The Slowdown

Today's poem is Night of the Living, Night of the Dead by Kim Addonizio.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “It might surprise you to know that one of my favorite genres is the zombie movie. I like my zombies fast, like in ‘Train to Busan' and ‘28 Days Later,' and I like my zombies slow, like in the old classics directed by George Romero. In ‘Night of the Living Dead,' the zombies shamble so slowly, people can run right by them. They seem unable to figure out doorknobs and fence latches and cars. It's black-and-white, so the gore isn't that gory: the blood and guts are gray, after all! It's still scary, though—because the zombies are seemingly uncontainable. They just keep coming at you. Today's poem has been a favorite of mine for years, and it seemed like the right choice for Halloween.” 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 Night by Stanley Plumly.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes, “Today's poem is by one of my favorite poets, the late Stanley Plumly. Maybe more than anyone else in my life, Stan understood the double bind of deep solitude: that for the poet, for the artist, it's as lonely as it is necessary. It's both.” 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 do not mention the war in my birthplace to my six-year-old son but somehow his body knows by Julia Kolchinsky.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Children are so talented at asking unanswerable questions. Questions that cut you to the quick. I remember driving around with my daughter Violet when she was in preschool—three, four years old—and she would ask me these enormous, existential questions from her booster seat behind 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 The Situation in Our City by Ciona Rouse.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “This poem has me thinking more and more about chance, and about our circumstances. It also has me thinking about the ways we take care of one another, and how we can—and must—do BETTER. As James Baldwin famously wrote, 'The children are always ours.'"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 Lamb by Richie Hofmann. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Today's poem brought me right back to being a young girl with a beloved doll. Back then, it would have been unbearable to be separated.” 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 What Is This Air Changing, This Warm Aura, These Threads of Air Vibrating Rows of People by Ariel Yelen. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Going to the elementary school choir concerts and winter music festivals, I got teary every time the kids sang. I told myself it was because of their sweet, little-kid voices, but that's not the whole story. Something about hearing voices in unison—it's powerful, and communal, and comforting, and deeply moving.”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 Like Apple from Seed by Molly Johnsen. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Today's poem begins with a beautiful story that the speaker's father would tell her, and transforms as she becomes the family storyteller. Stories themselves are like seeds in our lives; so much can grow from them. There is so much potential waiting inside.”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 Arkansabop by Elizabeth Lindsey Rogers. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Today's poem is as imagistic and musical as a song, and it's deeply rooted in place. The poem borrows a refrain from a Lucinda Williams 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 poem where no one is deported by José Olivarez.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Today's poem recounts a story of women outsmarting immigration officials who raid their factory, thanks to ‘dios del chisme,' meaning ‘the god of gossip.' The poem repeats a Spanish phrase, ‘si dios quiere,' meaning ‘God Willing.'” 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 Crux by Megan Peak. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “There were times when mothering felt overwhelming. I'm so glad we got through the too-muchness to get to this place. Now, I always want more of them. It's funny how that works, isn't it? For years I craved more freedom, more independence, and then, when I got it, part of me missed being so needed.”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 Laura, I Want You Pulling Your Hair Back by Natalie Dunn. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “A big part of loving someone, whether they're a friend or a family member or someone you're romantically involved with, is embracing them exactly as they are. Not hoping they'll change, or waiting for them to change, or—worst of all—trying to change them yourself.” 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 Dear Absent, by Marcus Wicker. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Today's poem is so relatable, because the speaker is doing what I so often do: watching videos on the internet in the middle of the night. But then the poem turns to address “the elephant in the room”: the absence at the heart of the poem. A note of preparation: This poem will touch you deeply if you have experienced pregnancy loss.” 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 Terror of New Love! by Tiana Clark. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “When I got divorced, I remember the mixed feelings. A big part of me was devastated that we hadn't made it work; another part of me was relieved, because it hadn't been working. A part of me was terrified because I had no idea what the future held, and a different big part of me felt excited and free. I wrote in a poem once, “The trick of the future is it's empty.” That's where the excitement and terror come in: the future is empty, and we get to fill it. The future is unwritten, and we get to decide what the story will be. We get to choose what comes next.” 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 Protection Spell Jar by Cynthia Marie Hoffman. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this 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.” 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 My Body Knows its Limits by Page Hill Starzinger.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “I know we often think of our intelligence as being related to our brains. Smart people are called “brainy.” Wise approaches to problem-solving are called “mindful.” But the body has its own intelligence. Some things we know, because we intuit them—as we say, we feel them in our gut. I sense when I'm in danger, or when someone is lying to me. I might get a prickle on the back of my neck, or a speeding up of my pulse, or an uneasy feeling in my stomach. I sense when I can trust someone, too. My nervous system relaxes around them.”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 Last the New Arriving by Gabrielle Calvocoressi. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “I don't know what might happen tomorrow, or the next day, or the next. I can't know! That can be a source of stress, but it can also be a source of hope and excitement. The future is full of possibility. Some of life's surprises are heartbreaking, yes—but some are heart-repairing. Heart filling. Heart strengthening. I try to remind myself of that.” 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 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