The Slowdown: Poetry & Reflection Daily

Today’s poem is Self-care Bucket List by Nancy K. Pearson. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Bucket lists orient people toward the future, true. They can sweep one ahead into a momentum of deserved recognition. Yet, how powerful to live without the aid, or, the loom, of an imagined inventory of milestones.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Today’s poem is Teleology by Willie Lin. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “We’ve so much between us: awards shows, music, art, weather, and a final breath we do not know when will befall us. And yet, some remain alien and indifferent to others, incurious—sometimes for money, but sometimes, by choice. How we cherish our isolation.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Today’s poem is Kinds of Silence by Elisabeth Murawski. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem captures that feeling of expectancy and uncertainty, a feeling that resonates lately, as I find myself wondering about the future — with so much of the earth and its inhabitants hurting, yet also, working towards a peaceful vision of our humanity." Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Today’s poem is To Do: Write Cephalopod Poem by Eleni Sikelianos. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem beautifully speaks to the notion of writing toward a future self, and understands that the echoes, even, of one’s breathing, are found in patterns of our thinking.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Today’s poem is Something Sweet by Hannah Lowe. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem, a sonnet, holds the truth that the world is capable of awakening us out of our petrified states. We can be charmed back into our bodies and repaired, so that we feel again, sometimes acutely, the sweetness of our existence more than the hostile and profane.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Today’s poem is eco-hood by Melania Luisa Marte. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem dignifies the lives of people in low-income neighborhoods whose early practices of thrift and ingenuity created intrinsic values of sustainability, personal style, and care for human habitats.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Today’s poem is What to Do With the Hedges by Bernard Ferguson. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem acknowledges the complex task of committing to the earth, which means committing to a sustainable future but also, identifying the entangled histories of colonization — of both people and of natural habitats.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Today’s poem is Without Name by Pauli Murray. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today, words lead me to pockets of understanding, which I've carefully cultivated through writing poetry. The journey to insights and those momentary stays against confusion are often filled with inarticulate, wayward wanderings and long stretches of speechlessness. Part of my love of poetry is owed to how it stages eloquence and puts a finishing touch on the thing that I finally needed to say. But, on occasion, we find silence as a vessel of our innermost feelings. Today’s poem illustrates how, when language is muted, strong emotions such as love and desire are amplified — and echo into a future without end.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Today’s poem is Secular and Inconsolable by Noah Blaustein. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Some mornings I wake and say, “Today is the day I will turn off the phone. I will ignore alerts to meetings. I will not open the laptop. Today I’ll disregard all that beckons — coworkers, friends, family, pets too.” But of course… I hop up, brew coffee, feed the dog, sharpen some pencils, and get to work answering emails. For those, like me, like most everyone, I’d guess, who struggle to achieve work-life balance, playing hooky should be a national holiday. Just picture it: scores of us abandoning our desks, heading to nearby parks or movie theaters, beaches, or libraries. Can you see it, a nation basking in a self-contained bubble of condoned indolence?” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Today’s poem is To the bartender who tends to more than just the bar by Annie Marhefka. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem celebrates one of the quiet purveyors of our sometimes much-needed fun, the bartender who knows our name, who listens to our lives, and brings more than just a smile to our day.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Today’s poem is I Hear America Singing by Walt Whitman. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… "We, here, at the Slowdown are celebrating our 1000th episode. This is a milestone deserving of its own reflection. I’ve three observations before we raise our public media coffee mugs or flutes of sparkling cider for a communal toast. 1. One thousand poems are in circulation with opening remarks in what effectively is an audio anthology on our website. For teachers, parents, and lovers of the written word, what an invaluable resource! The commentaries by our hosts and guest hosts make an irrefutable argument about the place of poetry in our lives. We invite you to return to your favorite poets and poems. Or choose a significant date, such as your birthday, and treat yourself to the immense talent we’ve featured on that day over the past five years. 2. Personally, I am swallowed up by so much in my day-to-day life. As a member of a caring community, I also experience the sweep of history and its conflicts which make themselves present everyday. I ponder the struggle to enact laws and policies that uphold our freedom; and I contemplate the reach of global conflicts. In my opinion, nothing dignifies our existence like the poem which, in the midst of that swirl, comes forth as the voice of a human soul, as an individual speaking, testifying, witnessing it all. When I encounter the poem on the page, I am afforded the profound and intimate pleasure of hearing someone’s inner thoughts. What we try to do on The Slowdown is to preserve that intimacy. Every poem advances our humanity in language. It captures so much more that is intimate and telling. Our better selves are explored, given the stage, rather than our base needs which often sets us in conflict. We’ve a tenderness to us. Poetry allows that softness to come to the fore where we are more reflective, more conciliatory, more in concert with each other. 3. Poets urge me to not look away. To see everything which can be difficult. Thank you for slowing down and seeing with us. Today’s poem, by an essential American poet, reminds me why this show matters. We want — no, need — to hear and honor the whole expanse of human existence."

Today’s poem is clap-on by LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem reminds me to be on the lookout for such unsavory business practices, dominant in industries where we are most vulnerable.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Today’s poem is A Computerized Jet Fountain in the Detroit Metro Airport by Sidney Wade. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem of rhyming quatrains is a perfect example of linguistic beauty; its precise rhymes and conversational meter give the poem a kinetic energy, a lyrical wonder of motion and music.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Today’s poem is Letter to the Editor by Andrea Gibson. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “I am sappy when it comes to romance. I chalk it up to the R&B music of my youth, songs about longing that anchor tenderness as essential, and hone in on loneliness as the bluesy aftermath of love gone awry. Today’s poem knows both that softness, and that messiness.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Today’s poem is A Portable Paradise by Roger Robinson. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “As so much poetry reminds us, suffering is at the core of being human. Yes, we fumble along. We live a melancholic existence. Some of us protest, confess, and bring the news in our works. Yet, today’s poem wisely announces that we should always keep that place which feels like heaven within sight. We should maintain an inner utopia, even if hidden from others. It, too, is worthy of mapping in literature.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Today’s poem is Dear—, by DéLana R.A. Dameron. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem of rhyming couplets speaks a truth about loneliness; the wish for a sustaining love and companionship motivates us to work through our differences sometimes at the expense of our emotional health.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Today’s poem is ACT! pose with fingers as though cigarette (puff puff) by India Lena González. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “If I could change careers as an artist, I’d likely want to become an actor — something about all those voices and the power of speaking in relationship to my feelings and those of others — to have all those characters bouncing around in my body.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Please note that today’s episode contains mentions and descriptions of suicide. If this topic is difficult for you, please feel free to skip. We will be back tomorrow with more poems. Today’s poem is Bundt Cake from Sam's Club by Lotte Mitchell Reford. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem unpacks the workings and limitations of sacred spaces — and the unexpected emotions they evoke.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Today’s poem is Imago by Sandra Alcosser. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem draws attention to a moment in our evolution, when we feel ourselves closer to our true essence, especially in the presence of others.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Today’s poem is Googling Ourselves by Philip Schultz. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “It’s become common now to check our digital footprint, to seek evidence of ourselves in cyberspace, a place where we might also encounter our namesakes. Today’s poem delves into the psychological roots of this self-searching.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp