The Slowdown: Poetry & Reflection Daily

Today’s poem is Pocket Dial by James Davis May. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes... "It’s a strangely intimate thing, the pocket dial. When we’re on the receiving end, we find ourselves listening from a tucked away place close to someone’s body. It’s a pitfall of carrying our devices with us. Previous generations, generations who grew up without cell phones,...

Today’s poem is Panis Angelicus by Carol Muske-Dukes. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… "There is music everywhere — played from the stereos of passing cars, sung by unselfconscious walkers wearing headphones. There’s the slamming of screen doors. The barking dogs. The occasional siren. And those noises are a kind of music, too." This show is supported by gi...

Today’s poem is Versions of Girlhood by Tina Chang. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… "Today’s poem makes me feel seen as a mother, and it also reminds me to stay present — to appreciate exactly where we are together, 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...

Today’s poem is What The Suitcase Bearing my Family Name Might Have Contained When it Arrived at Auschwitz by Ava Nathaniel Winter. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… "It is a privilege to have lived in the same part of the same country, safely, for generations. It is a privilege to have a basement, an attic, or a garage filled with boxes: books, family photo...

Today’s poem is What We Wanted by Carol Moldaw. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… "Maybe humans have muscle and sense memory not unlike my dog on her walk around the block. We instinctively know the way, and we are most comfortable traveling the paths we’ve traveled before. It becomes a part of who we are, of how we know ourselves. But sometimes we want or n...

Today’s poem is Poem to Watch over You by Omotara James. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Diannely Antigua writes… “On Juneteenth, freedom feels like a welcome long denied. It is also a welcome we must keep making possible for each other every day. Not only in law, but in practice. Freedom should be both a declaration and a way of living. Today’s poem imagines...

Today’s poem is Boombox Ode: Enjoy the Silence by K. Iver. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Diannely Antigua writes… “There was a time when love, or the possibility of it, came to you as a mixtape or burned CD. The songs were carefully chosen and painstakingly ordered. It wasn’t limitless, like today’s playlists. You had maybe seventy or eighty minutes, which m...

Today’s poem is Pluto by Maggie Dietz. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Diannely Antigua writes… “When I was younger, I learned the order of the planets through a sentence I’ll never forget: “My very educated mother just served us nine pizzas.” This mnemonic device was playful and ridiculous, but I can see now how it was a way of holding something vast inside s...

Today’s poem is Maps by Yesenia Montilla. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Diannely Antigua writes… “Today’s poem questions what it means to erase borders and barriers. It imagines a world in which belonging is not something granted or denied, but something we share. It asks what it might mean to move through the world without the illusion of ownership, to see...

Today’s poem is Against Melancholy by Nathan McClain. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Diannely Antigua writes… “I often hear the phrase “the risk of joy,” and I keep returning to it. Is joy a risk? And if it is, what is it that we are risking? Can I open my chest to joy, knowing it might hurt me if it leaves?” This show is supported by gifts from listeners. Su...

Today’s poem is i love you to the moon & by Chen Chen. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Diannely Antigua writes… “The moon is about 238,855 (two hundred thirty-eight thousand, eight hundred fifty-five) miles away from Earth, which is roughly 30 Earths lined up end to end. But moonlight only takes about 1.3 seconds to reach us. The distance feels impossible,...

Today’s poem is Goldfish by Francisco Márquez. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Diannely Antigua writes… “When it comes to death, we often have a need to witness. It is our human instinct to see and touch, to hear their silence. I remember wondering why it was called a wake service and learning that it comes from staying awake, from keeping vigil over the body...

Today’s poem is There Is Always Space in My Life for More Life by Natasha Rao. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Diannely Antigua writes… “I firmly believe I became a poet because of my time in Spain. Something in me cracked open, and a little light came through. I came through. I learned that if I stepped outside the small world I’d been given, the loveliest th...

Today’s poem is The Good Life by Tracy K. Smith. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Diannely Antigua writes… “When my grandmother took us kids to the pharmacy, she’d let us pick one snack to share. We always picked raspberry and creme cookies. We’d take our time with them, taking little bites of the buttery shortbread and jammy filling, savoring each one. Sometim...

Today’s poem is Blue by Laura Villareal. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Diannely Antigua writes… “I believe color carries energy. It carries memory. I remember when I was young, coming home from the hospital after being sick. The teal paint on my bedroom walls suddenly felt overwhelming. It reminded me of sickness, of that version of myself I didn’t want to r...

Today’s poem is Cheap Magic by Arielle Hebert. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “When we wear a costume, or even an uncharacteristic outfit, it’s possible to let go of the expectations other people set for us. Sometimes disappearing into another identity makes you more of yourself, not less. Being inside a persona might make you freer, not more constrained....

Today’s poem is At the End of a Good Week, the Van Broke Down by Mary Ardery. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Poetry, instead of asking questions like How did I get here? or What should I do? often deals more with the senses. Questions like What did it look like? How does it sound, taste, feel? Questions that ask us to witness. Much of the advice we recei...

Today’s poem is Prayer for My Unborn Niece or Nephew by Ross Gay. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Hope — earnest hope — is something we all need more to combat the cruelty and cynicism of these times we’re enduring. Today’s poem is filled to the brim with it.” This show is supported by gifts from listeners. Support The Slowdown with a donation and get acc...

Today’s poem is Isobutyl Nitrite by Kieron Walquist. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “In today’s poem, the speaker feels something awaken in him while watching the film “Remember the Titans.” The poem weaves together the pain and the beauty of desire, which can become so knotted in our teen years. It leaves the reader a little breathless, like only a crush...

Today’s poem is Native Grasses by Lynnell Edwards. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “When my son was younger, he loved to collect what he called “nature treasures” — pinecones, acorns, stones, seashells. I’d find them when I emptied his pockets, doing the laundry. I’d find them in my purses and coat pockets, where he’d slipped them for me to discover myself...

Today’s poem is Missing by Mary Morris. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Maybe it’s possible to have a welcome haunting. To open ourselves up to visitors, and to seek their company, however they are able to make themselves known. Seeing — or even seeking out — signs from deceased loved ones helps people who are grieving feel more connected and less alone.”...

Today’s poem is The Burning Kite by Ouyang Jianghe, translated by Austin Woerner. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Every once in a while, a poem comes along with imagery so startling, phrasing so original, I have to read it several times in a row to be sure I’m taking it all in. Today’s poem is one of them.” This show is supported by gifts from listeners....

Today’s poem is Coral, Again by Juliana Spahr. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “When we talk about the health of ocean ecosystems, I often hear the phrase “existential threat.” It’s a phrase that sounds massive. Because it is! It’s something so big that it’s hard to know what to do, how to make the right choices, as just one person. Today’s poem probes tho...

Today’s poem is The Village by Marc Harshman. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “A decade or so ago, I had the privilege of co-teaching a couple of workshops with the poet Stanley Plumly. He’d always say, in workshops, “exploit your territory.” He encouraged writers to lean into the regional instead of running from it. I now tell my students the same thing:...

Today’s poem is The Long Run by Linda Gregerson. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “I have to remain optimistic — cautiously optimistic, because these are difficult days — that as we know better, we will do better. That we will learn from our mistakes and the mistakes of our forebearers, and that we will repair what we can, despite the harm we humans continu...