The Slowdown: Poetry & Reflection Daily
American Public Media
Host Maggie Smith is your daily poetry companion. Poetry is one of the greatest tools we have to wield our own attention — to consider our own lives and the lives of others, to help us live creatively and compassionately, to use that attention to lean into wonder, and joy, and truth, and to find hope — to keep hoping. The Slowdown community knows that reflecting on a poem, every weekday, can connect us to our inner world and the world around us. Listen as you make your morning coffee, as you go on a walk in your neighborhood, as you pull away from the to-do list, as you resist the dismal, endless scroll to share five minutes of perspective through the lens of poetry, from poets old and new, well-loved and emerging onto the scene. Brought to you by American Public Media, in partnership with the Poetry Foundation.
Episodes
Mentioned books
Jun 28, 2024 • 8min
1150: Fuji, Ararat by Legna Rodríguez Iglesias, translated by Eduardo Aparicio
Today’s poem is Fuji, Ararat by Legna Rodríguez Iglesias, translated by Eduardo Aparicio. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Leslie Sainz writes… “Today’s exquisite poem infuses the Petrarchan sonnet with playful existentialism and self-soothing. It’s Nietzsche meets Anti-Eat, Pray, Love—and as a work of translation, it defies impossibility.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
Jun 27, 2024 • 6min
1149: Agony's Rasp by Garous Abdolmalekian, translated by Ahmad Nadalizadeh and Idra Novey
Today’s poem is Agony's Rasp by Garous Abdolmalekian, translated by Ahmad Nadalizadeh and Idra Novey. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Leslie Sainz writes… “Today’s poem simultaneously inhabits the planes of presence and absence, conveying the suffering of avoidance from multiple perspectives. With restraint and disorienting beauty, we are at the mercy of the dying voice, the reviving voice, and the surviving voice.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
Jun 26, 2024 • 6min
1148: Urine Season by Niina Pollari
Today’s poem is Urine Season by Niina Pollari. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Leslie Sainz writes… “When someone in my life—an acquaintance, a coworker, a friend or beloved—experiences a tremendous loss, I am acutely reminded of how language fails us. We give out heartfelt condolences such as “I’m sorry for your loss,” “My deepest sympathy,” or “Thinking of you during these difficult times.” But they do not resurrect the dead and rarely comfort the living.”Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
Jun 25, 2024 • 6min
1147: A Book of Music by Jack Spicer
Today’s poem is A Book of Music by Jack Spicer. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Leslie Sainz writes… “Today’s nimble poem inspires me to think about rope idioms in the context of romantic relationships. When did you show your lover the ropes? Have you given your lover enough rope from which to dangle?”Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
Jun 24, 2024 • 6min
1146: Lonely Women by Choi Seungja, translated by Won-Chung Kim and Cathy Park Hong
Today’s poem is Lonely Women by Choi Seungja, translated by Won-Chung Kim and Cathy Park Hong. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Leslie Sainz writes… "I learned how to enjoy my own company while living in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. One evening, I decided to enter the Campus Theatre, an art-deco movie house known for showing a captivating mix of new releases, classics, and indie films. And it was there, sitting comfortably in a dark room, while staring at an anachronistically large screen, that my loneliness peeled off me in layers, alongside strangers coupled and lonely all the same."Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
Jun 21, 2024 • 7min
1145: Love Poem by the Light of the Refrigerator by Alisha Dietzman
Today’s poem is Love Poem by the Light of the Refrigerator by Alisha Dietzman. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Leslie Sainz writes… “Today’s poem, with its phantom-like repetition and delicate renderings of stereotypically gendered décor, demands our aesthetic attention. It is at once domestic and elemental, modest and suggestive, buoyant and exacting.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
Jun 20, 2024 • 6min
1144: Horse by TR Brady
Today’s poem is Horse by TR Brady. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Leslie Sainz writes… “Today’s deceptively simple poem is as provoking as it is spare. With parallel syntax and capacious anticipation, we witness the unbridgeable silences that exist between man and beast, man and earth, and, most immediately, between each other.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
Jun 19, 2024 • 7min
1143: Screenplay by Harryette Mullen
Today’s poem is Screenplay by Harryette Mullen. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Leslie Sainz writes… “Today’s poem performs the mundane in cinematic fashion. Through sharp auditory imagery, deliberate juxtaposition, and the suggestion of ritual, it reminds us that, though the musical scores of our lives are never not playing and not always pleasant, our job is, always, to listen.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
Jun 18, 2024 • 6min
1142: Hyperacusis by Santee Frazier
Today’s poem is Hyperacusis by Santee Frazier.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Leslie Sainz writes… “I find that I’m especially sensitive to sound. I also find that sonics drive my poetics. In my role as an editor, I gravitate towards writing that prioritizes rhythm, be it harmonious or unsettling, and I believe phonetics alone has the power to both eschew narrative meaning and dictate it.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
