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
1060: Perhaps
6m · PublishedToday’s poem is Perhaps by Wen Yiduo, translated by Arthur Sze.
The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem takes me to the ancient grounds of the imagination, and a cultivated wonder that brings us closer to its magic and possibility.”
Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
1059: Love and the Moon
5m · PublishedToday’s poem is Love and the Moon by Nan Cohen.
The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Sometimes, every which way we turn, the world reminds us that we carry a wounded heart. Love is beautiful until it is not, and then we are handed a chainmail of armor along with our insecurities. When we stumble out of those woods, we bring along burrs and nettles, but also, too, faded reminiscences of favorite activities, gestures, habits, and memories that once bonded us to a person – all the hurt joy. Today’s poem calls attention to how the past is resurrected, how the lingering presence of people we used to know — can haunt the loveliest of things.”
Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
1058: The Dangers of Contemplation
5m · PublishedToday’s poem is The Dangers of Contemplation by Ron Slate.
The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Every poem is a map, a transcription of a contemplative and roaming mind. I am curious about the images that arise out of the poet’s subconscious and the associative thoughts that follow. I particularly delight in the poet whose brain works at scale, a mind that soars from the granular level to expansive ideas, and hovers in between.”
Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
1057: Facebook Status
5m · PublishedToday’s poem is Facebook Status by Adrian Blevins.
The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “It is human to be curious about each other’s lives, to celebrate our friends’ wins and mourn, along with them, their losses. To acknowledge our inevitable changes. Today’s poem hilariously explains why our internet connections are like electrical wires that thread the night, connecting all of our lives.”
Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
1056: Ghazal for Mothers & Tongues
5m · PublishedToday’s poem is Ghazal for Mothers & Tongues by Sahar Muradi.
The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s fine poem is gorgeous for many reasons, but one is the way the poet enriches our ears with the sounds of words. Poems that are designed like today’s poem turn language into more than just a tool of communication — and into a ceremonial and opulent form of human address.”
Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
1055: Dancing at The Get Down by Cat Wei
6m · PublishedToday’s poem is Dancing at The Get Down by Cat Wei.
The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Recently, my seventy-three-year-old father called to tell me how much fun he had at a local dance club. I was envious. He used to swim daily, but after health challenges, getting on the dancefloor, beneath swirling lights among deep shadows, is his preferred workout. Physical benefits aside, I think he also likes the attention of younger people at his moves. At weddings, family surround him and marvel. Today’s poem exquisitely examines the healing space of the dancefloor, where a purifying circle of joy awaits us.”
Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
1054: Hunger
6m · PublishedToday’s poem is Hunger by Ryler Dustin.
The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem reveals how our appetites take us beyond considerations of the earth and its resources. What we leave in our wake is a record of our cravings and our misguided sense of a limitless world.”
Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
1053: Why Write Love Poetry in a Burning World
5m · PublishedToday’s poem is Why Write Love Poetry in a Burning World by Katie Farris.
The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Art is unequivocal evidence of our sanctity, of our ability to feel, to go beyond forbidden precincts into the depth of our emotions. I wish we would put a moratorium on questions of relevance of the arts and realize the gift of beauty that artists grant. One need not listen to a lecture on the philosophy of glass by a glassblower to know that its functionality and purpose are everywhere, writ on its surface.”
Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
1052: Body's Ken
6m · PublishedToday’s poem is Body's Ken by Simon West.
The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Poets thrive in that energy between knowing and not knowing. They attempt to convey a sense of awakening by marking language and their experiences and thoughts as memorable, as sacred, while honoring the conditions that urged them into song.”
Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
1051: Venus's Flytraps
5m · PublishedToday’s poem is Venus's Flytraps by Yusef Komunyakaa.
The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Some poems have a hold on us, their lines haunt, like the chorus from a favorite song. They cling to the mind like burrs. I’ve said them to myself lying motionless in bed at night, and while tying my shoes in the morning. They keep giving; they console when I need them to and anchor me in the familiar when all feels adrift. In music, we call them earworms.”
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 1127 episodes in total of non- explicit content. Total playtime is 106:12:28. 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 June 2nd, 2024 14:10.
