Sign in
Arts
American Public Media
Poet Major Jackson is your guide on the pathways to feel and understand our common journey – through poetry. In sharing poems, we take a moment to pause and acknowledge the world’s magnitude, and how poets illuminate that mystery. Join The Slowdown for a poem and a moment of reflection in one short episode, every weekday. Produced by APM Studios in partnership with The Poetry Foundation and supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts.
The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. Make us a part of your routine as you drink coffee in the morning, as you take a walk in nature, or as you wind down to go to sleep in the evening. With host Major Jackson, we collectively take a moment to calm, to inspire, to learn, and to engage with the best emerging poets and established writers of our time and generations past, from Emily Dickinson to Danez Smith, from Amanda Gorman to Mary Oliver.
Listen to our back catalog for episodes by our previous hosts, Tracy K. Smith and Ada Limón, as well as guest hosts Jenny Xie, Brenda Shaughnessy, Tina Chang, Nate Marshall, Shira Erlichiman, and Jason Schneiderman. Our hosts and production team select poems that move them, and we hope they move you, too.
970: Ungendered 2
Today’s poem is Ungendered 2 by Kwame Sound Daniels. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem rightly resists labels that limit our lived experiences, and rallies for us setting our own terms for how we are viewed in society.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
06:0328/09/2023
969: Us
Today’s poem is Us by Zaffar Kunial. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Since moving to the quaint village of Rochester, I come to expect visible signs of welcome everywhere. What matters in life is that space between us, formulated by philosopher Martin Buber as I-Thou. It’s a sacred space of shared existence where we feel each other’s uniqueness and feel our common humanity. Today’s attentive poem fosters a consciousness in which we view our lives as more in relation to each other, as close as two small letters.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
06:0027/09/2023
968: The Long Goodbye
Today’s poem is The Long Goodbye by Diana Whitney. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem spotlights a multigenerational family, where the daily demands of domestic and long-term care are challenging enough, but at the center is the familial promise of unconditional love.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
05:5626/09/2023
967: Ode to Purple Summer
Today’s poem is Ode to Purple Summer by Sabrina Benaim. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “For me, the pendulum swing that is emotional health deprives me of the world’s splendor. The hummingbird flitting about the garden is no longer enchanting to me, a bite of a perfect brick oven pizza is just food, mere nourishment, not a crispy, aromatic experience of basil, tomato sauce, mozzarella on its way to becoming a culinary memory. Planning travel to other countries feels burdensome with all the flight preparation and itinerary building. I lose my sense of excitement. Yet, when I come out of my despair or have figured things out with the help of friends and family, I am more alive than ever, rendered new, painfully so. My synesthesia kicks in. I want to explore.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
05:3225/09/2023
[encore] 806: Polycardial
Today’s poem is Polycardial by James Hoch. This episode was originally released on February 3, 2023. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem, is a sort of sentimental journey which ponders that tenderness of our youth, when it seems like our hunger for love and touch and connection peak. The poem realizes, too, that perhaps we eventually lose the ability to feel with such depth and intensity.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
07:1822/09/2023
[encore] 822: Cricket Song
Today’s poem is Cricket Song by George Kalogeris. This episode was originally released on February 27, 2023. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “At times, no words exist to capture our rapid, forward-marching world. Life outpaces language. It is then we attempt to create fresh language or rinse cycle words until we have a new purchase on old concepts. For example, for about a decade, I’ve been trying to formulate a word that explains the phenomenon of contagious yawning. It’s a thing and I’m haunted by this lack in our speech. It is what leads me to sing.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
05:4621/09/2023
[encore] 804: Foxglove
Today’s poem is Foxglove by Ambalila Hemsell. This episode was originally released on February 1, 2023. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “In today’s brilliant poem, the speaker wrestles with the self-perception of how our hungers as humans nascently contribute to the disruption of the natural world, and whether or not we have proprietary rights to those natural places.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
07:0720/09/2023
[encore] 870: Hymn to Church Basements
Today’s poem is Hymn to Church Basements by Joan Kwon Glass. This episode was originally released on May 4, 2023. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem exalts the unadorned spaces where those on the journey to recovery find acceptance and community.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
06:3419/09/2023
[encore] 812: September
Today’s poem is September by Nathaniel Perry. This episode was originally released on February 13, 2023. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s gorgeous poem invokes the enigmatic energy of an impending storm, the kind that mesmerizes, that beckons us to read the symbolism of nature, that points to both destruction and life.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
06:5818/09/2023
966: Love Poem, with Birds
Love Poem, with Birds by Barbara Kingsolver. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem gives voice to the intimidating feeling of competing with a partner’s personal passion. However begrudgingly we come around to their idiosyncratic awarenesses, such an intense engagement is exactly what attracts us in the end.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
06:0515/09/2023
965: from "Excess Sonnets"
Today’s poem is from "Excess Sonnets" by Isabel Prioleau. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem dramatizes the vulnerability of our most extreme emotions as revealed on various platforms, such that no layered extravagance of mystery exists between us.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
05:5414/09/2023
964: abundance of light
Today’s poem is abundance of light by erica lewis. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “I hear in today’s poem a haunting, reckoning, and nostalgia – dominant themes among poets on the road. On stages and podiums, we traded poems about heartbreak, childhood memories, and personal loss. What emerges is a triumphant questioning spirit that overcomes grief and uncertainty.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
05:5213/09/2023
963: Frederick Douglass
Today’s poem is Frederick Douglass by Robert Hayden. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s monumental poem keeps alive the fighting spirit of one of the great minds of the 19th century, whose eloquent speeches and books brought into focus freedoms we sometimes take for granted.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
06:0312/09/2023
962: Afternoon in Andalusia
Today’s poem is Afternoon in Andalusia by Sahar Romani. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem also provides us with a sense of how the mind and heart make from symbols and patterns a space beyond our reach, where we fleetingly glimpse, if not encounter, the divine.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
04:5711/09/2023
961: Nocturne
Today’s poem is Nocturne by Oliver Baez Bendorf. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “In young adulthood, long before children, jobs, home ownership, my evenings felt like a blank canvas of cultural and spiritual possibility. I felt a joyous connection to all around me, artists and writers and musicians, thinkers and believers, both living and departed, alive in their pursuit of beauty and knowledge. I was starving and knew it. On South Street, one bookstore stayed open till midnight. Many nights I closed it down, sitting in a corner reading a paperback, a beer in my pocket or a cup of coffee in my hand. At some point, I knew I needed to make art, to move to celebrating the world’s loveliness. I was perpetually hungry to do so.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
06:2808/09/2023
960: I’m Nobody! Who are you? (260)
Today’s poem is I’m Nobody! Who are you? (260) by Emily Dickinson. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s popular poem encourages a kind of disappearance from life rather than a need for attention. Cosmologically speaking, there’s a virtue in acknowledging one’s insignificance, maybe, too, in instigating others to enjoy the pause of anonymity and quietness of being." Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
05:0907/09/2023
959: On Earth
Today’s poem is On Earth by Andrew McFadyen-Ketchum. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “After my last heartbreak, before I even tried to enter into a new relationship, my friend Victoria noted how she and I never give up on love, which we both know is not found in any one person, but an aspirational state two people can achieve when they partner on an authentic journey together. Although the insidious and unprocessed hurts from past relationships threaten to work their way into our daily interactions, a new love is an invitation to get it right in this lifetime.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
05:0306/09/2023
958: Alain Locke in Stoughton Hall
Today’s poem is Alain Locke in Stoughton Hall by John Keene. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s dramatic monologue reminds me that poets are also archivists, storytellers who celebrate the past. We go beyond our self as subject matter to become humanity’s finest chroniclers.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
06:2505/09/2023
957: Rooms by the Sea
Today’s poem is Rooms by the Sea by Lauren Aliza Green. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “My early adult years were a stream of impulsive decisions. Some worked out and many did not — for example, the used car with the too-good-to-be-true price tag, as well as my brief career as an accountant. The speaker in today’s poem also realizes our best laid plans are often thwarted by unforeseen consequences. Some decisions work out, some do not. Even well-reasoned choices are not guaranteed to bring our wishes within reach, especially when it comes to love.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
05:3804/09/2023
956: Hair
Today’s poem is Hair by Clarence Major. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem reminds me of what my mother, who knew our heads to be sacred and mystical, told me years ago: you don't just let anyone in your hair.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
06:0801/09/2023
955: Love Sits by My Father
Today’s poem is Love Sits by My Father by Qutouf Elobaid. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “People in love are complicated; no one knows this more than the children, who get a front row seat to how affection plays itself out in the home, or not. Which influences how they interact and understand intimacy operating, or not, around them. Many psychological experts suggest making affection and tenderness appropriately visible in the lives of children. It goes far to ensure emotional stability. What children observe may drive them as adults to positively replicate their parent’s model, attempt to fulfill their parents' lack, or avoid intimacy altogether. A kiss, a hug, any physical expression of fondness is an active possibility of healing that radiates out into the world.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
05:3831/08/2023
954: In Praise of Mystery: A Poem for Europa
Today’s poem is In Praise of Mystery: A Poem for Europa by Ada Limón. This June, the US Poet Laureate and former host of The Slowdown, Ada Limón, unveiled a poem that she wrote for NASA's Europa Clipper, a poem that will be inscribed in her own hand on the side of the spacecraft set for Jupiter's water moon, 1.8 billion miles away. Her work is partnered with the Message in a Bottle project, which invites anyone to have their name etched on the microchip mounted to the outside of the spacecraft. Our producer, Myka Kielbon, met with Ada in the ceremonial offices of the Poet Laureate in the Library of Congress, to connect on this moment that merges science, art and humanity. A shortened version of their conversation is in today’s podcast feed. The full version of this interview is on our website, slowdownshow.org.
13:5230/08/2023
953: Two Photographs
Today’s poem is Two Photographs by Theresa Lola. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Susan Sontag, writing about Robert Mapplethorpe, once wrote, “a [photograph] convey[s] a truth about the subject, a truth that would not be known were it not captured. . . All such claims, however contradictory, are claims of power over the subject.” The speaker in today’s poem remarks how photographs, be they selfies or those professionally rendered, capture our growth.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
06:0329/08/2023
952: Failed Essay on Privilege
Today’s poem is Failed Essay on Privilege by Elisa Gonzalez. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “We are in the midst of an attack on perceived advantages. Earlier this year, the U.S. Supreme Court ended race conscious admissions in higher education. The decision is sure to have a domino effect in our society. The ruling closed one of the proven means to economic and upward mobility for everyone, but especially talented youth of various backgrounds born into low-income households, or, like me, raised in working-class communities.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
06:0228/08/2023
951: I wanted music
Today’s poem is I wanted music by Sarah Ruhl. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Shira Erlichman writes… “The doorbell rings. It’s my childhood friend, Jake. Where any two friends would exchange hellos, he and I say nothing. We get in his car without a word. There are only 3 rules at a Silence Party: 1) no talking 2) hang out 3) listen. Because we aren’t trying to fill the air with words––our observations, what we like or dislike––we are left to experience.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
06:4625/08/2023
950: from FIXER
Today’s poem is from FIXER by Edgar Kunz. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Shira Erlichman writes… “In our old apartment, if it wasn’t one thing, it was another. Besides being old and hardly-maintained by management, the building was a living being, prone to moods. To fix her was an illusion. What we did was temporarily subdue, patch up, cover over.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
05:5124/08/2023
949: Thirty-Fifth Year
Today’s poem is Thirty-Fifth Year by Charif Shanahan. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Shira Erlichman writes… “As each birthday arrives, what do we expect from our new age, its vantage point? Today’s poem unspools a wealth of questions, both practical and existential.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
05:4123/08/2023
948: Willing in the Orisha
Today’s poem is Willing in the Orisha by Camonghne Felix. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Shira Erlichman writes… “Do we reach for ritual to melt paralysis? Do we reach for ritual when our personhood is fragmented, or lost to us? Today’s poem explores the daring act of ritual. I love its decision to move toward incantation, toward worship.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
06:1622/08/2023
947: Famous
Today’s poem is Famous by Naomi Shihab Nye. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Shira Erlichman writes… “What makes someone famous? The dictionary says it’s the “state of being known or talked about by many people.” Today’s poet resituates our cultural obsession with stardom and flips on its head who gets to be fanatically revered.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
05:3321/08/2023
946: Crackerbell
Today’s poem is Crackerbell by Mary Ruefle. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Shira Erlichman writes… “Today’s poem confronts the fork in the road where we are pushed to change. And though this push is ruthless and confusing and total, the speaker humbly persists. I learn a lot from that persistence, which could also be called self-love.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
05:5718/08/2023
945: The Jungle
Today’s poem is The Jungle by Carrie Fountain. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Shira Erlichman writes… “Today’s poet reflects on a girlhood lived in contrast to boys. What does it mean to be a girl, then a woman, then a mother to a son in this culture, this chaos, this jungle?” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
05:3817/08/2023
944: Sonnet written walking under the mess some magnolia made
Today’s poem is Sonnet written walking under the mess some magnolia made by Jay Deshpande. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Shira Erlichman writes… “Today’s poem understands not just the bloom of romantic love, but the rot and mess and grit that’s just as worthy of our praise, of the glorious spending of our hearts.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
05:4316/08/2023
943: The Dictator in Prison
Today’s poem is The Dictator in Prison by Adélia Prado, translated by Ellen Doré Watson. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Shira Erlichman writes… “In one lifetime we’re tasked with bearing a range of horrors. It amazes me that underneath it all––the denial, dissociation, or rage––the heart keeps going. I used to think this gust of empathy was my weakness. I now know it’s a superpower.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
06:2415/08/2023
942: Very Large Moth
Today’s poem is Very Large Moth by Craig Arnold. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Shira Erlichman writes… “Today’s poem teaches us that you can’t choose your holy moments. The poet is a sudden citizen of bewilderment. When it comes time to express a kinship across species, he finds himself bereft.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
05:4214/08/2023
941: After We Buried The Dog In The Dark
Today’s poem is After We Buried the Dog in the Dark by Jin Cordaro. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “My family has a shelf of movies to test whether someone new to our orbit has a heart. At the top of this short list is the film Hachi: A Dog’s Tale. based on the true story of a white Akita dog named Hachiko. If said person is not bawling their eyes out by the end of this movie they just might not have a pulse. The movie is in its own category of sentimentality, one which dogs demand of us. Yet, what breaks through is a textured allegory about a dog’s loyalty. A dog’s love is primitive, mythic, and the stuff of folklore.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
05:2211/08/2023
940: Survivor
Today's poem is Survivor by Geffrey Davis. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “These days, whenever I sit down to dinner with my kids or am fortunate to catch them in their busy lives, I wistfully recall the pleasures of becoming a father… and the shock of it. Not that Langston was an abstract idea for nine months, but when your child, pretty much a biological speculation grown into a creature, is placed in your arms for the first time screaming itself into the world, an amazing wave of obligation and accountability lands full force into your heart. No experience up till that moment suffices to prepare you. When my friends arrived home with their adopted daughters, I read that same jolt of recognition on their faces.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
05:3310/08/2023
939: A Guy in a Black SUV
Today’s poem is A Guy in a Black SUV by William J Harris. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem, through use of hyperbole, voice, and tone, arrives at visualization as a form of retribution. Its strong cinematic action subverts and upends gender norms. The poem reminds me how we stretch our minds to manifest feelings and unknown states within—a power that affords us catharsis.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
05:0309/08/2023
938: Sorcery
Today’s poem is Sorcery by Jessica Hagedorn.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem cautions us to the bewitching, yet striking, perfection of art and beauty. We are susceptible to its magic, and even sometimes, to the magic of its maker.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
05:3008/08/2023
937: While Shaving
Today’s poem is While Shaving by Alfredo Aguilar. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes "Today’s poem beautifully illustrates a startling recognition: parents provide us with the skills they’ll need us to perform when they are no longer independent, the lessons we will remember them by when they are no longer with us." Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
05:2307/08/2023
936: Voyeuristic Intentions
Today’s poem is Voyeuristic Intentions by Adele Elise Williams.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “If the Yoruba proverb, character is beauty, is true, then, given the hostilities in the world and mass indifference, a bright spirit, full of warmth and compassion, is likely forged over time out of suffering. Such a soul exudes empathy and light. And thus, we acknowledge and survive off each other’s radiance, a moral beauty, as the ancient Greeks believed, that equated to goodness. ” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
06:3404/08/2023
935: Happy Campus
Today’s poem is Happy Campus by Rodrigo Toscano.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem of self-mocking irony makes the connection between our daily routines and the natural and artificial environments that we navigate—how we negotiate a dissonance that complicates our sense of what’s real and what’s unreal.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
06:0203/08/2023
934: Labor Theory of Value
Today’s poem is Labor Theory of Value by Angie Sijun Lou.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poet sees the field—or the writing of poetry—as a means of strengthening our bonds, our Platonic love. It’s a labor of seeing that transforms those fragmented moments, and unconnected objects in the world into an ever-expansive, idealized symbol of desire and understanding.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
06:0602/08/2023
933: Penmanship
Today’s poem is Penmanship by Allison Joseph.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem venerates the power of writing as an exchange with the world, how our thoughts travel outward, but then, in the end, bring us to the center of our own existence.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
05:4001/08/2023
932: Letter to my sister
Today’s poem is Letter to my sister by Trapeta B. Mayson.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “My mother did not live long enough to read my poems about her. I like to think that she would have appreciated how I processed our shared history and relationships, even the difficult moments. I like to think she’d have granted me the latitude to craft the poems I needed to write, and possibly understood that the practice of poetry is one of imagining and composing rather than simply reporting what happened. ” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
06:1031/07/2023
931: Epilogue
Today’s poem is Epilogue by Robert Lowell.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem affirms the simple approach of narrating our lives as a means of shining a light on our complex era. Given our quick passage on earth, the poem argues that to tell our stories and name the people who populate our lives is noble and rewarding enough.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
06:4028/07/2023
930: elegy for the moaner, 2016
Today’s poem is elegy for the moaner, 2016 by Airea D. Matthews.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Grieving the death of a relative, or friend, is hard work. Work made even more difficult by the sudden and complex task of interring a body and its belongings. The living are thrust into the minutiae of funeral proceedings, caterers, florists, lawyers, movers, and estate professionals. All the while, hearts are heavy.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
05:5427/07/2023
929: this is a library
Today’s poem is this is a library by Asiya Wadud. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s empathetic poem, which takes the tone of an elementary school primer, encourages a greater noticing of those who are leastwise among us, who fall outside the social fabric of our care. In doing so, hopefully, we might reverse prevailing attitudes toward the unhoused, who often are the target of violence and intolerance.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
06:2426/07/2023
928: Prayer
Today’s poem is Prayer by Philip Metres.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem follows a long tradition of devotional poetry. In such poems, often a speaker asks for intervention, relief, and renewal. It is a human call out into the empty immensity of the universe. It is one of the things we do during quiet acts of meditation. We ask for help in dealing with our human cares. We ask to have our fears dissolved, to be shown a way, to break open into a new reality.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
04:4925/07/2023
927: Via Politica
Today’s poem is Via Politica by Luljeta Lleshanaku, translated by Ani Gjika.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Everyday, people around the world are living through astonishing crises, both multi-generational and personal, vast and siloed. Today’s poem speaks to the all-encompassing and leveling despair we carry when we are survivors, or the descendents of survivors.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
06:1724/07/2023
926: from "The Garden of Limbs"
Today’s poem is from "The Garden of Limbs" by Cristina Pérez Díaz. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem, which alludes to the biblical story of Adam and Eve and the first garden, celebrates the carnal sweetness of those chill days with a beloved. The poem brazenly proclaims the power (and maybe even recklessness) of sensuous mating that is its own form of world-building, voyage, and cultivation.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
06:4921/07/2023