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.

  • 5 minutes 12 seconds
    1255: The Presence in Absence by Linda Gregg

    Today’s poem is The Presence in Absence by Linda Gregg. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual.


    In this episode, Major writes… “As poet Elizabeth Alexander asks in one of my favorite poems, “Ars Poetica #100”: “and are we not of interest to each other?” While not its only function, for poetry also thrives beyond the affairs of societies, poetry deepens our appreciation for people. Their perspectives and life events take central stage. It’s as if they are with us, though not with us.”


    Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

    6 December 2024, 9:00 am
  • 4 minutes 29 seconds
    1254: That's My Heart Right There by Willie Perdomo

    Today’s poem is That's My Heart Right There by Willie Perdomo. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual.


    In this episode, Major writes… “I did not appreciate the depth of emotions behind the songs my grandfather sang, until one morning when I arrived early to high school for track practice to see my crush holding hands with my best friend. Whew! I could have sung a hundred blues songs, and would have felt none the better. But I came to understand something about love; we are creatures with wild hearts.”


    Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

    5 December 2024, 9:00 am
  • 5 minutes 19 seconds
    1253: On the Death of a Young Lady Five Years of Age, a reinscription by Aracelis Girmay

    Today’s poem is On the Death of a Young Lady Five Years of Age, a reinscription by Aracelis Girmay. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual.


    In this episode, Major writes… “Last year, a group of poets celebrated the 250th anniversary book publication of Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral (1773) by Phillis Wheatley Peters. In honor of this important milestone editors Danielle Legros Georges and Artress Bethany White solicited Black female poets to write in the manner of Phillis Wheatley, or creatively reinscribe what is found in the text as some of her abiding images and important themes. The anthology, Wheatley at 250, from which today’s poem is taken, honors and celebrates the immense legacy of Phillis Wheatley Peters, whose work matters to all of us who cherish the possibilities of poems and poets to represent the highest ideals of literacy, and the miracle of language to free us.”


    Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

    4 December 2024, 9:00 am
  • 5 minutes 34 seconds
    1252: The Canonization by John Donne

    Today’s poem is The Canonization by John Donne. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual.


    In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s classic poem knows that loving hearts create possibilities for us to exist as full and whole human beings. We need as many examples as possible of sweet passion and friendship. It might be the key to our survival.”


    Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

    3 December 2024, 9:00 am
  • 6 minutes 14 seconds
    1251: On Living by Nâzim Hikmet, translated by Randy Blasing and Mutlu Konuk

    Today’s poem is On Living by Nazim Hikmet, translated by Randy Blasing and Mutlu Konuk. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual.


    In this episode, Major writes… “My walk that morning brought forth the world in technicolor, piercing green trees, a blue sky screeching loud as a free jazz concert, a jogger’s passing smile, soft, otherworldly. The earth hummed and throbbed. At a stoplight, I was suddenly filled with an inexplicable joy. My day of explosive happiness was counterintuitive. My inner world was actually gray; a family member has been battling cancer, another a victim of hurricanes, and then there was myself, ever negotiating the psychic demands of being present in a world where kindness feels in short supply.”


    Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

    2 December 2024, 9:00 am
  • 5 minutes 52 seconds
    1250: 52 Blue by Sappho Stanley

    Today’s poem is 52 Blue by Sappho Stanley. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual.


    In this episode, Major writes… “Today's poem probes into the ocean within the self — the mysteries of love.”


    Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

    29 November 2024, 9:00 am
  • 4 minutes 44 seconds
    1249: Farmers' Market by Molly Fisk

    Today’s poem is Farmers’ Market by Molly Fisk. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual.


    In this episode, Major writes… “When I was younger, as an introverted kid, I did not value large family gatherings during holidays, especially not Thanksgiving. Now, I appreciate what I once shunned. Gather me among kinfolks. Let’s talk loudly with drinks in our hands. Let’s enjoy the bounty of family and rituals that fill us with connection and the purpose of loving each other. And when we sit down to dinner, let our blessings surround us. Let us relish joyful interactions.”


    Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

    28 November 2024, 9:00 am
  • 6 minutes 11 seconds
    1248: Listening to Monk's Misterioso I Remember Braiding My Sisters' Hair by Christopher Gilbert

    Today’s poem is Listening to Monk's Misterioso I Remember Braiding My Sisters' Hair by Christopher Gilbert. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual.


    In this episode, Major writes… “The phrase “take me away” sounds passive. But music requires work, requires paying attention to changes, knowing a passage is an improvisational homage to some legendary artist. I love keeping up with the fast thinking behind the notes like little sunbursts. The nuances, say, of a Thelonious Monk off-chord is an intentional discordant act which announces presence.”


    Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

    27 November 2024, 9:00 am
  • 5 minutes 8 seconds
    1247: A Garden and a Street by Teresa Cader

    Today’s poem is A Garden and a Street by Teresa Cader. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual.


    In this episode, Major writes… “Poetry holds that place of both awakening and frustration, of perseverance against unimaginable violence and the flight away from the pains of our fragile world. Someday the bombs will stop falling. Someday the rhetoric of hatred will not have an audience. Isn’t this something that we all should work toward? Until then, so says the speaker in today’s poem, we must find a way to restore ourselves to a place of harmonious connection with and belief in all life.”


    Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

    26 November 2024, 9:00 am
  • 5 minutes 48 seconds
    1246: Big Purple Peonies by Margaret Ross

    Today’s poem is Big Purple Peonies by Margaret Ross. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual.


    In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s deeply satisfying poem arrives from an exacting eye. The poet’s kinetic imagination and mental roaming feel gorgeously reportorial and cinematic, mapping self-reflection through their portrayal of vibrant landscapes.”


    Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

    25 November 2024, 9:00 am
  • 5 minutes 41 seconds
    1245: Telescope by Louise Glück

    Today’s poem is Telescope by Louise Glück. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual.


    In this episode, guest host Myka Kielbon writes… “I live on a hill on the edge of a valley. I look out my window and watch cars creep by on the interstate that could take me a thousand miles to my birthplace if I so choose. This slice of Los Angeles – the one I look out over everyday – is odd to reconcile with the map that I see on my phone. So now, as I live in it, I try to find my own authentic knowledge of the earth I see and the earth I feel, some melding of technologies and body.”


    Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

    22 November 2024, 9:00 am
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