The Slowdown

Today's poem is You're Supposed to Enjoy Dying by Colin Pope. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “There are so many things to fear — spiders, snakes, heights, deep water, the dark. I have a friend who is so fearful of rats, you can't even say the word in her presence. I'd say that most of these fears are rational. Snakes and spiders can bite, and some are venomous. You could drown in deep water or fall from a great height. The one thing that humans seem almost universally afraid of is also the only part of life that is certain: death.” This show is made possible by gifts from listeners. Support The Slowdown today. Slowdownshow.org/donate

Today's poem is Northern Flicker Reconsidered by Susan Rich. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Once, during a Q&A after a reading, a woman raised her hand to ask, ‘What's with all the birds in your poems?' I had to laugh. She was right: the hawks, grackles, and starlings of my neighborhood have called and swooped into many of my poems. I told her that birds are wildlife that we all have access to, no matter where we live. Birds are everywhere … in cities, in suburbs, in the country. They make cameo appearances in many of my poems, and sometimes they're even the stars.” This show is made possible by gifts from listeners. Support The Slowdown today. Slowdownshow.org/donate

Today's poem is Pocket Dial by James Davis May. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes... "It's a strangely intimate thing, the pocket dial. When we're on the receiving end, we find ourselves listening from a tucked away place close to someone's body. It's a pitfall of carrying our devices with us. Previous generations, generations who grew up without cell phones, didn't have to contend with things like pocket dials."This show is supported by gifts from listeners. Support The Slowdown with a donation and get access to the sponsor-free version of The Slowdown today. slowdownshow.org/donate

Today's poem is Panis Angelicus by Carol Muske-Dukes. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… "There is music everywhere — played from the stereos of passing cars, sung by unselfconscious walkers wearing headphones. There's the slamming of screen doors. The barking dogs. The occasional siren. And those noises are a kind of music, too."This show is supported by gifts from listeners. Support The Slowdown with a donation and get access to the sponsor-free version of The Slowdown today. slowdownshow.org/donate

Today's poem is Versions of Girlhood by Tina Chang. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… "Today's poem makes me feel seen as a mother, and it also reminds me to stay present — to appreciate exactly where we are together, right now."This show is supported by gifts from listeners. Support The Slowdown with a donation and get access to the sponsor-free version of The Slowdown today. slowdownshow.org/donate

Today's poem is What The Suitcase Bearing my Family Name Might Have Contained When it Arrived at Auschwitz by Ava Nathaniel Winter. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… "It is a privilege to have lived in the same part of the same country, safely, for generations. It is a privilege to have a basement, an attic, or a garage filled with boxes: books, family photos, children's artwork from years of school. They are just things, yes. And they are not just things at all. I try to remember this privilege when complaining about clutter."This show is supported by gifts from listeners. Support The Slowdown with a donation and get access to the sponsor-free version of The Slowdown today. slowdownshow.org/donate

Today's poem is What We Wanted by Carol Moldaw. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… "Maybe humans have muscle and sense memory not unlike my dog on her walk around the block. We instinctively know the way, and we are most comfortable traveling the paths we've traveled before. It becomes a part of who we are, of how we know ourselves. But sometimes we want or need to travel “off the beaten path,” as they say. Sometimes, as we see in today's poem, we have to find — or create — a new way."This show is supported by gifts from listeners. Support The Slowdown with a donation and get access to the sponsor-free version of The Slowdown today. Slowdownshow.org/donate

Today's poem is Poem to Watch over You by Omotara James. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Diannely Antigua writes… “On Juneteenth, freedom feels like a welcome long denied. It is also a welcome we must keep making possible for each other every day. Not only in law, but in practice. Freedom should be both a declaration and a way of living. Today's poem imagines that kind of welcome. It speaks to that miracle of arrival, to a life entering the world without needing justification. It reminds us that before the world teaches us otherwise, there is the simple and sacred fact of being received.”This show is supported by gifts from listeners. Support The Slowdown with a donation and get access to the sponsor-free version of The Slowdown today. Slowdownshow.org/donate

Today's poem is Boombox Ode: Enjoy the Silence by K. Iver. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Diannely Antigua writes… “There was a time when love, or the possibility of it, came to you as a mixtape or burned CD. The songs were carefully chosen and painstakingly ordered. It wasn't limitless, like today's playlists. You had maybe seventy or eighty minutes, which meant every song had to mean something. And when you got one, you'd sit there rewinding and replaying, trying to decode the hidden message the music played back.” This show is supported by gifts from listeners. Support The Slowdown with a donation and get access to the sponsor-free version of The Slowdown today. Slowdownshow.org/donate

Today's poem is Pluto by Maggie Dietz. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Diannely Antigua writes… “When I was younger, I learned the order of the planets through a sentence I'll never forget: “My very educated mother just served us nine pizzas.” This mnemonic device was playful and ridiculous, but I can see now how it was a way of holding something vast inside something small. Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto. Back then, Pluto was still a planet. But that changed in 2006 when scientists said Pluto didn't meet the definition of a planet anymore. Its gravitational pull wasn't dominant enough, so it was reclassified and renamed a dwarf planet. Pluto didn't disappear, though. Out there in the astronomical unknown, it kept its shape. It kept orbiting the sun. Even its five moons remained, just as always. The only thing that changed was what we decided to call it.” This show is supported by gifts from listeners. Support The Slowdown with a donation and get access to the sponsor-free version of The Slowdown today. Slowdownshow.org/donate

Today's poem is Maps by Yesenia Montilla. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Diannely Antigua writes… “Today's poem questions what it means to erase borders and barriers. It imagines a world in which belonging is not something granted or denied, but something we share. It asks what it might mean to move through the world without the illusion of ownership, to see one another beyond names and borders.”This show is supported by gifts from listeners. Support The Slowdown with a donation and get access to the sponsor-free version of The Slowdown today. Slowdownshow.org/donate

Today's poem is Against Melancholy by Nathan McClain. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Diannely Antigua writes… “I often hear the phrase “the risk of joy,” and I keep returning to it. Is joy a risk? And if it is, what is it that we are risking? Can I open my chest to joy, knowing it might hurt me if it leaves?” This show is supported by gifts from listeners. Support The Slowdown with a donation and get access to the sponsor-free version of The Slowdown today. Slowdownshow.org/donate

Today's poem is i love you to the moon & by Chen Chen. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Diannely Antigua writes… “The moon is about 238,855 (two hundred thirty-eight thousand, eight hundred fifty-five) miles away from Earth, which is roughly 30 Earths lined up end to end. But moonlight only takes about 1.3 seconds to reach us.The distance feels impossible, and yet the light arrives almost instantly. It makes me think about how love can work like that, too. How it can stretch across time and space and still arrive right when we need it.” This show is supported by gifts from listeners. Support The Slowdown with a donation and get access to the sponsor-free version of The Slowdown today. Slowdownshow.org/donate

Today's poem is Goldfish by Francisco Márquez. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Diannely Antigua writes… “When it comes to death, we often have a need to witness. It is our human instinct to see and touch, to hear their silence. I remember wondering why it was called a wake service and learning that it comes from staying awake, from keeping vigil over the body before burial. We're keeping the dead company as they transition, much like we would with a friend at a train station before they move across the country.” This show is supported by gifts from listeners. Support The Slowdown with a donation and get access to the sponsor-free version of The Slowdown today. Slowdownshow.org/donate

Today's poem is There Is Always Space in My Life for More Life by Natasha Rao. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Diannely Antigua writes… “I firmly believe I became a poet because of my time in Spain. Something in me cracked open, and a little light came through. I came through. I learned that if I stepped outside the small world I'd been given, the loveliest things could happen. Today's poem reminds me of the power of stepping into experience and coming away changed. It asks us to make room for the moments we didn't know we needed.” This show is supported by gifts from listeners. Support The Slowdown with a donation and get access to the sponsor-free version of The Slowdown today. Slowdownshow.org/donate

Today's poem is The Good Life by Tracy K. Smith. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Diannely Antigua writes… “When my grandmother took us kids to the pharmacy, she'd let us pick one snack to share. We always picked raspberry and creme cookies. We'd take our time with them, taking little bites of the buttery shortbread and jammy filling, savoring each one. Sometimes I'll buy those cookies just to remember how they once tasted like luxury. It's in these moments that I learned how love moves. It makes meaning out of what's available, and insists on joy. It makes something out of nothing.” This show is supported by gifts from listeners. Support The Slowdown with a donation and get access to the sponsor-free version of The Slowdown today. Slowdownshow.org/donate

Today's poem is Blue by Laura Villareal. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Diannely Antigua writes… “I believe color carries energy. It carries memory. I remember when I was young, coming home from the hospital after being sick. The teal paint on my bedroom walls suddenly felt overwhelming. It reminded me of sickness, of that version of myself I didn't want to return to. A few days later, my dad and my uncle painted my walls a light beige. The color of cream. Or the pages of an old book. Or the color of my dog's soft belly when she'd roll over, asking for a rub. I remember how calming it felt. How it erased what the room had previously carried and gave me the canvas to begin again.” This show is supported by gifts from listeners. Support The Slowdown with a donation and get access to the sponsor-free version of The Slowdown today. Slowdownshow.org/donate

Today's poem is Cheap Magic by Arielle Hebert.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “When we wear a costume, or even an uncharacteristic outfit, it's possible to let go of the expectations other people set for us. Sometimes disappearing into another identity makes you more of yourself, not less. Being inside a persona might make you freer, not more constrained.” This show is supported by gifts from listeners. Support The Slowdown with a donation and get access to the sponsor-free version of The Slowdown today. Slowdownshow.org/donate

Today's poem is At the End of a Good Week, the Van Broke Down by Mary Ardery. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Poetry, instead of asking questions like How did I get here? or What should I do? often deals more with the senses. Questions like What did it look like? How does it sound, taste, feel? Questions that ask us to witness. Much of the advice we receive assumes we have a level of control. But life doesn't always work like that. We're so often rolling with the punches, trying to hold our sorrows, or, to wring out a little pleasure and joy along the way.” This show is supported by gifts from listeners. Support The Slowdown with a donation and get access to the sponsor-free version of The Slowdown today. Slowdownshow.org/donate

Today's poem is Prayer for My Unborn Niece or Nephew by Ross Gay. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Hope — earnest hope — is something we all need more to combat the cruelty and cynicism of these times we're enduring. Today's poem is filled to the brim with it.” This show is supported by gifts from listeners. Support The Slowdown with a donation and get access to the sponsor-free version of The Slowdown today. Slowdownshow.org/donate

Today's poem is Isobutyl Nitrite by Kieron Walquist.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “In today's poem, the speaker feels something awaken in him while watching the film “Remember the Titans.” The poem weaves together the pain and the beauty of desire, which can become so knotted in our teen years. It leaves the reader a little breathless, like only a crush can.”This show is supported by gifts from listeners. Support The Slowdown with a donation and get access to the sponsor-free version of The Slowdown today. Slowdownshow.org/donate

Today's poem is Native Grasses by Lynnell Edwards. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “When my son was younger, he loved to collect what he called “nature treasures” — pinecones, acorns, stones, seashells. I'd find them when I emptied his pockets, doing the laundry. I'd find them in my purses and coat pockets, where he'd slipped them for me to discover myself. He's in middle school now, and he's outgrown this for the most part. But not entirely. Sometimes he still brings me a wildflower, an unusual feather, or a stone he notices. And as a little wink and a nod to his younger self, he still calls them “nature treasures.”” This show is supported by gifts from listeners. Support The Slowdown with a donation and get access to the sponsor-free version of The Slowdown today. Slowdownshow.org/donate

Today's poem is Missing by Mary Morris.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Maybe it's possible to have a welcome haunting. To open ourselves up to visitors, and to seek their company, however they are able to make themselves known. Seeing — or even seeking out — signs from deceased loved ones helps people who are grieving feel more connected and less alone.” This show is supported by gifts from listeners. Support The Slowdown with a donation and get access to the sponsor-free version of The Slowdown today. Slowdownshow.org/donate

Today's poem is The Burning Kite by Ouyang Jianghe, translated by Austin Woerner. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Every once in a while, a poem comes along with imagery so startling, phrasing so original, I have to read it several times in a row to be sure I'm taking it all in. Today's poem is one of them.” This show is supported by gifts from listeners. Support The Slowdown with a donation and get access to the sponsor-free version of The Slowdown today. Slowdownshow.org/donate

Today's poem is Coral, Again by Juliana Spahr. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “When we talk about the health of ocean ecosystems, I often hear the phrase “existential threat.” It's a phrase that sounds massive. Because it is! It's something so big that it's hard to know what to do, how to make the right choices, as just one person. Today's poem probes those depths and finds an endless possibility of existence in the relationships between tiny beings.” This show is supported by gifts from listeners. Support The Slowdown with a donation and get access to the sponsor-free version of The Slowdown today. Slowdownshow.org/donate

Today's poem is The Village by Marc Harshman. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “A decade or so ago, I had the privilege of co-teaching a couple of workshops with the poet Stanley Plumly. He'd always say, in workshops, “exploit your territory.” He encouraged writers to lean into the regional instead of running from it. I now tell my students the same thing: Be exactly who you are, and be from where you're from unapologetically. Show us that life. Tell us those stories. And let your people speak. Today's poem exploits its territory — and does it masterfully.” This show is supported by gifts from listeners. Support The Slowdown with a donation and get access to the sponsor-free version of The Slowdown today. Slowdownshow.org/donate

Today's poem is The Long Run by Linda Gregerson. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “I have to remain optimistic — cautiously optimistic, because these are difficult days — that as we know better, we will do better. That we will learn from our mistakes and the mistakes of our forebearers, and that we will repair what we can, despite the harm we humans continue to do.” This show is supported by gifts from listeners. Support The Slowdown with a donation and get access to the sponsor-free version of The Slowdown today. Slowdownshow.org/donate

Today we're excited to share a bonus episode: the first episode of "PASSAGES: On Morrison," produced by our friends at Random House Publishing Group. This new podcast takes reading on the road, as Namwali Serpell — novelist, critic, and Harvard professor — joins fellow writers and skilled readers in conversation to pore over excerpts of Toni Morrison's prose. The show is the record of a traveling salon, a celebration of Morrison's extraordinary work, and a love letter to reading closely in community. You'll hear Serpell in conversation with poet and former host of The Slowdown, Tracy K. Smith. Together, they read the opening of THE BLUEST EYE, Toni Morrison's debut novel, and discuss all that the passage emits and erases. The second episode, featuring acclaimed poet and critic Hanif Abdurraqib, is also available to listen now wherever you get your podcasts.

Today's poem is You Try To Fix It by Liz Ahl. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “As a child watching Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, I remember being amazed by the Everlasting Gobstopper — a candy that a child could suck on forever, and it would never get any smaller. One of them would last a lifetime! In real life, manufacturers seem to do the opposite: They intentionally design things inexpensively, with an artificially limited lifespan, so they need to be replaced with a newer version. Today's poem, though, was built to last.” This show is supported by gifts from listeners. Support The Slowdown with a donation and get access to the sponsor-free version of The Slowdown today. Slowdownshow.org/donate

Today's poem is The New City by Hieu Minh Nguyen. 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 and get access to the sponsor-free version of The Slowdown today. Slowdownshow.org/donate

Today's poem is At the Entrance of a Love Poem, I Hesitate by Maya C. Popa. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Love poems are maybe the hardest poems to write. I speak only for myself here, but I have a feeling plenty of poets agree with me.” This show is supported by gifts from listeners. Support The Slowdown with a donation and get access to the sponsor-free version of The Slowdown today. Slowdownshow.org/donate

Today's poem is On Being Told I Should Write A Memoir by Jan-Henry Gray. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Today's poem excavates childhood memories in a way only a poem can — and it enacts the fragmentation, the piece-iness, of memory. I should also mention that the poem uses lines from one of my favorite bands, Built to Spill, as an epigraph. Because in our memories, sometimes other people sing parts of the story.” This show is supported by gifts from listeners. Support The Slowdown with a donation and get access to the sponsor-free version of The Slowdown today. Slowdownshow.org/donate

Today's poem is Liquefying by Chloe Yelena Miller. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Poets use language the way an artist uses paint, the way sculptors use clay. It's our material. We have to use it wisely, not only as craftspeople but as humans who care about others. The way today's poem talks about vision — and vision problems — is original, and vulnerable, and full of nuance. It uses the idea of vision to speak not only into the future, but also, into the past.”This show is supported by gifts from listeners. Support The Slowdown with a donation and get access to the sponsor-free version of The Slowdown today. Slowdownshow.org/donate

Today's poem is Citrus Paradisi by Arah Ko. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Today's poem takes as its inspiration the grapefruit, which is fleshy and juicy and as bitter as it is sweet. I was drawn to this poem because it is so packed with sensory detail: smells, sights, and textures. The poem itself is delicious.” This show is supported by gifts from listeners. Support The Slowdown with a donation and get access to the sponsor-free version of The Slowdown today. Slowdownshow.org/donate

Today's poem is True Story by Camille T. Dungy. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Today's poem examines the many possibilities of giving love in a temporary world.” This show is supported by gifts from listeners. Support The Slowdown with a donation and get access to the sponsor-free version of The Slowdown today. Slowdownshow.org/donate

Today's poem is A Love Poem Will Not Save the World by C. Russell Price. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “We read and share poems in times of tragedy because they say something we need to say, or need to hear. That is certainly true of today's poem. It speaks to something that feels unspeakable. It sings to us in the dark.” This show is supported by gifts from listeners. Support The Slowdown with a donation and get access to the sponsor-free version of The Slowdown today. Slowdownshow.org/donate

Today's poem is Climacteric by Kelly Gray. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Midlife is a strange season. I find myself both embracing the changes to my life and also grieving a little. Some doors are closing as others open. My kids are almost grown. I'm nearing the end of a long and much-loved era.”This show is supported by gifts from listeners. Support The Slowdown with a donation and get access to the sponsor-free version of The Slowdown today. Slowdownshow.org/donate

Today's poem is Terra Vita by Lisa Hiton. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “It's such a strange and dreamlike thing, the memory. Strange and dreamlike in the way it operates — what it picks up and what it leaves lying there, what it holds onto and what it eventually lets go of. I don't know why I remember the dress I wore on my eighth birthday (ruffled and beige with tiny blue flowers) while entire important conversations I had in adulthood have slipped away from me. I don't understand the sorting the mind does, and how it decides what to put in the keep pile and what put in the pile labeled give away.” This show is supported by gifts from listeners. Support The Slowdown with a donation and get access to the sponsor-free version of The Slowdown today. Slowdownshow.org/donate

Today's poem is Dispatch as Prologue or Epilogue by Megan Gannon. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “I once heard the comedian Pete Holmes say, about his past, something along the lines of: “That life was the weird horse I rode to get to this life.” I think the speaker of today's poem would like that imagery as much as I do. Here's to weird horses, and to do-overs, and to new beginnings, which are endless.” We're asking you, our community of listeners, to help us select poems to share on the show in an upcoming week of special programming. What poems have you sent friends and loved ones to encourage them to slow down? Send in your own selection, we'll mail you a special Slowdown postcard and sticker as a thank you. Submit here: https://bit.ly/slowdownsubmissions

Today's poem is The Magicians at Work by Nicky Beer. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Today's poem reminds me of the trick that poetry performs, time after time. We can vanish into a poem and emerge whole, but changed. It's magic.” We're asking you, our community of listeners, to help us select poems to share on the show in an upcoming week of special programming. What poems have you sent friends and loved ones to encourage them to slow down? Send in your own selection, we'll mail you a special Slowdown postcard and sticker as a thank you. Submit here: https://bit.ly/slowdownsubmissions

Today's poem is Something there is that doesn't love by Armen Davoudian. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Fences and walls are human-made structures, and they are inevitably eroded by the landscape itself: the rocks fall or are worn down by wind and rain; the wood rots or topples. And what happens when the boundary between what one person owns and what another person owns falls, or fails? Then what?” We're asking you, our community of listeners, to help us select poems to share on the show in an upcoming week of special programming. What poems have you sent friends and loved ones to encourage them to slow down? Send in your own selection, we'll mail you a special Slowdown postcard and sticker as a thank you. Submit here: https://bit.ly/slowdownsubmissions

Today's poem is Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by Wayne Miller. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Today's poem shows us that even when we can escape the physical location of a painful situation, our mind can still try to free itself from what the body remembers.” We're asking you, our community of listeners, to help us select poems to share on the show in an upcoming week of special programming. What poems have you sent friends and loved ones to encourage them to slow down? Send in your own selection, we'll mail you a special Slowdown postcard and sticker as a thank you. Submit here: https://bit.ly/slowdownsubmissions