The Slowdown

Today's poem is Soot by Kaveh Akbar. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “My friend, the poet Dana Levin, once said that my poems are “God Curious,” and I loved that description. Part of what I do in my poems is pose existential questions to myself, and think—and feel—my way into them. That's not the same as answering them! Luckily, poems don't require us to have answers.”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 Six Hours Lost, Land Between the Lakes by Kathleen Driskell. 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.”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 Do You Consider Writing to be Therapeutic? by Andrew Grace. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “The next time I'm asked if writing is therapy, I may just respond by reading today's poem. I think it answers the question with succinct, heartbreaking 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 Abundance by Rick Barot. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Today's poem rejoices in something at the heart of this podcast: the pleasure of sharing our favorite poems with others, rather than reading them alone.” 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 Nostalgia by Matthew Minicucci. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “I joke that I can be nostalgic about a moment while it's happening. That might be the writer in me: part of me is in the moment, and part of me is already thinking about it from a distance, and seeking the language to write about it.”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 Noise Cancelling by Devon Walker-Figueroa. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “I love getting a little bit lost. Today's poem is one you're going to lose yourself in for these few minutes.” 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 Hiking Moraine State Park by Violeta Garcia-Mendoza. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Today's poem speaks to me because, at its heart, is a deep curiosity about the world—a desire to know more and more. It recognizes that sometimes we can use technology to be more connected to nature, not more disconnected from it.”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 Notes on Beachgrass by Yong-Yu Huang. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Today's poem offers us images we often find in poetry: the ocean, the moon, dreams, a mother, a wound. But it offers us these elements in such a profoundly original and moving way. I couldn't read this poem just once—I had to read it several times, picking up new treasures with each reading, like walking along the same stretch of beach at different times of day and finding new shells.” 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 For You Who Have Loved Old Dogs by Silas House. 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.” 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 Earth, Sometimes I Try to Play It Casual, by Catherine Pierce. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual.In this episode, Maggie writes… “I have zero chill when it comes to the natural world. My son and daughter would probably tell you I'm like a little kid: I gasp audibly at the clouds, the moon, the light coming through the leaves of trees. I shout “hawk!” when I see one on a walk or in the car. I take videos of hummingbirds in my neighbor's mimosa tree and text them to people I care about. I call the albino squirrels in my neighborhood by name: Sugar (rest in peace), Flour, and Cloud. I'm delighted by what I see and hear and experience, and I don't try to hide or downplay that delight. Why play it cool?”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, Blue Sky by Susan Aizenberg. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Today's poem speaks to the challenge of staying in the present moment, and having gratitude for that moment, when memory is always doing what it does best: calling to us from afar.” 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 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 Parts of a Body House by Erika Meitner. 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.”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 Country Night by Laura Newbern. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Today's poem touched me because it made me think of my grandmother. It made me think of her care, but also about the life she had after her marriage ended. I know her life didn't look the way she'd expected it would. I wish it had been easier. Still, she could whistle like a songbird.” 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 The Song of Songs of Songs of Songs by Jeremy Radin. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Today's poem is one of my favorite kinds of poems—a list. And not any list, but a list of similes. This poet builds bridge after bridge, line after line. Don't worry—I won't give you homework, but maybe, just maybe, after listening to this poem, you'll be inspired to make a list of your own. I wonder what bridges you might build.” 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 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.” 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 Checkout by Caroline Bird. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “I'm willing to bet that no one on their death bed says, “I wish I'd spent more time at the office.” No one, taking stock of their life in those final days and moments, is thinking about spreadsheets or profits or ROI - Return on Investment. I can imagine what I'll be thinking about at the end of my life: my beloveds, and the beauty of this place I've called home, and the memories I treasure most.” 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 Alive at the End of the World by Saeed Jones. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Today's poem invites us to look at ourselves at this moment of extreme, ongoing gun violence in America. And to think about our own responses, time after time after time.” 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 Blue by Jodie Hollander.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Today's poem speaks to how we all see the world—and our lives—with completely unique eyes. With a vision colored by our own experiences.” 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 The Happy Middle by Hedgie Choi. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Today's poem walloped me with its authentic intelligence. Even in her grief, this poem's speaker envisions her situation from a different perspective. This poem imagines so artfully, I think you'll want to revisit it a second time, and then a third. That is the power of authentic intelligence.” 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 Real Estate by Richard Siken. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Today's poem unpacks some of what happens when families change, because of death or divorce or other upheavals. I admire the way it looks not only at the variables—what must necessarily change—but also at the constants.” 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 Sati by Vandana Khanna. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Today's poem is a persona poem from the point of view of a Hindu goddess, Sati. The practice of a widow throwing herself on her husband's funeral pyre is named after Sati, who, in this poem, gets to speak. I think you'll be moved by what she has 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 Valentine for Ernest Mann by Naomi Shihab Nye. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Today's poem speaks to how subjective gifts, like poems, can be. Sometimes all we need to do is see the gift through the giver's eyes. We need to appreciate that person's care and intention. Come to think of it, perspective is a gift all its own.” 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 Animal Prudence by Kathy Fagan. 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.” 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 The Difficult Countryside by John Gallaher. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Moving through the world with a personal soundtrack in my ears makes me feel somehow insulated from the world AND more a part of the world. Clouds, birds, buildings, people—I see all of them differently with my favorite songs as the backdrop.” 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 Arrangements by Adrienne Chung. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Today's poem speaks to the things we are drawn to, and to the compromises that must happen when we share space with others, and when there just isn't room for everything.” 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 Cento Between the Ending and the End by Cameron Awkward-Rich. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “In times that feel divisive and fragmented, today's poem is a reminder of what we can do and BE together. It's a reminder of the whole that is greater than the sum of its parts.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

TranscriptI'm Maggie Smith and this is The Slowdown. One of my favorite things about words is their history. As a writer, I'm curious about the words I choose for my poems. When I look up the origin of a word, it's like unfolding a map, and seeing the journey that word has taken to reach me. Suddenly I know it better. It feels special to me, like a friend. Let's take the word migrant, for example—a word I've used in a poem. Migrant comes from the Latin migrans, meaning "changing place." So a migrant is one who moves from place to place. The adjective migratory is related to migrant. As in migratory birds. The verb migrate is related, too. On any given day, reading or watching or listening to the news, I'm confronted with divisive arguments about where people belong. All over the world, there are violent conflicts over land: invasions and occupations. In the US, there is so much talk about our borders, and about immigrants, and particularly alarming lately, talk about citizenship. Many of those arguments seem so focused on difference that they ignore our common humanity. The words we use matter. The language we choose can strip a person's dignity from them, or restore that dignity. When undocumented immigrants are called “illegals,” or “illegal aliens,” those words carry meaning. They also carry a heavy negative connotation. Those terms are dehumanizing, and I think that's the point. I've been listening to the words being used for immigrants, for refugees, and for asylum-seekers in this country, and I have been watching their mistreatment. I have friends who work at elementary schools, and who are afraid that ICE will come and take their students, or their students' parents. From SCHOOL. I have friends who are afraid for their loved ones, their neighbors, their coworkers. This country does not feel like a place of freedom and possibility for those seeking a better life. It feels like an increasingly hostile place.Today's poem looks at the word migrant and its meaning apart from the current political climate. Movement from place to place, after all, suggests possibility, opportunity, and AGENCY. To migrate, whether you can fly or not, is to be free./'mīgrent/ by Tiana NobileOf an animal, especially a bird. A wandering specieswhom no seas nor places limit. A seed who survives despitethe depths of hard winter. The ripple of a herring steering her band from seas of ice to warmer strands. To find the usual watering-places despite the gauzeof death that shrouds our eyesis a breathtaking feat. Do you ever wonder whywe felt like happy birds brushing our featherson the tips of leaves? How we lifted our toesfrom one bank of sand and landed—fingertips first—on another? Why we clutched the dumb and tiny creaturesof flower and blade and sod between our budding fists?From an origin of buried seeds emergethese many-banded dagger wings.We, of the sky, the dirt, and the sea. We,the seven-league-booters and the little-by-littlers.We, transmigrated souls, will prevail.We will carry ourselves into the realms of light.“/'mīgrent/” by Tiana Nobile from CLEAVE © 2021 Tiana Nobile. Used by permission of Hub City Press.

Today's poem is And Then It Was Less Bleak Because We Said So by Wendy Xu. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “When the world is on fire, it can feel frivolous to go dancing, to go to concerts, to host parties, to take vacations. Today's poem so beautifully addresses the importance of holding onto joy—and onto one another—when the world feels dismal.” 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 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