The Slowdown: Poetry & Reflection Daily

Today’s poem is Sati by Vandana Khanna. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Today’s poem is a persona poem from the point of view of a Hindu goddess, Sati. The practice of a widow throwing herself on her husband’s funeral pyre is named after Sati, who, in this poem, gets to speak. I think you’ll be moved by what she has to say.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Explore the intricate world of gift-giving, where joy and anxiety collide. Discover how thoughtful gifts can strengthen bonds and reflect personal intentions. Dive into the beauty of perspective and appreciation, emphasizing that sometimes the simplest gestures hold the deepest meaning. This episode celebrates poetry as a unique gift, inviting listeners to embrace the love and care behind each offering. A touching reminder that perspective itself is a precious gift.

Today’s poem is Animal Prudence by Kathy Fagan. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Today’s poem is a favorite of mine for its associative leaps—the way it carries us from image to image, memory to memory. I admire the way it uses the language we encounter in our lives to make those leaps: road signs, the names of streets and flowers, the lists we find in our pockets.” 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 Difficult Countryside by John Gallaher. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Moving through the world with a personal soundtrack in my ears makes me feel somehow insulated from the world AND more a part of the world. Clouds, birds, buildings, people—I see all of them differently with my favorite songs as the backdrop.” 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 Arrangements by Adrienne Chung. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Today’s poem speaks to the things we are drawn to, and to the compromises that must happen when we share space with others, and when there just isn’t room for everything.” 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 Cento Between the Ending and the End by Cameron Awkward-Rich. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “In times that feel divisive and fragmented, today’s poem is a reminder of what we can do and BE together. It’s a reminder of the whole that is greater than the sum of its parts.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

TranscriptI’m Maggie Smith and this is The Slowdown. One of my favorite things about words is their history. As a writer, I’m curious about the words I choose for my poems. When I look up the origin of a word, it’s like unfolding a map, and seeing the journey that word has taken to reach me. Suddenly I know it better. It feels special to me, like a friend. Let’s take the word migrant, for example—a word I’ve used in a poem. Migrant comes from the Latin migrans, meaning "changing place." So a migrant is one who moves from place to place. The adjective migratory is related to migrant. As in migratory birds. The verb migrate is related, too. On any given day, reading or watching or listening to the news, I’m confronted with divisive arguments about where people belong. All over the world, there are violent conflicts over land: invasions and occupations. In the US, there is so much talk about our borders, and about immigrants, and particularly alarming lately, talk about citizenship. Many of those arguments seem so focused on difference that they ignore our common humanity. The words we use matter. The language we choose can strip a person’s dignity from them, or restore that dignity. When undocumented immigrants are called “illegals,” or “illegal aliens,” those words carry meaning. They also carry a heavy negative connotation. Those terms are dehumanizing, and I think that’s the point. I’ve been listening to the words being used for immigrants, for refugees, and for asylum-seekers in this country, and I have been watching their mistreatment. I have friends who work at elementary schools, and who are afraid that ICE will come and take their students, or their students’ parents. From SCHOOL. I have friends who are afraid for their loved ones, their neighbors, their coworkers. This country does not feel like a place of freedom and possibility for those seeking a better life. It feels like an increasingly hostile place.Today’s poem looks at the word migrant and its meaning apart from the current political climate. Movement from place to place, after all, suggests possibility, opportunity, and AGENCY. To migrate, whether you can fly or not, is to be free./’mīgrent/ by Tiana NobileOf an animal, especially a bird. A wandering specieswhom no seas nor places limit. A seed who survives despitethe depths of hard winter. The ripple of a herring steering her band from seas of ice to warmer strands. To find the usual watering-places despite the gauzeof death that shrouds our eyesis a breathtaking feat. Do you ever wonder whywe felt like happy birds brushing our featherson the tips of leaves? How we lifted our toesfrom one bank of sand and landed—fingertips first—on another? Why we clutched the dumb and tiny creaturesof flower and blade and sod between our budding fists?From an origin of buried seeds emergethese many-banded dagger wings.We, of the sky, the dirt, and the sea. We,the seven-league-booters and the little-by-littlers.We, transmigrated souls, will prevail.We will carry ourselves into the realms of light.“/’mīgrent/” by Tiana Nobile from CLEAVE © 2021 Tiana Nobile. Used by permission of Hub City Press.

Today’s poem is And Then It Was Less Bleak Because We Said So by Wendy Xu. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “When the world is on fire, it can feel frivolous to go dancing, to go to concerts, to host parties, to take vacations. Today’s poem so beautifully addresses the importance of holding onto joy—and onto one another—when the world feels dismal.” 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 Lake by Noah Falck. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes, “Today’s poem acknowledges the beauty we have—the view we have. It also mourns the beauty that would exist without our interference. Holding space for both is a feat of empathy and imagination.” 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 From the Sky by Sara Abou Rashed. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes, “When I think about ways to foster empathy, perspective, and care, one of those ways is poetry. I know poetry can’t stop bombs from falling, and it can’t feed the starving, and it can’t evacuate people to safety. I know this. But poetry can change our inner world. We need that change, one person at a time. We need to reclaim our humanity.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp