The Slowdown

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

Today's poem is How to Dress a Star by Nicholas Goodly. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Today's poem reminds me to feel tenderness toward the earlier versions of me. It reminds me that we should acknowledge our past selves more. Just think of what earlier versions of you were able to endure. Bless them for that.” 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: bit.ly/slowdownsubmissions

Today's poem is You Reading This, Be Ready by William Stafford.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “We spend so much money in this country on things we think will make us happier and more fulfilled, but presence isn't a thing at all — it's an action inside us. Being present costs us nothing. It requires no special equipment. No special location. We can all do better at noticing, and at keeping ourselves open to what we're experiencing 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 Queen of Collapse by Hadara Bar-Nadav. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Repeating the same word or phrase when we write opens something up, forces us to finish the thought in a new way each time. I always surprise myself. With each repetition of the phrase, the sentence goes in a slightly new direction.” 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 Beginning by Katherine Gibbel. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “I have the worst spring fever every year, because the winters in Ohio are so long and so bleak and gray. When the landscape comes alive and turns green again, I'm nearly drunk with joy. I'm in noticing heaven: ‘Look at the buds on the trees!' and ‘Breathe in that green smell!' I don't even mind that the birds wake me up at four o-clock in the morning with their too-early songs. It's the best alarm clock.” 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 Cloud Hands by Arthur Sze. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Today's poem shows us that tai chi is not only meditation in motion, but also metaphor in motion.” 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 My History of Kissing Everyone At Parties by Isabelle Correa. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Today's poem was introduced to me by a friend of mine, the playwright and director Moisés Kaufman. If you've seen or read The Laramie Project or Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde, you know his work. Moisés read this poem to me recently, and it moved me so much — the words themselves, and his face lighting up, and the warmth in his voice as he was taking so much pleasure from each line.” 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 baggage claim in JFK by Lo Naylor. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “When I'm preparing for a multi-city book tour, I'm not nervous about reading in front of people or answering questions or finding my way around a strange place. I'm nervous about getting where I'm going. And with somewhat regular government shutdowns impacting TSA these days, those nerves aren't coming from nowhere! But there are so many beautiful moments in airports, if you pay attention: parents comforting children, or occupying them with silly games; couples excited to be going on a trip together; teams of uniformed student athletes traveling to, or from, a big game.” This show is supported by gifts from listeners. Support The Slowdown with a donation and get access to the sponsor-free version of The Slowdown today. Slowdownshow.org/donate

Today's poem is You believed only a girl born of dandelion can be ferocious by Purvi Shah.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Poems are meant to live in the air, to be read aloud, but I also know that form follows function. I want to see the choices the poet made when crafting the piece. Is the poem in couplets, tercets, or sturdy quatrains? Is it in one unbroken stanza with no white space? When I read a poem, knowing that form has the opportunity to enact, or at least reinforce, the content, I learn from the poet's choices. The stanza shape and length is an opportunity to embody something in the poem, so what did the poet go with? Maybe they chose couplets for a poem about two lovers or a parent and child. Or a prose poem for a piece that is more narrative and casually spoken. Or maybe the poem “explodes” across the field of the page, fragmented and uncontained.” 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 Spring in War-Time by Sara Teasdale. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “I'm sure you've also seen the news stories, or at least social media takes, theorizing on the potential for a military draft. I have a son, and surely many of you listening have sons, too. “Operation Epic Fury” is what I feel, as a mother, when I think about men like Trump and Hegseth possibly, someday, sending my son and yours needlessly into harm's way. Meanwhile, it's spring. The earth feels set on creating more life. It's sunny in central Ohio, and the Bradford Pears and the Redbud trees and the Magnolias are blooming. My yard is overrun with violets and dandelions. Later today my son — my only son — will mow 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 Twenty Questions by Jayrold Trasporte.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Today's poem is full of questions but doesn't circle on a single, winning answer. Instead, it finds possibility — and poetry — in the spaces between yes and no.” 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 Intaglio by Emma Aylor.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “When we hear the word “print' in regards to a painting, we might think of a copy or duplicate — in other words, not the real thing. There's Gustav Klimt's famous painting “The Kiss,” worth millions of dollars, and then there are poster prints of the original, which anyone can buy and hang in their home. Printmaking as a technology began just before the invention of movable type allowed for the mass production of books — in both cases, opening the floodgates of knowledge and ideas. Today, many forms of printmaking are practiced as a craft and as an art. Some printmaking, like intaglio, is used to create both limited-edition art that would hang in a museum or a piece of paper money.”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 Love Song to the Alpacas of Solomon Lane by Kenzie Allen. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “I have a soft spot for poems that center animals, and there are many such poems. I'm thinking about the horse in James Wright's famous poem, “A Blessing.” I'm thinking about the poor dead goat in Brigit Pegeen Kelly's poem “Song,” which might just be my favorite poem of all time. (It's so hard to choose just one!)” 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 Pathway by Paula Bohince. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “What if we saw turning to community not as a sign of weakness, but as a sign of wealth — an acknowledgement that we are so rich with support, so rich with friendship. And beyond that, I think of community as being broader than just people. Isn't place part of community? The creatures, the landscape, the trees and plants. When I feel grounded in a place, I have a sense of being held. You can see love everywhere if you look closely enough.” 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 Graduation by Edgar Kunz. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Today's poem reminds me that even when distance is necessary — or imposed — love and memory are tethers that are elastic. They stretch to accommodate separation. And if we're lucky, they stretch as needed but don't snap.” 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 Stadium by Heather Tone. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Meditation on death awareness, called maranasati, is one of the oldest practices in all Buddhist traditions. It may seem morbid to make a practice from contemplating your own death while you're still alive, but the idea of your death is probably affecting the way you live.” 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 Community by Emily Bright. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “I want our house to be a place where anyone can be themselves and know they are with people who care about them, people they can trust. I want my friends and my kids' friends to feel safe and comfortable, to relax and have fun, and to leave feeling ready to face the world outside, which isn't always as warm and welcoming as I'd like it to be. Today's poem is about how the small things we offer one another — meals, conversation, a soft place to land — are not small at all. They're everything.” 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 plum you're going to eat next summer by Gayle Brandeis. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “I know optimism can be a tough sell when there's so much suffering, so much difficulty, in the world. But this brokenness is exactly why we need more poems, more paintings, more films, more plays. More art. To make things that don't exist yet — and don't need to exist, because that is the very definition of art — and to send them out into the world is wildly, impractically, gorgeously hopeful.”This show is supported by gifts from listeners. Support The Slowdown with a donation and get access to the sponsor-free version of The Slowdown today. Slowdownshow.org/donate

Today's poem is Smalltown Lift by Brian Blanchfield.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “One of the most challenging things about being in a relationship, especially a new one, is communication. I've certainly been guilty of doing what some of you listening have probably done, too: not saying how I feel, not asking for what I want, not being clear in my communication. When we don't say what's on our minds, it's usually out of fear — fear of being rejected, of upsetting the other person, of blowing the whole thing up. You might not share music you love or activities you enjoy if you think they'll be judged as uncool; you might try to play it safe and not show too much of your true, quirky self.” 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 Sonnet Overheard at Phone Booth by Elane Kim. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “The sonnet has survived multiple centuries by always adapting. In a contemporary sonnet, poets are altering its shape and rethinking what the container can hold. Women in particular have transformed the formal tradition of the sonnet in America — poets like Wanda Coleman, who invented the unrhymed American Sonnet. Other women who helped transform the contemporary sonnet are Gwendolyn Brooks, Rita Dove, Patricia Smith, Monica Youn, and Diane Seuss. Today's poet is part of this tradition. If a sonnet is about turning to the unexpected, then the poet takes it further by looking in unexpected places.” 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 Anniversary by Edward Salem. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Cemeteries are peaceful, reverent places, and yet they're places I don't visit regularly — not unless I'm birding, apparently. If I want to feel close to someone I've lost, I'm more likely to look at photos, or tell stories, or listen to songs that remind me of them. And yes, I'm likely to write about them. That's part of how I honor their memory and keep them close.” 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 Problem With Early Warnings by Charles Rafferty. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “You've probably heard the boiling frog theory. It goes like this: If a frog is dropped into a pot of tepid water that is slowly heated, the creature won't perceive the danger until it's too late — when the water is finally boiling, and it's cooked to death. But if a frog is dropped directly into boiling water, it will jump out immediately, saving itself. I don't need to tell you that in this analogy, we're the frog. We're in hot water that keeps getting hotter. So why aren't more of us jumping? Why are we slow to react? This analogy suggests that it's because the water didn't start out boiling. We've been slowly acclimating to the increase in temperature — or rather, the increase in danger.” 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 from Perihelion: A History of Touch by Franny Choi. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Today's poem is about the snow moon, the first full moon of February. The explanation behind the name “snow moon” is fairly straightforward: February is often the snowiest month. After reading this quiet stunner of a poem, I was inspired to turn on one of my favorite Nick Drake songs, “Pink Moon.” I highly recommend this poem/song pairing.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Today's poem is Scheduling the Bone Scan by Katie Farris. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “I know our hearing involves sound waves and the structures of the ear, but I wouldn't have been able to explain it in depth or draw you a diagram. So I did a little research, and as I suspected, there is plenty of poetry — by which I mean music and mystery — in the science.” 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 by C. Rees. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Today's poem carries us to the Delaware River, cold and dark in winter, and also a place that feels both beautiful and haunted.” 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 How to Write by Anne Waldman. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Consciousness is just … exhausting sometimes, isn't it? There's no “power down” mode for our minds like there is for the devices we use: laptops and phones and televisions. Being a human is sort of like having 24/7 screentime, but the screen is your own mind, and there's no real way to turn it off — none that's worked for me, anyway.”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 XII. Southern Constellations by Brandon Kilbourne. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “No matter where I am in the world, no matter what beautiful landscape I might find myself in, no matter what new experience I might be having, I feel the pull of home. I don't mean home as in place. I mean home as in people.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

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 taking a week to return to some of our favorite episodes from Maggie's tenure so far. We'll be back on Monday, March 30 with new episodes. Today's episode was originally released on October 24, 2025. 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 Poem to Remind Myself of the Natural Order of Things by Donika Kelly. The Slowdown is taking a week to return to some of our favorite episodes from Maggie's tenure so far. We'll be back on Monday, March 30 with new episodes. Today's episode was originally released on February 19, 2026. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Today's poem is such a beautiful meditation on knowing ourselves, and knowing what we need to be at home in our own lives.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

The Slowdown is taking a week to return to some of our favorite episodes from Maggie's tenure so far. Today's poem is Midlife Crisis by Jane Zwart. We'll be back on Monday, March 30 with new episodes. Today's episode was originally released on January 7, 2026. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Midlife has upended everything I thought about aging. It's not at all what I expected. Certainly, when I was a child, I thought of people in their forties as old, and now that I'm closer to 50 than 40, I laugh at that. I feel … young! I feel younger, in many ways, than I did ten years ago.”Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

The Slowdown is taking a week to return to some of our favorite episodes from Maggie's tenure so far. We'll be back on Monday, March 30 with new episodes. Today's poem is The Situation in Our City by Ciona Rouse. Today's episode was originally released on October 28, 2025. 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 Congratulations! Your Grief Is About to Stop Being Relevant! by Bridget Bell. The Slowdown is taking a week to return to some of our favorite episodes from Maggie's tenure so far. We'll be back on Monday, March 30 with new episodes. Today's episode was originally released on January 28, 2026.In this episode, Maggie writes… “Today's poem captures a time of grief in the speaker's life, when life goes a little quiet after a flurry of support and care.” 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 Mosaic by Supritha Rajan.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “When I see the word productivity, it's hard not to see the word product nestled inside it, reminding me again of capitalism. I think we should try to keep whatever we can from getting chewed up — and spit out! — by capitalism. Creativity included. Creativity, especially.” 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 Reverse Requiem by Ina Cariño. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Today's poem inspired me to learn more about requiems — what they are, how they've evolved, and how we might think of them more broadly and metaphorically.” 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 After Dinner by James Ciano. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Today's poem reminded me of one of my father's rituals when I was young, one of his ways of taking care of himself. He'd go to the driving range at the local golf center some evenings after dinner to, in his words, ‘hit a bucket of balls.' When we return to our rituals, we bring whoever we are that unique day, and we link it with whoever we've been before. In our rituals, we can find our own wholeness in a fractured world.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp