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 ack... More
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 ack... More
Available Episodes
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889: Short Talk on Waterproofing by Anne Carson
Today’s poem is Short Talk on Waterproofing by Anne Carson.
The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Jason Schneiderman writes… “In today’s poem, Anne Carson engages Franz Kafka, but not directly. Carson calls our attention to a small act of care, the tiny detail of a loving act taking place against a background of atrocity. It reminds us that sometimes the best way to see clearly is to look from the side.”
Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
5/31/2023
5:18
888: Sorrow Is Innate in the Human
Today’s poem is Sorrow Is Innate in the Human by Francesca Bell.
The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Jason Schneiderman writes… “Today’s poem is about motherhood. The speaker focuses less on what it means to her to be a mother, than on what her child is experiencing, and what her child might know and might need.”
Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
5/30/2023
5:02
887: Where are the girls who were so beautiful? from “33”
Today’s poem is Where are the girls who were so beautiful? from “33” by Julia Alvarez.
The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Jason Schneiderman writes… “Lately, I’ve heard many bemoan the end of movie stardom, but it’s comforting to remember that it’s an old argument. Three decades ago, we were already wondering what had happened to the glamor and melodrama of 1950’s Hollywood and Hollywood stardom that we were sure had so much to teach us.”
Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
5/29/2023
5:45
886: Stereo
Today’s poem is Stereo by Anne Waldman.
The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “‘Tis the season of weddings! In years past, I’ve poured libations; I’ve even read a poem, but this summer, I have the privilege and am hugely excited to officiate the nuptials of our friend and digital producer of The Slowdown, James Napoli and fiancé Britta Greene. Regarding, I’ll just say this: Love is an unrestrained force of tenderness and light in our world.”
Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
5/26/2023
6:59
885: Dear Past and Future Metastasis,
Today’s poem is Dear Past and Future Metastasis, by Chiyuma Elliott.
The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s fine poem makes delicate use of captured dialogue. The poem reveals our clumsy attempts to render legible who we are. Mostly we pass expected, typical speech between us but, occasionally, we make utterances so clear that they startle even ourselves.”
Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
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.