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The Slowdown: Poetry & Reflection Daily

American Public Media

Arts Performing Arts

Latest episode

609 episodes

1478: If Night You Were a City by Adam Wiedewitsch
03/17/2026 | 6 mins.
Today’s poem is If Night You Were a City by Adam Wiedewitsch.

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “I’ve always loved myths, legends, fables, and fairy tales. When I was young, the myth of Icarus was one that captured my imagination.”

Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
1477: Surety by Anna Zumbahlen
03/16/2026 | 6 mins.
Today’s poem is Surety by Anna Zumbahlen.

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Writing is a way of memorizing moments. I know this. I do this. Because a poem can act as a portal, taking me back to a specific time and place. So often, mid-experience, I start to sense the poetic possibility of the moment. I find myself making a metaphor or grasping for imagery and descriptive language. I’m half living in the present, half processing this moment’s future on the page.”

Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
1476: The Quiet World by Jeffrey McDaniel
03/13/2026 | 6 mins.
Today’s poem is The Quiet World by Jeffrey McDaniel.

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Poets are known for making big moves in small spaces. We value brevity and compression, which go hand in hand. In a brief poem, maybe a poem with only a handful of lines, each word weighs a ton. We have to choose them carefully. An enormous amount of meaning — and possibility — is packed inside every word. I picture them as expandable suitcases, unzipped so that we can stuff even more inside them. That’s compression! The words themselves may be few, but they carry a great deal.”

Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
1475: Out of These Wounds, the Moon Will Rise by Jay Hopler
03/12/2026 | 5 mins.
Today’s poem is Out of These Wounds, the Moon Will Rise by Jay Hopler. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Today’s poem is about wishing, and in that way, I think it’s about hope. Even when a wish is farfetched and seems less than likely, hope is what allows us to make it anyway.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
1474: Epistemic Distance by Emma Bolden
03/11/2026 | 6 mins.
Today’s poem is Epistemic Distance by Emma Bolden.

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “I’m a poet, so I’m all for nuance. I embrace ambiguity, and I’m flexible in my thinking. But I refuse to believe that we’re living in a post-factual world. We might be tempted to call epistemology too abstract, too intellectual, too high brow, not relevant to the lives of real people. Who needs to know about this branch of philosophy when we’re just trying to get by, day by day? But if there was ever a time to think about what we know, and how we know it, it’s now.”

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

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About The Slowdown: Poetry & Reflection Daily

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.

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Arts Performing Arts