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The Slowdown: Poetry & Reflection Daily: Daily Summaries Delivered
by Eliana Benavides
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. Smi
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- Today7 min
[encore] 1347: Animal Prudence by Kathy Fagan
Today’s poem is Animal Prudence by Kathy Fagan. This episode was originally released on September 8, 2025.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.” This show is supported by gifts from listeners. Support The Slowdown with a donation today. Slowdownshow.org/donate
- 3 days ago8 min
[encore] 1336: I Find Myself Defending Pigeons by Keith S. Wilson
Today’s poem is I Find Myself Defending Pigeons by Keith S. Wilson. This episode was originally released on August 22, 2025. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “One thing I love about poems is how they give us the opportunity to take our time, to dial in, to look and listen closely. Not everything screams to be noticed. Some things barely whisper! Or they might just squawk or coo now and then.” This show is supported by gifts from listeners. Support The Slowdown with a donation today. Slowdownshow.org/donate
- 4 days ago7 min
[encore] 1369: Six Hours Lost, Land Between the Lakes by Kathleen Driskell
Today’s poem is Six Hours Lost, Land Between the Lakes by Kathleen Driskell. This episode was originally released on October 8, 2025. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Today’s poem tells a story about a tense encounter in the woods. I so admire how this poet unfolds the narrative, then leaves me sighing deeply at the end.” This show is supported by gifts from listeners. Support The Slowdown with a donation today. Slowdownshow.org/donate
- 5 days ago7 min
[encore] 1520: The New City by Hieu Minh Nguyen
Today’s poem is The New City by Hieu Minh Nguyen. This episode was originally released on May 21, 2026.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “There’s a very specific pleasure in doing things alone. Going to the movies by yourself, sitting in the dark with your own drink and popcorn or candy that you don’t have to share, and sitting anywhere you want in the theatre without asking a companion where they want to sit. Or having a meal on your own, party of one, just people watching and enjoying the ambience without the need to make conversation.” This show is supported by gifts from listeners. Support The Slowdown with a donation today. Slowdownshow.org/donate
- 6 days ago7 min
[encore] 1412: Ledge (ars poetica) (love poem) (true story) by Amorak Huey
Today’s poem is Ledge (ars poetica) (love poem) (true story) by Amorak Huey. This episode was originally released on December 15, 2025. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Today’s poem calls itself an ars poetica, a love poem, and a true story. That’s a lot of work for one poem to do — a lot of layers of meaning! But this poet does speak to the precarity of it all: writing, and loving, and living.” This show is supported by gifts from listeners. Support The Slowdown with a donation today. Slowdownshow.org/donate
- 1 weeks ago7 min
[encore] 1427: A toast to something beautiful flapping in the wind by J. Hope Stein
Today’s poem is A toast to something beautiful flapping in the wind by J. Hope Stein. This episode was originally released on January 5, 2026. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Once upon a time, I was a new mother with a baby girl in my arms, and I was her whole world. It was seventeen years ago, but sometimes I swear I can transport myself back there just by closing my eyes and taking a deep breath. I remember reading that a baby’s first three months of life are called the fourth trimester. Three trimesters are spent in the mother’s body, bobbing around like a little fish, but the "fourth trimester" is when everyone is adapting to life in the outside world. The babies seem bewildered, trying to adjust to nursing and sleeping, but I think parents are just as bewildered.” This show is supported by gifts from listeners. Support The Slowdown with a donation today. Slowdownshow.org/donate
- 1 weeks ago8 min
[encore] 1491: The Plum You're Going to Eat Next Summer by Gayle Brandeis
Today’s poem is The Plum You're Going to Eat Next Summer by Gayle Brandeis. This episode was originally released on April 10, 2026. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “I know optimism can be a tough sell when there’s so much suffering, so much difficulty, in the world. But this brokenness is exactly why we need more poems, more paintings, more films, more plays. More art. To make things that don’t exist yet — and don’t need to exist, because that is the very definition of art — and to send them out into the world is wildly, impractically, gorgeously hopeful.” This show is supported by gifts from listeners. Support The Slowdown with a donation today. Slowdownshow.org/donate
- 1 weeks ago7 min
[encore] 1358: Parts of a Body House by Erika Meitner
Today’s poem is Parts of a Body House by Erika Meitner. This episode was originally released on September 23, 2025. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “It struck me recently how much technology has changed our relationships with our bodies. There are devices that tell us how well (or poorly) we slept the night before, how many steps we took in a given day, what our heart rate is when we work out. We have access to more data about our physical selves than ever, and we don’t even need to go to the doctor to get that data. We also have access to our own image more than ever before. I know that technology has made me more aware of my body and my face, because I see myself so often: on Zoom, on Facetime, in selfies.” This show is supported by gifts from listeners. Support The Slowdown with a donation today. Slowdownshow.org/donate
About The Slowdown: Poetry & Reflection Daily
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. Smi
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