The Slowdown: Poetry & Reflection Daily

Today’s poem is Articulation of Solace by Yongyu Chen. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “I’ve read a lot of books over the years, and some have fundamentally changed not only the way I write but the way I think. I mean books that broke everything wide open for me, showing me possibilities — in form, and in content — that I couldn’t access before. Today’s po...

Today’s poem is Kindness by Naomi Shihab Nye. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Wherever you live, you don’t have to be nice. But please be kind. We need more genuine, altruistic kindness in this world. So, how can you be more kind? By helping others without being performative about it, and without needing recognition. By letting people know you’re thinking...

Today’s poem is Nobody's Job by Ronna Bloom. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “We call an ending “resonant” because it does what a bell does: After it’s rung, the vibration lingers. It reverberates. It sticks with you long after you’ve read the piece, humming in your head. Today’s poem is beautiful start to finish, but the ending astonished me. It moved me...

Today’s poem is When you have to remind me to do the dishes by Isaac Pickell. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “When I think back to my own upbringing and what I learned from my mother and father, almost none of it has to do with growing up as a girl. I got my work ethic, sense of humor, and sense of fairness from both of them. I remind myself of all of tha...

Today’s poem is Mother Church No. 3 by Robin Coste Lewis. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “It’s incredible to me that less than two hours from my home in the Midwestern suburbs is an enormous ancient earthwork. But that’s the thing about history — it layers on top of itself in unexpected ways. No matter where you live in the United States, you live on land...

Today’s poem is Laurelhurst by David Biespiel. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Today’s poem makes its many, intentional observations at the pace of a good, long walk.” This show is made possible by gifts from listeners. Support The Slowdown today. Slowdownshow.org/donate

Today’s poem is The Interpretation of Dreams by Kate Farrell. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “The grand adventures or scary disasters that happen in our sleep are most interesting to the dreamers themselves, because a dream is a window into the subconscious. It’s a little peek into what your mind is actually chewing on, maybe without you even realizing it...

Today’s poem is Thirst Trap by Caleb Curtiss. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “People post seductive selfies for all kinds of reasons. They might want validation in the forms of likes and comments. They might be single and hoping to meet someone online. They might be trying to build a following, or promote a product. Someone’s face or body is going to grab...

Today’s poem is You're Supposed to Enjoy Dying by Colin Pope. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “There are so many things to fear — spiders, snakes, heights, deep water, the dark. I have a friend who is so fearful of rats, you can’t even say the word in her presence. I’d say that most of these fears are rational. Snakes and spiders can bite, and some are ven...

Today’s poem is Northern Flicker Reconsidered by Susan Rich. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Once, during a Q&A after a reading, a woman raised her hand to ask, ‘What’s with all the birds in your poems?’ I had to laugh. She was right: the hawks, grackles, and starlings of my neighborhood have called and swooped into many of my poems. I told her that b...

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...