1348: Valentine for Ernest Mann by Naomi Shihab Nye
Today’s poem is Valentine for Ernest Mann by Naomi Shihab Nye. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Today’s poem speaks to how subjective gifts, like poems, can be. Sometimes all we need to do is see the gift through the giver’s eyes. We need to appreciate that person’s care and intention. Come to think of it, perspective is a gift all its own.” 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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1347: Animal Prudence by Kathy Fagan
Today’s poem is Animal Prudence by Kathy Fagan. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Today’s poem is a favorite of mine for its associative leaps—the way it carries us from image to image, memory to memory. I admire the way it uses the language we encounter in our lives to make those leaps: road signs, the names of streets and flowers, the lists we find in our pockets.” 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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1346: The Difficult Countryside by John Gallaher
Today’s poem is The Difficult Countryside by John Gallaher. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Moving through the world with a personal soundtrack in my ears makes me feel somehow insulated from the world AND more a part of the world. Clouds, birds, buildings, people—I see all of them differently with my favorite songs as the backdrop.” 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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1345: Arrangements by Adrienne Chung
Today’s poem is Arrangements by Adrienne Chung. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Today’s poem speaks to the things we are drawn to, and to the compromises that must happen when we share space with others, and when there just isn’t room for everything.” 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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1344: Cento Between the Ending and the End by Cameron Awkward-Rich
Today’s poem is Cento Between the Ending and the End by Cameron Awkward-Rich. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “In times that feel divisive and fragmented, today’s poem is a reminder of what we can do and BE together. It’s a reminder of the whole that is greater than the sum of its parts.” 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.
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