The Slowdown: Poetry & Reflection Daily
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.
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.
Episodes
Mentioned books
May 28, 2025 • 6min
[encore] 1168: Refusing Rilke's "You must change your life" by Remica Bingham-Risher
Today’s poem is Refusing Rilke's "You must change your life" by Remica Bingham-Risher.The Slowdown is currently taking a break. We’ll be back soon with new episodes from a new host. This week, we’re revisiting some favorites from Major Jackson’s time as host. Today’s episode was originally released on July 24, 2024. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “I live with Rilke’s famous line, “You must change your life,” in my ear on repeat, an earworm, as if something is less than stellar about who I am today. I move instinctively towards myself as though I were a massive project, believing I will someday, again in Rilke’s words, “burst like a star.” That this is how to be seen, to be loved, to be cherished. This quest has distorted my sense of what is important, sown constant dissatisfaction, and emotional states of being that pose health risks. Pursuing perfection has, at times, alienated me from those I hold dear. Not that I don’t love them or they me — but that I get tunnel vision in seeking some heroic terminus.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
May 27, 2025 • 6min
[encore] 1201: Try to Praise the Mutilated World by Adam Zagajewski, translated by Clare Cavanagh
Today’s poem is Try to Praise the Mutilated World by Adam Zagajewski, translated by Clare Cavanagh. The Slowdown is currently taking a break. We’ll be back soon with new episodes from a new host. This week, we’re revisiting some favorites from Major Jackson’s time as host. Today’s episode was originally released on September 23, 2024. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “One of the great paradoxes in life is the presence of human suffering on the planet amidst prosperity. No religion can explain this other than point to some large cosmic plan. Sometimes it’s tough bearing witness and walking in a world where one feels debilitated, and silence around other people’s suffering feels like gaslighting.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
May 26, 2025 • 8min
[encore] 1029: If I Told Him, A Completed Portrait of Picasso by Gertrude Stein
Today’s poem is If I Told Him, A Completed Portrait of Picasso by Gertrude Stein. The Slowdown is currently taking a break. We’ll be back soon with new episodes from a new host. This week, we’re revisiting some favorites from Major Jackson’s time as host. Today’s episode was originally released on December 27, 2023. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem is a touchstone example of art that altered how we hear words, but also, how we perform language to transform words into elements of our yielding and will.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
May 23, 2025 • 7min
[encore] 600: I Imagine the Butches' Stripper Bar by Jill McDonough
Today’s poem is I Imagine the Butches' Stripper Bar by Jill McDonough.The Slowdown is currently taking a break. We’ll be back soon with new episodes from a new host. This week, we’re going back into the archive to revisit Ada Limón’s time as host. Today’s episode was originally released on January 31, 2022. In this episode, former host Ada Limón writes… “One of my favorite mysteries of the universe is what turns us on and why? When I talk with anyone about crushes and sensual pleasures and desires, what always impresses me is that everyone is different. We desire different things. Different attributes turn us on and make us ready to rip our clothes off and run through the streets. It makes sense that that’s the case. Everyone is so unique. Every crush is so unique. In today’s irreverent poem, we see an exploration of what the speaker finds sexy. It blooms into a whole new imaginary world, all in the service of desire.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
May 22, 2025 • 5min
[encore] 760: Song by Charif Shanahan
Today’s poem is Song by Charif Shanahan. The Slowdown is currently taking a break. We’ll be back soon with new episodes from a new host. This week, we’re going back into the archive to revisit Ada Limón’s time as host. Today’s episode was originally released on September 12, 2022. In this episode, former host Ada Limón writes… “When I am really writing, really working on poems, which is often as alive as I ever feel, as present as I ever feel, I am not just speaking to the world... I am listening to it. Listening to my body, my blood, my ever-changing pulse that slows and quickens depending on the emotionality of the subject.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
May 21, 2025 • 5min
[encore] 647: Walking Across Fire Island by Shelley Wong
Today’s poem is Walking Across Fire Island by Shelley Wong.The Slowdown is currently taking a break. We’ll be back soon with new episodes from a new host. This week, we’re going back into the archive to revisit Ada Limón’s time as host. Today’s episode was originally released on April 6, 2022. In this episode, former host Ada Limón writes… “I love to walk, when I’m healthy and mobile enough to walk, it’s one of my favorite things to do to recenter myself, or rather decenter myself. For me, it’s a solution to many things. When in doubt, hit the road, get out of yourself. Of course it doesn’t always work, and there were whole years where I was too sick with vertigo to properly go for a walk, but when it works, it really does work. You don’t have to have a plan. You don’t have to go fast or go slow. You don’t have to know the names of all the fauna and flora. You simply have to put your body into the world and something happens.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
May 20, 2025 • 6min
[encore] 571: Golden Age by Chris Santiago
Today’s poem is Golden Age by Chris Santiago.The Slowdown is currently taking a break. We’ll be back soon with new episodes from a new host. This week, we’re going back into the archive to revisit Ada Limón’s time as host. Today’s episode was originally released on December 21, 2021. In this episode, former host Ada Limón writes… “When I was a kid, I loved falling asleep to the sound of the television in the living room. I liked it most because it meant someone was up watching the world so I didn’t have to. The trouble of the world was unfolding on the news and I could sleep through it. There was something both comforting and eerie about it. A world that never shuts off. In today’s tender poem, we watch how the tv becomes almost another character in a multigenerational family.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
May 19, 2025 • 5min
[encore] 708: Bruised Peaches by Bronwen Tate
Today’s poem is Bruised Peaches by Bronwen Tate. The Slowdown is currently taking a break. We’ll be back soon with new episodes from a new host. This week, we’re going back into the archive to revisit Ada Limón’s time as host. Today’s episode was originally released on June 30, 2022. In this episode, former host Ada Limón writes… “Every Thursday when I take out the trash, I think about how I quantify the value of my life. Every laundry day. Every time I check the mail. It feels like this is how I know time has passed, we roll out the recycling, we mow the lawn, we watch as the seasons change. The day is broken up into the hours in which I feed the dog. Morning, noon, and evenings. Yes, she gets lunch. I give myself lunch, so the dog gets lunch too. There is safety and security in these routines. And yet, I’m sometimes scared that the whole routine of life might swallow me whole.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
May 16, 2025 • 6min
[encore] 236: Polaroid Ode by Cori Winrock
Today’s poem is Polaroid Ode by Cori Winrock.The Slowdown is currently taking a break. We’ll be back soon with new episodes from a new host. This week, we’re going back into the archive to revisit Tracy K. Smith’s time as host. Today’s episode was originally released on October 21, 2019. In this episode, Tracy writes… “Today’s poem captures the look and feel and ceremony—with all its hope and disappointment—of taking instant pictures. And it makes me wistful both for the past and the present.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
May 15, 2025 • 5min
[encore] 389: Kissing the Opelu by Donovan Kūhiō
Today’s poem is Kissing the Opelu by Donovan Kūhiō Colleps.The Slowdown is currently taking a break. We’ll be back soon with new episodes from a new host. This week, we’re going back into the archive to revisit Tracy K. Smith’s time as host. Today’s episode was originally released on May 21, 2020. In this episode, Tracy writes… “Today’s poem speaks to me of ancestry, tradition, and the fluidity of perception. We are who we are, the poem suggests to me, because of what we inherit from the people we love. Why does it have me thinking about ghosts and visitations? Maybe because I’ve decided that the people I love are always with me in one form or another.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
