The Slowdown: Poetry & Reflection Daily
About
Available on
Community
1113 episodes
Today’s poem is It's This Way by Nâzim Hikmet, translated by Randy Blasing and Mutlu Konuk. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Victoria Chang writes… "I have begun to think that hope is a presentness, that perhaps hope is within the present, not the future, not in the subjunctive, the what if? For there is beauty all around us all the time. To have hope is to wake up and perceive in the now, instead of spending the little mindspace we have caught up in the future and possibility." Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
Today’s poem is Spring View by Du Fu, translated by Arthur Sze. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Victoria Chang writes… “I have always loved imagining how people lived a long time ago, what they thought about, how they dressed, what they ate. One of the best ways to see how people really lived is through poems, really old poems. Du Fu is a poet who lived during the Tang Dynasty in China from 721 to 770, A.D. He was one of the three most prominent poets in the Tang era, along with Wang Wei and Li Bai. Du Fu lived during turbulent war times, which feels like every era of history, including our present times.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
Today’s poem is Mahmoud by Maya Abu Al-Hayyat, translated by Fady Joudah. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Victoria Chang writes… “As an adult, one of the things I’ve always wondered about was the baby boy we lost to a miscarriage. He was almost three months old by the time he passed away. I still carry the hospital bracelet in my wallet, the one that says simply, “baby boy.” Some days, I still wonder about him — what he would have looked like as a teenager. He would have been sixteen years old this year. I imagine him having just received his driver’s license, the loud sound of the door opening, his backpack with all of the little tchotchkes and keychains hanging from them rattling and hitting the door. I can almost hear his voice as he enters the house. Almost.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
Today’s poem is first person by Ed Roberson. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Victoria Chang writes… “How can we learn if no one helps us to learn? How can we help each other learn if we don’t speak up, if we don’t talk to each other honestly? How can we learn if we don’t look harder at ourselves and the things we do or don’t do, know or don’t know, every single day?” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
Today’s poem is A Certain Light by Marie Howe. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Victoria Chang writes… “Today’s poem always moves me. I love the way this poem so lyrically depicts the surprising beauty and connection that can emerge amidst the deepest darkest moments of illness.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
Today’s poem is The Leaving by Brigit Pegeen Kelly. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Victoria Chang writes… “This is a poem that seems so easy to describe, yet it’s so hard to pin down–my favorite kind of poem–both clear and mysterious. It’s dreamlike, mystical, biblical, and so much more. It magically depicts what it’s like to be a child on the cusp of something, in the face of the largeness of the world.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
Today’s poem is Dream Song 14 by John Berryman. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “I miss being bored. I miss idly sitting in a chair, looking out a window, wondering what next to do with myself. I want the feeling of time as an endless desert — nothing in sight, nothing on the horizon.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
Today’s poem is Cassandra by Sasha West. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “The speaker in today’s poem, taken from Greek mythology, has sight beyond the veil. Their relationship to objects points to the kind of clairvoyance that artists exercise, connecting our physical, emotional, and spiritual worlds.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
Today’s poem is Ferment by Monica Rico. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “As a person who sticks to the recipe, step by step, exact measurements and all, I appreciate how today’s poem lifts up the magic of feeling and improvisation, of putting one’s whole body into a task.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Why is it so hard to write a love poem? Well, I think sentimentality is often the culprit. Today’s poem, by contrast, avoids sentimentality by showing how our perceptions change when we fall in love, how the inner and outer worlds come to reflect each other.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
Today’s poem is a story from the eighties by Debra Marquart. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Occasionally, I pretend to resist feelings of nostalgia. Somehow, I got it in my mind that remembrances of things past prevented me from standing fully in the here and now — that musings about foregone events would eclipse any potential value I placed in the present." Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
Today’s poem is Translation by Anne Spencer. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “The last time I camped, a wolf’s howl gave me chills; it brought me closer to some primitive ancestor. I fell asleep to fantasies of leading a pack through boreal forest. The last time I camped, I gazed on evening stars blinking their wondrous code, jeweling the dark sky.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
Today’s poem is My Father and I Drive to St. Louis for His Mother's Funeral and the Wildflowers by Chaun Ballard. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Current global conflicts and discussions of borders spotlight the privilege of mobility. An American passport admits entry into 184 countries. Yet, even movement within the United States, for some people, is unsafe. Race and other identity markers, even today, circumscribe where people can travel and live with ease.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
Today’s poem is Great Question by Lisa Olstein. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Why do we lean on love so much for sustenance? When passion dwindles to a set of burned twigs, where once there was a raging fire; it’s as though a theft has occurred, the result of which makes us homesick for ourselves.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
Today’s poem is Under the Bed by Kirun Kapur. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “While not the equivalent of glimpsing the spirit world cleave the air, the insight of poets amounts to a kind of clairvoyance. They make connections that close the gap between the known and the unknown.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
Today’s poem is Ode to the Idea of France by Dan Alter. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “At parties, I jokingly discuss with friends about collectively purchasing property, maybe even a castle. I want us to live out our days together, to communally enact our shared values. They… are not convinced. I romanticize social utopias, especially those that, guided by equity and love, espouse alternative ways of coexisting with each other and the land.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
Today’s poem is Thirteen by Anna V.Q. Ross. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem celebrates the glow and growth of daughters, their energy and curiosity, their intuition and vulnerability.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
Today’s poem is An Exchange by Corey Marks. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “After a decade and a half of living in Vermont, one morning I thought, “Road signs all over the state and still no sighting of a moose?” Then, one morning, a large four-legged bulk of an animal appeared at the edge of a clearing along the road. I saw it from a distance as I rounded an ascending curve on Route 125. I slowed to a stop, and looked it over. We were eye-to-eye. It was massive and serene. For a long while, I thought the encounter improbable, but here I was: suspended in the moment, expecting transcendence of some kind, some boundless wisdom on a forested path to myself.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
Today’s poem is Fish Pier, Santa Monica by Vernon Duke, translated by Boris Dralyuk. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem taps into the beauty and spirit of California seaside beaches, whose amassed mythology and symbolism feeds so much of how we imagine and hear America.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
Today’s poem is blues-elegy for cheryl by Evie Shockley. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Despite the attacks on academic institutions, despite the diminishing power of free inquiry, scholarly work benefits us all. So much critical inquiry is born out of wonder and curiosity, like a crackling in the soul. Curiosity leads to exploration and research.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
Today’s poem is Casual Labor by Sandy Solomon. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s wonderful poem models a courageous leap beyond fear into a wholehearted kindness. The poem invites us to lean into each other with generosity so that we no longer flinch at the messy richness of our humanity.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
Today’s poem is First of March by Stacie Cassarino. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “I learned from all those mornings of weekly commuting — living in Burlington, Vermont and teaching in New York City — that my passions run in every direction. To the critique and dismay of friends, I would simply say, travel fulfills the country-mouse-city-mouse in me.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
Today’s poem is Dry Spell by Lisa Sewell. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Like so much of what our teachers share as advice about our writing, today’s poem can also be applied to our life off the page.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
Today’s poem is Love Poem by Sophie Cabot Black. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem reminds me of the daunting and ongoing and heartrending work of preparing ourselves to love and to dare to receive it, if we can.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
Today’s poem is A Response to the Misguided Student by Wesley Rothman. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “I gain as much, if not more, from my students as I believe they receive from me. Sometimes, a truly breathtaking poem lands on my desk, and I am utterly grateful for the miracle of language: a student writing about her developmentally disabled uncle and his heartbreaking kindness, a mother who emotionally wrestles with the challenges and joys of raising a transgender daughter.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
Today’s poem is Mirror, Mirror by Tom Healy. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s fine poem balances humor with hard truth-telling. It revives in me the bravery of boldly saying that which dignifies our existence with clarity. ” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
Today’s poem is Portable Paradise by Roger Robinson. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. We’re taking a break this week, so we’re running some of our favorite episodes from this season so far. This episode was originally released on 11/10/2023. In this episode, Major writes… “As so much poetry reminds us, suffering is at the core of being human. Yes, we fumble along. We live a melancholic existence. Some of us protest, confess, and bring the news in our works. Yet, today’s poem wisely announces that we should always keep that place which feels like heaven within sight. We should maintain an inner utopia, even if hidden from others. It, too, is worthy of mapping in literature.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
Today’s poem is Kinds of Silence by Elisabeth Murawski. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. We’re taking a break this week, so we’re running some of our favorite episodes from this season so far. This episode was originally released on 11/28/2023. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem captures that feeling of expectancy and uncertainty, a feeling that resonates lately, as I find myself wondering about the future — with so much of the earth and its inhabitants hurting, yet also, working towards a peaceful vision of our humanity.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
Today’s poem is A Funeral Ending with Beyoncé by Karisma Price. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. We’re taking a break this week, so we’re running some of our favorite episodes from this season so far. This episode was originally released on 07/18/2023. In this episode, Major writes… “When speaking about the dead, my uncle makes sure to hit his fisted hand on any object that looks grainy and some shade of brown. One theory is that the practice of touching wood has its roots in the medieval belief that trees contained spirits that positively intervened when summoned. Today’s poem continues this faith, that we can somehow protect ourselves, by acting out instinctive customs against bad news or fateful tragedy.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
Today’s poem is Feeding the Koi by Rosanna Young Oh. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. We’re taking a break this week, so we’re running some of our favorite episodes from this season so far. This episode was originally released on 11/02/2023. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem exemplifies those moments when sometimes we cannot speak or act on our truth because of debilitating fears. And on occasion, art is what provides clarity when we seek signs beyond the surface of our worlds.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
