Today’s poem is Puerto Rico Goes Dark by Juan J. Morales. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Given the misinformation that circulates on the internet, often unchecked, I’d like to preface today’s poem with a fact: Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens. Our struggles are bound because we are citizens, together, of this nation.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
--------
6:40
--------
6:40
1393: The Night Where You No Longer Live by Meghan O’Rourke
Today’s poem is The Night Where You No Longer Live by Meghan O’Rourke. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “The speaker of today’s poem addresses her late mother, asking questions that are devastating and relatable. While we don’t have access to the answers, this poem is a beautiful place for the questions to live.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
--------
5:50
--------
5:50
1392: Local Mission by Kai Carlson-Wee
Today’s poem is Local Mission by Kai Carlson-Wee. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “I’m someone who likes to read a book without having read any reviews or think pieces about the book or the author. Sometimes I prefer to engage with art—to listen to a record or see a film—without expectations. With a relatively clean slate. I want you to have that experience with today’s poem, a longer one, so I’m going to get out of the way. Listen and let its many pleasures find you.”Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
--------
6:01
--------
6:01
1391: Never-ending Birds by David Baker
Today’s poem is Never-ending Birds by David Baker. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Today’s poem is one I’ve carried around in my mind for years, one whose language I flash to instinctively when I see a flock of birds, especially a murmuration of starlings. I think of the phrase “never-ending birds”—a phrase coined not by the speaker of this poem, but by the speaker’s child.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
--------
6:55
--------
6:55
1390: The Poem Climbs the Scaffold and Tells You What It Sees by Natasha Oladokun
Today’s poem is The Poem Climbs the Scaffold and Tells You What It Sees by Natasha Oladokun. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “There is power in naming, as today’s poem reminds us. Once you’ve seen the violence tucked inside the place name Lynchburg, barely hidden at all—hidden in plain sight—I don’t think you’ll be able to see or say the word the same way again. Once you see it, you can’t unsee it. Nor should you.”Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
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.
USA