The Slowdown

Today's poem is /'mīgrent/ by Tiana Nobile.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, December 15 with new episodes. Today's episode was originally released on September 2, 2025. In this episode, Maggie writes… “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.” 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 taking a week to return to some of our favorite episodes from Maggie's tenure so far. We'll be back on Monday, December 15 with new episodes.Today's episode was originally released on October 7, 2025. 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 Tea by Leila Chatti.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, December 15 with new episodes. Today's episode was originally released on August 18, 2025. 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.”

Today's poem is Hiking Moraine State Park by Violeta Garcia-Mendoza. 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, December 15 with new episodes. Today's episode was originally released on October 1, 2025. 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 Laura, I Want You Pulling Your Hair Back by Natalie Dunn.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, December 15 with new episodes. Today's episode was originally released on October 17, 2025. 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 Amalgam by Rebecca Foust.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “I have a hard time not using metaphors and analogies in everyday conversation. My kids sometimes tease me about it: “Look out, the poet has entered the chat!” my son recently laughed. Maybe it is a poet thing, but I think we all naturally use analogies and comparisons when we're trying to explain an experience. Even children do this, because the power of metaphor and analogy — of comparison — is that it helps people understand what you mean. It just clicks.” 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 Go by Kathleen Ossip.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Other poems are like strands of pearls, long and lustrous and nearly impossible to gather into your hands all at once.” 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 Sal, 1950 by Paula Colangelo.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Today's poem explores PTSD as experienced by a POW, or prisoner of war. I admire this poem for the way it speaks to the resilience of the human spirit. I sometimes find myself in awe of what humans can survive, and what trauma survivors can keep intact inside themselves, and what they can still find joy in.” 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 Noah's Nameless Wife Takes Inventory by C.T. Salazar.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “In many of the stories I grew up with, the men are named but their wives and daughters are not. That makes it pretty clear who the main characters are, doesn't it? For example, in the story of Noah's Ark, in the book of Genesis in the Christian bible, there are four wives on the ark—the wives of Noah and his three sons. Guess which characters aren't named? That's right—the wives. Noah's wife is identified as just that: Noah's wife.” 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 the Base of the Mountain by Amanda Hawkins.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “I'm not a religious person, but I think everyone has places that are sacred to them—places we might return to as pilgrims, as seekers. I think of how people visit the graves of their ancestors, or the places where they once lived. When we stand where our loved ones once stood, it does feel special and meaningful to be in that space, on that ground.”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 Paperweight by Ryan Teitman. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Today's poem charmed me immediately with its imagination and its restraint. It's a poem that makes me ask, “What if?” It's also a poem I want to read again as soon as I finish 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 Entry by Chet'la Sebree.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “It's human nature to want to know for oneself, not only to trust in the knowledge of others. It's human nature to want to make decisions for oneself, not only to trust in the decisions of others. It's human nature to want to see for oneself, firsthand, not mediated by 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 Before Lunar New Year, Our Mothers Go Missing by Uyen Phuong Dang.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Today's poem references the Lunar New Year, which happens in February, but it's a timeless, seasonless poem. It has me thinking about the relationship between mothers and daughters, and between one generation and the 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 Echo by Pura López-Colomé, translated by Forrest Gander. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “I also think that all literature is translation, in a sense. We are taking what is in our minds and translating that into language—and that's true in any language. I think there is always a gap between what we want to express and what we can articulate with words. Language can only say so much.” 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 Gloria Mundi by Michael Kleber-Diggs. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “I have sort of an odd confession: I have a funeral playlist—a list of songs I want played at whatever my memorial service turns out to be. Occasionally I add to it, and now and then I remove songs once they've lost their shine. My kids have laughed about this—“Mom, you're so dark”—but I don't find it morbid at all, really. I think of my funeral as the last party I'll ever throw, and I'll be there—in spirit, at least. (How's that for a mom joke?)” 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 LeaveTaking by Rita Dove. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Today's poem dreams its way into an imagined scenario: finding oneself on this planet, an alien, a stranger, and doing one's best to be seen as belonging, so as to stay.” 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 Eulogy I Didn't Give (I) by Bob Hicok.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes … “I'm here, and you're here, so I'd call us “poetry people.” But even people who don't think of themselves as “poetry people,” people who don't spend time with poetry each day, do turn to poems when they're grieving or celebrating: at weddings, funerals, and other occasions that call for something more than we're able to achieve with our own words. Grief, love, longing, gratitude—these are universal human emotions, and yet they are difficult to articulate! More than any genre, perhaps, poetry can help us say the unsayable. It helps to let poets take the reins.” 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 Alarm Clock by Jennifer Maier.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes … “When I travel away from my kids, I have to coordinate our calls, which means demystifying the difference between my time and their time. “I'm three hours behind you in California” or “I'm seven hours ahead of you in Greece.” All of this talk about “my time” and “your time” is so odd, anyway, when you think about it—as if any time is ours. That's ours, O-U-R-S. No pun intended.”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 A dead whale can feed an entire ecosystem by Rachel Dillon.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “To ask, “What can a poem do to help?” is to gesture toward a bigger question: “What can art do?” What can literature, or music, or film, or performance, or visual art do for us, particularly when we are struggling, individually and collectively? I think art can articulate the beauty and horrors of being alive. I think it can make people feel seen and understood, and therefore less alone. I think it can bear witness to what our planet is enduring.” 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 Palinode by Lisa Low. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes … “Today's poem is a kind of poem called a palinode. In a palinode, a writer changes her mind by retracting a viewpoint expressed in one of their earlier pieces of writing. Today's poem makes us consider how we write about other people. It “flip-flops,” in a sense, but it certainly does so in an effective and artful way.” 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 Panama by Sarah Green. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “There's a distinct disenchantment when the spell of the relationship has broken, and the magic's gone. You're not seeing the world through love's rosy lens anymore. You wonder about what you might have overlooked, or misinterpreted, or just got wrong. I mean, I've been there. Most of us have been there more than once. It can take a lot of time and a lot of work, and maybe some therapy, to get to a place of acceptance, let alone contentment, after an important relationship ends. It can take even longer to get to a place of gratitude: to be able to parse how or why it ended from what it WAS. To be able to separate the END of the story from the story as a whole. To be grateful for what the relationship gave you and taught 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 The Night Angler by Geffrey Davis.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “My name is Maggie—not Margaret, just Maggie—but the name I hear most often on a daily basis might be Mom. I have my children to thank for that name, because they made me a mother. In this way, we birthed each other. And we continue to shape each other, over the years. Surely I would be different if I had different children. Surely they would be different with other parents.” 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 Puerto Rico Goes Dark by Juan J. Morales. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Given the misinformation that circulates on the internet, often unchecked, I'd like to preface today's poem with a fact: Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens. Our struggles are bound because we are citizens, together, of this nation.” 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 Night Where You No Longer Live by Meghan O'Rourke. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “The speaker of today's poem addresses her late mother, asking questions that are devastating and relatable. While we don't have access to the answers, this poem is a beautiful place for the questions to live.” 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 Local Mission by Kai Carlson-Wee. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “I'm someone who likes to read a book without having read any reviews or think pieces about the book or the author. Sometimes I prefer to engage with art—to listen to a record or see a film—without expectations. With a relatively clean slate. I want you to have that experience with today's poem, a longer one, so I'm going to get out of the way. Listen and let its many pleasures find 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 Never-ending Birds by David Baker. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Today's poem is one I've carried around in my mind for years, one whose language I flash to instinctively when I see a flock of birds, especially a murmuration of starlings. I think of the phrase “never-ending birds”—a phrase coined not by the speaker of this poem, but by the speaker's child.” 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 Poem Climbs the Scaffold and Tells You What It Sees by Natasha Oladokun. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “There is power in naming, as today's poem reminds us. Once you've seen the violence tucked inside the place name Lynchburg, barely hidden at all—hidden in plain sight—I don't think you'll be able to see or say the word the same way again. Once you see it, you can't unsee it. Nor should 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 Sehnsucht by Michael Dumanis. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Today's poem introduced me to a new word for longing or yearning—and it showed me a way to use that expansive desire as a frame for the magic of everyday life.”Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Today's poem is When I Learn Catastrophically by Martha Silano.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Today's poem unexpectedly merges the playfulness of anagrams with the gravitas of a terminal diagnosis—the weight of reckoning with the end of one's life. But when you think about it, an anagram isn't just play. It's a way of making a thing out of something else entirely. A way of seeing—and creating—other possibilities. A way of containing multitudes.” 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 Different Kinds of Sadness by Jenny Molberg. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “When I lost my joy, my generous friends were there. It can be so hard to accept help from others, especially if you pride yourself on being self-sufficient, but I took them up on their offers of meals, and company, and advice. And I'm so glad I did, because these things were all lifesaving. All of these things, in their own ways, helped me close some wounds. All, in their own ways, restarted my heart.” 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 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