The Slowdown: Poetry & Reflection Daily
by 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.
Copyright: Copyright 2024 Minnesota Public Radio
Episodes
1112: Sl(e)ight by Alice White
6m · PublishedToday’s poem is Sl(e)ight by Alice White.
The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “We recognize the vulnerability in children. Our natural impulse is to protect them from the troubles and potential harms that will come their way, knowing that suffering is an inevitable part of their journey. For this reason, the speaker in today’s poem is on alert, like any parent, knowing that the tricks of the world, and of people, disguise the most horrid possibilities.”
Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
1111: The Nation by Roy Fisher
5m · PublishedToday’s poem is The Nation by Roy Fisher.
The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “It’s important for us to avoid what Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka once phrased as “saline consciousness,” that is, the belief that only what lies within our boundaries is worth noticing. We can roam beyond our familiar provinces. Today’s poem satirizes a vision of nationhood that only sees itself in relation to the known and all that has been sanctioned.”
Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
1110: Blue Hour by Chanda Feldman
6m · PublishedToday’s poem is Blue Hour by Chanda Feldman.
The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Although about the birth of a child, what I love about today’s poem is how it parallels my growing sense of care for natural environments. When my children were born, their bodies demanded a softness from my body, not to mention a constant attention.”
Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
1109: Never Did Say So by Caridad Moro-Gronlier
5m · PublishedToday’s poem is Never Did Say So by Caridad Moro-Gronlier.
The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem explores the depths of its speaker by applying the lyrics of an iconic artist who gets that indomitable spirit of smart, independent women.”
Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
1108: Life on Earth by Dorianne Laux
6m · PublishedToday’s poem is Life on Earth by Dorianne Laux.
The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Poems buttress me against the hurt and the harm and the uncertainty of life itself. I fear that the global conflicts we’re witnessing are negatively impacting the health and mental wellbeing of people who are susceptible to the frailty of this moment. I read poetry profusely during times like these.”
Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
1107: Accessory to War by Kim Stafford
5m · PublishedToday’s poem is Accessory to War by Kim Stafford.
The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s sobering poem lands a powerful reminder: that even when we adhere to a belief against war, even when we wish not to collude in acts of aggression, in a powerful nation as ours, mere citizenship implicates us.”
Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
1106: Life In The Gush Of Boasts by Elijah Burrell
5m · PublishedToday’s poem is Life In The Gush Of Boasts by Elijah Burrell.
The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Most writers are not “All eyes on me,” but the psychology of the social media “like” and “follower” becomes validation, it seems, between books.”
Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
1105: Self-Portrait with Tumbling and Lasso by Eduardo C. Corral
6m · PublishedToday’s poem is Self-Portrait with Tumbling and Lasso by Eduardo C. Corral.
The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… "These days, we are loving reading and writing self-portrait poems, what I call the “verbal selfie.” It allows the author to be the runway, to elevate themselves into the frame of language. In so doing, the poet, like the author of today’s poem, experiments with perceptions of the self. I like how the poet in Rembrandt-fashion mythologizes himself in the lyric.”
Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
1104: Black Book of Creation by Shanta Lee Gander
6m · PublishedToday’s poem is Black Book of Creation by Shanta Lee Gander.
The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem builds on the belief that imagining is a kind of magic and time travel, that listening to the soil and all the voices within is a monumental way into both history, and our future.”
Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
1103: Chaos Theory by Clint Smith
6m · PublishedToday’s poem is Chaos Theory by Clint Smith.
The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Occasionally, I try to follow the series of decisions that led me to this present, however triumphant or painful. My life wavers between fate and destiny. But then again, poetry brings me to the belief that some mysterious force is at work, below, that unveils a spiritually deeper meaning to it all."
Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
The Slowdown: Poetry & Reflection Daily has 1109 episodes in total of non- explicit content. Total playtime is 104:20:56. The language of the podcast is English. This podcast has been added on February 22nd 2023. It might contain more episodes than the ones shown here. It was last updated on May 7th, 2024 20:41.
