The Slowdown: Poetry & Reflection Daily

681 episodios

1544: Versions of Girlhood by Tina Chang
24/06/2026 | 5 min
Today’s poem is Versions of Girlhood by Tina Chang.

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… "Today’s poem makes me feel seen as a mother, and it also reminds me to stay present — to appreciate exactly where we are together, right now."

This show is supported by gifts from listeners. Support The Slowdown with a donation and get access to the sponsor-free version of The Slowdown today. slowdownshow.org/donate
1543: What the Suitcase Bearing My Family Name Might Have Contained When It Arrived at Auschwitz by Ava Nathaniel Winter
23/06/2026 | 6 min
Today’s poem is What The Suitcase Bearing my Family Name Might Have Contained When it Arrived at Auschwitz by Ava Nathaniel Winter.

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… "It is a privilege to have lived in the same part of the same country, safely, for generations. It is a privilege to have a basement, an attic, or a garage filled with boxes: books, family photos, children’s artwork from years of school. They are just things, yes. And they are not just things at all. I try to remember this privilege when complaining about clutter."

This show is supported by gifts from listeners. Support The Slowdown with a donation and get access to the sponsor-free version of The Slowdown today. slowdownshow.org/donate
1542: What We Wanted by Carol Moldaw
22/06/2026 | 6 min
Today’s poem is What We Wanted by Carol Moldaw.

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… "Maybe humans have muscle and sense memory not unlike my dog on her walk around the block. We instinctively know the way, and we are most comfortable traveling the paths we’ve traveled before. It becomes a part of who we are, of how we know ourselves. But sometimes we want or need to travel “off the beaten path,” as they say. Sometimes, as we see in today’s poem, we have to find — or create — a new way."

This show is supported by gifts from listeners. Support The Slowdown with a donation and get access to the sponsor-free version of The Slowdown today. Slowdownshow.org/donate
1541: Poem to Watch over You by Omotara James
19/06/2026 | 7 min
Today’s poem is Poem to Watch over You by Omotara James.

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Diannely Antigua writes… “On Juneteenth, freedom feels like a welcome long denied. It is also a welcome we must keep making possible for each other every day. Not only in law, but in practice. Freedom should be both a declaration and a way of living. Today’s poem imagines that kind of welcome. It speaks to that miracle of arrival, to a life entering the world without needing justification. It reminds us that before the world teaches us otherwise, there is the simple and sacred fact of being received.”

This show is supported by gifts from listeners. Support The Slowdown with a donation and get access to the sponsor-free version of The Slowdown today. Slowdownshow.org/donate
1540: Boombox Ode: Enjoy the Silence by K. Iver
18/06/2026 | 5 min
Today’s poem is Boombox Ode: Enjoy the Silence by K. Iver.

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Diannely Antigua writes… “There was a time when love, or the possibility of it, came to you as a mixtape or burned CD. The songs were carefully chosen and painstakingly ordered. It wasn’t limitless, like today’s playlists. You had maybe seventy or eighty minutes, which meant every song had to mean something. And when you got one, you’d sit there rewinding and replaying, trying to decode the hidden message the music played back.”

This show is supported by gifts from listeners. Support The Slowdown with a donation and get access to the sponsor-free version of The Slowdown today. Slowdownshow.org/donate

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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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