall by Afaa M. Weaver.The Slowdown is currently taking a break. We'll be back soon with new episodes from a new host. This week, we're going back into the archive to revisit Tracy K. Smith's time as host. Today's episode was originally released on August 4, 2020. In this episode, Tracy writes… “I visited China for the first time in the spring of 2017. It was a visit to the great poet Yi Lei, whose poems I had been working to translate. It was my second time meeting Yi Lei in person. The first had been three years earlier, over lunch in Manhattan. That was the trip when we visited the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall. It was a bright, clear, warm day. There were plenty of visitors all around, but our climb up and down the thousand steep steps felt spacious somehow, as if we had the site to ourselves. I gawked happily at trees and mountains, stones and birds. I wanted to feel history under my feet, but really it was the living moment that enraptured me.” 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 On a Spaceship Somewhere, Long After Empire's Collapse by Jesús I. Valles.The Slowdown is currently taking a break. We'll be back soon with new episodes from a new host. This week, we're going back into the archive to revisit Tracy K. Smith's time as host. Today's episode was originally released on August 20, 2020. In this episode, Tracy writes… “The message from the stars is simple: it doesn't have to be this way. I hope we humans might change of our own volition. Barring that, I'm game for celestial intervention.” 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 Say Thank You Say I'm Sorry by Jericho Brown. The Slowdown is currently taking a break. We'll be back soon with new episodes from a new host. This week, we're going back into the archive to revisit Tracy K. Smith's time as host. Today's episode was originally released on September 11, 2020. In this episode, Tracy writes… “I like it when I pass into the orbit of a stranger and, without expecting or even wanting to, I feel a very accidental, very fleeting form of kinship. For me, this happens sometimes when I'm traveling and far from home — far from my everyday me. Or when I'm moving through public space while also deeply lost in thought. Talking to myself maybe. Or laughing at something I think only I have seen. And then I meet unfamiliar eyes, and I understand that we are in the same moment together. How wonderful would it be if trust, or even love, might be possible between any of us — or even all of us. I mean, if we let ourselves believe such a thing is possible.” 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 Song In Which We Yet Sidestep Disaster by Tess Taylor.The Slowdown is currently taking a break. We'll be back soon with new episodes from a new host. This week, we're going back into the archive to revisit Tracy K. Smith's time as host. Today's episode was originally released on May 27, 2020. In this episode, Tracy writes… “How can everything be? How is it possible? Maybe to be alive is a matter of accepting that such answers do not concern us. Maybe being alive in matter is a matter of learning to hear and see and feel and trust and to love all that is available to us.” 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 Hunger by Kelli Russell Agodon.Last spring, we asked our community to submit poems that have helped you slow down in your lives. This week we're revisiting these 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 catch? We become wild in our desperation to present ourselves as worthy of love. Our passionate hearts render us prey to the lost souls who present facades of well-being.” 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 Separation Wall by Naomi Shihab Nye.Last spring, we asked our community to submit poems that have helped you slow down in your lives. This week we're revisiting these 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 our innocence, that part of us untouched by the callousness of the world, to bring us to a sanity beyond inherited hurts and old fears, away from the logic of ‘an eye for an eye.' Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said that this kind of violence ‘destroys communities and makes humanity impossible. It creates bitterness in the survivors and brutality in the destroyers.'” 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 Sono by Suji Kwock Kim. The Slowdown is currently taking a break. Last spring, we asked our community to submit poems that have helped you slow down in your lives. This week we're revisiting these 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 marvel.” 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 From Blossoms by Li-Young Lee. Last spring, we asked our community to submit poems that have helped you slow down in your lives. This week we're revisiting these selections. 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 poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Today's poem is One Art by Elizabeth Bishop. Last spring, we asked our community to submit poems that have helped you slow down in your lives. This week we're revisiting these 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.” 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 Prayer Beginning with a Line by Czaykowski by Pablo Piñero Stillmann. The Slowdown is currently taking a break. We'll be back soon with new episodes from a new host. This week, we're going back into the archive to revisit Ada Limón's time as host. Today's episode was originally released on April 29, 2022.In this episode, former host Ada Limón writes… “Today's poem is that kind of prayer, a prayer for pleasure, for the brief moment of relief, to be made whole again. In this poem's repetition we hear the desperation, but also the song.” 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 Practicing by Ciona Rouse. The Slowdown is currently taking a break. We'll be back soon with new episodes from a new host. This week, we're going back into the archive to revisit Ada Limón's time as host. Today's episode was originally released on May 18, 2022. In this episode, former host Ada Limón writes… “I've always been interested in how we plan for the future. I try to put a little money away now and again for a rainy day as they say. I try to imagine future scenarios to see if I am prepared. But if the last three years have taught me anything, it's that I cannot be prepared for all the scenarios. Life is full of terrific… and terrifying surprises. I never know what's coming next. I can only be here at this moment and try to be somewhat flexible.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp