The Slowdown: Recent Episodes
American Public Media
Host Ada Limón delivers a different way to see the world – through poetry. In just one turn of phrase, poetry can anchor us, or shift a moment, a day, or even a whole life. Join us for a poem and a moment of reflection in one short episode, every weekday. Produced by American Public Media in partnership with The Poetry Foundation.
Today’s poem is abundance of light by erica lewis.
The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “I hear in today’s poem a haunting, reckoning, and nostalgia – dominant themes among poets on the road. On stages and podiums, we traded poems about heartbreak, childhood memories, and personal loss. What emerges is a triumphant questioning spirit that overcomes grief and uncertainty.”
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 Frederick Douglass by Robert Hayden.
The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s monumental poem keeps alive the fighting spirit of one of the great minds of the 19th century, whose eloquent speeches and books brought into focus freedoms we sometimes take for granted.”
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 Love Sits by My Father by Qutouf Elobaid.
The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “People in love are complicated; no one knows this more than the children, who get a front row seat to how affection plays itself out in the home, or not. Which influences how they interact and understand intimacy operating, or not, around them. Many psychological experts suggest making affection and tenderness appropriately visible in the lives of children. It goes far to ensure emotional stability. What children observe may drive them as adults to positively replicate their parent’s model, attempt to fulfill their parents' lack, or avoid intimacy altogether. A kiss, a hug, any physical expression of fondness is an active possibility of healing that radiates out into the world.”
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 In Praise of Mystery: A Poem for Europa by Ada Limón.
This June, the US Poet Laureate and former host of The Slowdown, Ada Limón, unveiled a poem that she wrote for NASA's Europa Clipper, a poem that will be inscribed in her own hand on the side of the spacecraft set for Jupiter's water moon, 1.8 billion miles away. Her work is partnered with the Message in a Bottle project, which invites anyone to have their name etched on the microchip mounted to the outside of the spacecraft. Our producer, Myka Kielbon, met with Ada in the ceremonial offices of the Poet Laureate in the Library of Congress, to connect on this moment that merges science, art and humanity.
A shortened version of their conversation is in today’s podcast feed. The full version of this interview is on our website, slowdownshow.org.
Today’s poem is Two Photographs by Theresa Lola.
The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Susan Sontag, writing about Robert Mapplethorpe, once wrote, “a [photograph] convey[s] a truth about the subject, a truth that would not be known were it not captured. . . All such claims, however contradictory, are claims of power over the subject.” The speaker in today’s poem remarks how photographs, be they selfies or those professionally rendered, capture our growth.”
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 Failed Essay on Privilege by Elisa Gonzalez.
The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “We are in the midst of an attack on perceived advantages. Earlier this year, the U.S. Supreme Court ended race conscious admissions in higher education. The decision is sure to have a domino effect in our society. The ruling closed one of the proven means to economic and upward mobility for everyone, but especially talented youth of various backgrounds born into low-income households, or, like me, raised in working-class communities.”
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 wanted music by Sarah Ruhl. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Shira Erlichman writes… “The doorbell rings. It’s my childhood friend, Jake. Where any two friends would exchange hellos, he and I say nothing. We get in his car without a word. There are only 3 rules at a Silence Party: 1) no talking 2) hang out 3) listen. Because we aren’t trying to fill the air with words––our observations, what we like or dislike––we are left to experience.” 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 from FIXER by Edgar Kunz. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Shira Erlichman writes… “In our old apartment, if it wasn’t one thing, it was another. Besides being old and hardly-maintained by management, the building was a living being, prone to moods. To fix her was an illusion. What we did was temporarily subdue, patch up, cover over.” 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 Thirty-Fifth Year by Charif Shanahan. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Shira Erlichman writes… “As each birthday arrives, what do we expect from our new age, its vantage point? Today’s poem unspools a wealth of questions, both practical and existential.” 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 Willing in the Orisha by Camonghne Felix. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Shira Erlichman writes… “Do we reach for ritual to melt paralysis? Do we reach for ritual when our personhood is fragmented, or lost to us? Today’s poem explores the daring act of ritual. I love its decision to move toward incantation, toward worship.” 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 Famous by Naomi Shihab Nye. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Shira Erlichman writes… “What makes someone famous? The dictionary says it’s the “state of being known or talked about by many people.” Today’s poet resituates our cultural obsession with stardom and flips on its head who gets to be fanatically revered.” 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 Crackerbell by Mary Ruefle. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Shira Erlichman writes… “Today’s poem confronts the fork in the road where we are pushed to change. And though this push is ruthless and confusing and total, the speaker humbly persists. I learn a lot from that persistence, which could also be called self-love.” 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 The Jungle by Carrie Fountain. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Shira Erlichman writes… “Today’s poet reflects on a girlhood lived in contrast to boys. What does it mean to be a girl, then a woman, then a mother to a son in this culture, this chaos, this jungle?” 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 Sonnet written walking under the mess some magnolia made by Jay Deshpande. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Shira Erlichman writes… “Today’s poem understands not just the bloom of romantic love, but the rot and mess and grit that’s just as worthy of our praise, of the glorious spending of our hearts.” 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 The Dictator in Prison by Adélia Prado, translated by Ellen Doré Watson. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Shira Erlichman writes… “In one lifetime we’re tasked with bearing a range of horrors. It amazes me that underneath it all––the denial, dissociation, or rage––the heart keeps going. I used to think this gust of empathy was my weakness. I now know it’s a superpower.” 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 Very Large Moth by Craig Arnold. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Shira Erlichman writes… “Today’s poem teaches us that you can’t choose your holy moments. The poet is a sudden citizen of bewilderment. When it comes time to express a kinship across species, he finds himself bereft.” 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 After We Buried the Dog in the Dark by Jin Cordaro.
The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “My family has a shelf of movies to test whether someone new to our orbit has a heart. At the top of this short list is the film Hachi: A Dog’s Tale. based on the true story of a white Akita dog named Hachiko. If said person is not bawling their eyes out by the end of this movie they just might not have a pulse. The movie is in its own category of sentimentality, one which dogs demand of us. Yet, what breaks through is a textured allegory about a dog’s loyalty. A dog’s love is primitive, mythic, and the stuff of folklore.”
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 Survivor by Geffrey Davis.
The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “These days, whenever I sit down to dinner with my kids or am fortunate to catch them in their busy lives, I wistfully recall the pleasures of becoming a father… and the shock of it. Not that Langston was an abstract idea for nine months, but when your child, pretty much a biological speculation grown into a creature, is placed in your arms for the first time screaming itself into the world, an amazing wave of obligation and accountability lands full force into your heart. No experience up till that moment suffices to prepare you. When my friends arrived home with their adopted daughters, I read that same jolt of recognition on their faces.”
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 Guy in a Black SUV by William J Harris.
The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem, through use of hyperbole, voice, and tone, arrives at visualization as a form of retribution. Its strong cinematic action subverts and upends gender norms. The poem reminds me how we stretch our minds to manifest feelings and unknown states within—a power that affords us catharsis.” 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 Sorcery by Jessica Hagedorn.
The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem cautions us to the bewitching, yet striking, perfection of art and beauty. We are susceptible to its magic, and even sometimes, to the magic of its maker.” 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 While Shaving by Alfredo Aguilar.
The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes "Today’s poem beautifully illustrates a startling recognition: parents provide us with the skills they’ll need us to perform when they are no longer independent, the lessons we will remember them by when they are no longer with us."
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 Voyeuristic Intentions by Adele Elise Williams.
The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “If the Yoruba proverb, character is beauty, is true, then, given the hostilities in the world and mass indifference, a bright spirit, full of warmth and compassion, is likely forged over time out of suffering. Such a soul exudes empathy and light. And thus, we acknowledge and survive off each other’s radiance, a moral beauty, as the ancient Greeks believed, that equated to goodness. ”
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 Happy Campus by Rodrigo Toscano.
The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem of self-mocking irony makes the connection between our daily routines and the natural and artificial environments that we navigate—how we negotiate a dissonance that complicates our sense of what’s real and what’s unreal.”
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 Labor Theory of Value by Angie Sijun Lou.
The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poet sees the field—or the writing of poetry—as a means of strengthening our bonds, our Platonic love. It’s a labor of seeing that transforms those fragmented moments, and unconnected objects in the world into an ever-expansive, idealized symbol of desire and understanding.”
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 Penmanship by Allison Joseph.
The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem venerates the power of writing as an exchange with the world, how our thoughts travel outward, but then, in the end, bring us to the center of our own existence.”
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 my sister by Trapeta B. Mayson.
The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “My mother did not live long enough to read my poems about her. I like to think that she would have appreciated how I processed our shared history and relationships, even the difficult moments. I like to think she’d have granted me the latitude to craft the poems I needed to write, and possibly understood that the practice of poetry is one of imagining and composing rather than simply reporting what happened. ”
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 Epilogue by Robert Lowell.
The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem affirms the simple approach of narrating our lives as a means of shining a light on our complex era. Given our quick passage on earth, the poem argues that to tell our stories and name the people who populate our lives is noble and rewarding enough.”
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 elegy for the moaner, 2016 by Airea D. Matthews.
The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Grieving the death of a relative, or friend, is hard work. Work made even more difficult by the sudden and complex task of interring a body and its belongings. The living are thrust into the minutiae of funeral proceedings, caterers, florists, lawyers, movers, and estate professionals. All the while, hearts are heavy.”
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 this is a library by Asiya Wadud.
The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s empathetic poem, which takes the tone of an elementary school primer, encourages a greater noticing of those who are leastwise among us, who fall outside the social fabric of our care. In doing so, hopefully, we might reverse prevailing attitudes toward the unhoused, who often are the target of violence and intolerance.”
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 Prayer by Philip Metres.
The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem follows a long tradition of devotional poetry. In such poems, often a speaker asks for intervention, relief, and renewal. It is a human call out into the empty immensity of the universe. It is one of the things we do during quiet acts of meditation. We ask for help in dealing with our human cares. We ask to have our fears dissolved, to be shown a way, to break open into a new reality.”
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 Via Politica by Luljeta Lleshanaku, translated by Ani Gjika.
The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Everyday, people around the world are living through astonishing crises, both multi-generational and personal, vast and siloed. Today’s poem speaks to the all-encompassing and leveling despair we carry when we are survivors, or the descendents of survivors.”
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 from "The Garden of Limbs" by Cristina Pérez Díaz.
The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem, which alludes to the biblical story of Adam and Eve and the first garden, celebrates the carnal sweetness of those chill days with a beloved. The poem brazenly proclaims the power (and maybe even recklessness) of sensuous mating that is its own form of world-building, voyage, and cultivation.”
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 Country of Water by Mahogany L. Browne.
The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Sometimes, I walk down the street, rooting for myself. Sometimes, it takes being in your own corner, especially when faced with a challenge for which nothing less than an attitude of absolute confidence will do. Today’s poem is all about self-blessing. Far from boasting or ego-tripping, the speaker makes an incantation out of self-affirmation.”
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 Theme for the nautical cowboy by Kinsale Drake.
The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “One of the reasons why I'm drawn to poetry is because it invites a scale of seeing that sometimes might go undetected. The work of our guest, Leah Thomas, allows folks to engage in what might be hidden. Today’s poem, one by a poet featured on Season Three of As She Rises, invites that same scale of seeing and care, not only across universes, but also throughout time.”
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 Funeral Ending with Beyoncé by Karisma Price.
The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “When speaking about the dead, my uncle makes sure to hit his fisted hand on any object that looks grainy and some shade of brown. One theory is that the practice of touching wood has its roots in the medieval belief that trees contained spirits that positively intervened when summoned. Today’s poem continues this faith, that we can somehow protect ourselves, by acting out instinctive customs against bad news or fateful tragedy.” 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 Not It by Caitlin Doyle.
The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Memories of our youth make the journey to adulthood seem like a flicker. One minute you’re ten years old, rounding 2nd base or performing Sleeping Beauty in a ballet recital… the next, you’re sitting on a call with colleagues, talking marketing strategies or marveling at the swiftness of time with family and friends.” 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 Red by Jonathan Maule.
The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem understands the sacred exchange of contemporary literature. It is a spiritual and creative dowry of the mind and heart that is consecutively passed from writer to writer, from writer to reader.”
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 Invented Landscape by L.A. Johnson.
The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Each generation of poets rewrites the function of poetry in society. And this episode isn’t the first time I’ve chimed in. I once wrote: “poetry, like all imaginative creations, divines the human enterprise. This is poetry's social function.” I still believe that, but also know that poems which attempt to re-envision a better world, one that is kinder, more humane, more just, those poems are reaching for the greatest possibility to impact.”
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 Take This Poem by Elizabeth Willis. This episode was recorded live, in-person, at On Air Fest 2023.
Onstage, Major described that “In coming to this role, I've been thinking a lot about how poetry shifts from the page to the voice. How the words hold different meanings written versus spoken. For when we speak out loud the words of the poets, we access their freedom and consciousness and rage for order. As my friend Robert Pinsky tells us, “poetry’s medium is the individual chest and throat and mouth of whoever undertakes to say the poem.” It is a physical embodiment that changes us and the spaces we occupy. The poem creates an environment.”
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 Vision from the Blue Plane-Window by Ernesto Cardenal, translated by Jonathan Cohen.
The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “On a recent return flight to Nashville, I secured a window seat. I looked out as the jet sped up the runway, as the nose pointed skyward, and the earth receded. That’s when the fantasy began. My whole life I have imagined a world without war.”
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 Love and the Deli Counter by Jill McDonough. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “I love the spaces we enter, in which we feel a rich sense of our differences, of our collective humanity, and a lightness of being. Today’s poem exhibits the kind of love and care and humor that passes through us out in the world.”
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 from "fabula: towards a black mirror” by Victoria Adukwei Bulley.
The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “For both poet and reader, the best poems can offer a pathway out of the prison of false assumptions and the dangers of snapshot generalizations.”
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 Who Among You Knows the Essence of Garlic? by Garrett Hongo.
The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem exemplifies the kind of deep historical and sensory awareness only possible when one has turned their senses into a laboratory of feeling and wonder.”
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 Voices of the Air by Katherine Mansfield.
The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “When we discover the reach of our voices, we disturb the silence around us. We experience self-possession. Today’s poem makes an allegory of small creatures who also render their presence both meaningful and heard.”
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 America, I Do Not Call Your Name without Hope by Dean Rader.
The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem encourages us to do more than celebrate the narrative of our country, to reflect on our sacred inheritance with its sacred past.”
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 Poem by Jorie Graham.
The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “As readers of poetry, we get to engage with and listen to the mind of a poet who, in the normal course of a day, we might not casually encounter. For this reason, I treasure the anonymity of the page. We meet the speaker in the poem on their own terms without any preconceived notions.”
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 The Messenger by Brynn Saito.
The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem renders visible the change that needs to happen — the vows we make to ourselves in order to grow, to become the person we were meant to be; however painful, however triumphant.”
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 How Long Could I Have Been Weightless? by Colin Channer.
The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem reminds us that despite the wonders of engineering, our lives are fragile. It suggests that, maybe, we should avoid the false protections our modern age promises, that maybe we should live patiently and slowly within the bounds of ourselves.”
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 My Dearest Black-Billed Streamertail by Michelle Whittaker.
The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “The speaker in today’s epistolary poem turns to the hummingbird as an avatar of their own wish to soar.”
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 After the Farm was Sold to FedEx by Carlie Hoffman.
The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Often, nostalgia can look like that woodblock key handed to us at the interstate rest stop. It opens a door, but the past is really a little room and kind of smelly, yet, in our mind, exists as a golden age. One we urgently grasp for.”
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 State of Permanent Visibility by Steve Healey.
The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem guides us to the revelation that we become the machines we dream, especially when what drives us is to be seen. We find ourselves contending with the mechanization of human behavior that divorces us from our power, which is the very real bodies we live in, and not the projected images of ourselves on screens.”
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 Self-Portrait as Derivatives Trader by José Edmundo Ocampo Reyes. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Change and adventure are important aspects of a poets’ growth. To write against convention is to test the limits of poetic form, of language, of our imagination. Sometimes that risk looks like writing in forms different than what is generally expected. Sometimes, shaking it up is approaching topics that feel vulnerable, both personally and communally. And I think, the greater the risk, the greater the reward.” 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 Voyeur by Paige Taggart. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem could be interpreted as an allegory for narcissistic personalities — how they violently demand our attention, and how we give it.” 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 The Statues and Us by Yannis Ritsos, translated by Martin McKinsey. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “My life is a constant stream of deadlines, such that I am forever trying to fit in what I love most — writing poetry. When I worked in the corporate finance office of a popular clothing retail store, I worked a regular 9-5. Back then, my life was more structured, and poetry bookended my days. I arose in the dark of morning and scribbled opening lines that would unfold into a larger piece. Light spread across the sky and only birdsong could be heard. I miss those days. When did writing poetry become something that I “fit in”? Trust me; I find meaning in all of my activities, work-related or domestic. But only one satiates this ongoing spirit of becoming, which is what creating is about. In that solitude, with each poem I wrote, I saw myself more clearly. ” 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 Boy Shooting at a Statue by Billy Collins. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “How do we foster a greater belief in each other rather than in our guns? How might we come to live without fear of each other? I have no solutions. Today’s poem points to the conundrum of guns in society and points to the possibility of our imaginations to release us from their hold.” 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 Morning in a City by J. Mae Barizo. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem, an homage to poet Robert Hass, suggests one possible way of retaining is to live in the music of our existence, where memories though fleeting and at our peripheries, still carry indulgences of delight.” 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 The Poet by Bert Meyers.
The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “How do we celebrate our teachers? We pass down their advice. We recall legendary moments in the classroom. We discuss the brilliance of their poems, and sometimes, we gossip about their failures and triumphs. We keep their poems alive in public. When poets die, we also mourn the loss of great friends. Today’s poem is by a Los Angeles poet, one whose life and work are the subject of renewed interest and celebration, not only as a writer of astute verse, but also as a beloved teacher.”
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 In An Elevator with Ashbery, Crossing Stanzas, Bashfully by Alina Stefanescu.
The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem gently refuses to consign poetry to the world of philosophical musing, semiotics, and language games, which many have experienced in the difficult and wildly associative poetry of the great American poet, John Ashbery.”
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 Areyto for the Shipwrecked: The Case for Spanglish by Vincent Toro.
The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem celebrates the power of speaking multiple languages, of having options to fulfill poetry’s demand to achieve ever more expression of human emotion.”
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 from THIRSTY by Dionne Brand.
The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “I love the beauty of natural spaces, and will never jettison the sense of sacred communion there, but cities serve as staging grounds for my feelings of agape, the benevolence I feel from and extend to fellow human beings.”
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 Emptying by Aaron Zhang.
The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “I know that when I cannot write, when the words fail to arrive, something intangible is obstructing passage to the areas of my brain and heart. It hijacks my ability to imagine, to really hear the poetry of the world around me.”
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 Portrait of My Father With the Letter V by Bill Hollands.
The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Who we are today, and eventually, who we are in memory, grants our loved one’s access to modes of living. We can connect in remembrance of traditions of existence that affirm who we fundamentally are and what we could possibly become.”
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 Burnt Plastic by Sean Singer.
The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Jason Schneiderman writes… “Today’s poem is by Sean Singer, who, like me, is a teacher, but at a certain point he became a cab driver to support himself. In his poems about driving a cab, he experiences not a lilting relational arc of guiding students through a semester, but a staccato chord of intense contact, a brief and unguarded glimpse into a life, one in which he is equal parts service provider and witness.”
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 Part by Phillis Levin.
The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Jason Schneiderman writes… “Today’s poem uses the form of a dictionary definition the way other poems use the form of the sonnet or villanelle. Instead of starting with a highly technical and specific word, like “irony” or “cardiovascular,” Phillis Levin starts with the seemingly simple word “Part,” a common word that, it turns out, can mean many things.”
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 The Bats by Mark Wunderlich. This episode was originally released on June 27, 2022.
Today’s poem is Nest by Sarah Arvio. This episode was originally released on March 18, 2022.
Today’s poem is Missing Cat by Freesia McKee. This episode was originally released on October 8, 2021.
Today’s poem is Elegy for Kentucky by Joy Priest. This episode was originally released on February 24, 2022.
Today’s poem is Training by Diannely Antigua. This episode was originally released on April 12, 2022.
Today’s poem is Alive at the End of the World by Saeed Jones. This episode was originally released on June 3, 2022.
Today’s poem is Our Valley by Philip Levine. This episode was originally released on October 14, 2021.
Today’s poem is Rehearsal for the New World by Hazem Fahmy. This episode was originally released on September 23, 2021.
Today’s poem is New Town by Aleksandar Hemon. This episode was originally released on May 12, 2022.
Today’s poem is Invocation by W. Todd Kaneko. This episode was originally released on October 12 2021.
Today’s poem is To Be in Love by Gwendolyn Brooks. This episode was originally released on April 27, 2022.
Today’s poem is After the Fire by Gregory Fraser. This episode was originally released on February 16, 2022.
Today’s poem is Mountain Dew Commercial Disguised as a Love Poem by Matthew Olzmann. This episode was originally released on November 19, 2021.
Today’s poem is The moon rose over the bay. I had a lot of feelings. by Donika Kelly. This episode was originally released on October 29, 2021.
Today’s poem is Love is a Luminous Insect at the Window by Martín Espada. This episode was originally released on April 7, 2022.
Today’s poem is Georgia O'Keeffe, "From the Faraway, Nearby," 1937 by Camille Carter. This episode was originally released on April 1, 2022.
Today’s poem is During the Pandemic I Listen to the July 26, 1965, Juan-les-Pins Recording of A Love Supreme by Ellen Bass. This episode was originally released on February 15, 2022.
Today’s poem is every exquisite thing by heidi andrea restrepo rhodes. This episode was originally released on April 5, 2022.
Today’s poem is Pegasus Autopsy by Julio Pazos Barrera. This episode was originally released on January 24, 2022.
Today’s poem is The Studio by Cedar Sigo. This episode was originally released on February 21 2022.
Today’s poem is Halfway by Paula Mendoza.
This episode was originally released on 3/11/2022.
Today’s poem is I Have a Rendezvous With Life by Countee Cullen.
This episode was originally released on 5/26/2022.
Today’s poem is Metamorphosis: The Female Into by Maggie Queeney.
This episode was originally released on 10/7/2021.
Today’s poem is How to Hold the Heavy Weight of Now by Dana Levin.
This episode was originally released on 3/22/2022.
Today’s poem is Home is still possible there… by Kateryna Kalytko, translated by Olena Jennings and Oksana Lutsyshyna.
Today’s poem is Home is still possible there… by Kateryna Kalytko, translated by Olena Jennings and Oksana Lutsyshyna.
Today’s poem is What You Missed That Day You Were Absent from Fourth Grade by Brad Aaron Modlin.
Today’s poem is What You Missed That Day You Were Absent from Fourth Grade by Brad Aaron Modlin.
Today’s poem is Contentment by Rüştü Onur, translated by Hüseyin Alhas and Ulaş Özgün.
Today’s poem is A Man in My Bed Like Cracker Crumbs by Sandra Cisneros. Today’s episode features guest host Nate Marshall.
Today’s poem is Disease Is Not the Only Thing That Spreads by Seema Yasmin. Today’s episode features guest host Nate Marshall.
Today’s poem is Caregiving by Maya Marshall. Today’s episode features guest host Nate Marshall.
Today’s poem is Borderland Apocrypha by Anthony Cody. Today’s episode features guest host Nate Marshall.
Today’s poem is Fiery Young Colored Girl by Alison C. Rollins. Today’s episode features guest host Nate Marshall.
Today’s poem is Grief Symphony by Noor Hindi. Today’s episode features guest host Nate Marshall.
Today’s poem is Ode to the Crossfader by John Murillo. Today’s episode features guest host Nate Marshall.
Today’s poem is After Abolition by Kyle Carrero Lopez. Today’s episode features guest host Nate Marshall.
Today’s poem is Black Light by A. Van Jordan. Today’s episode features guest host Nate Marshall.
Today’s poem is You're the One I Wanna Watch the Last Ships Go Down With by Brian Tierney.
Today’s poem is In the End You Get Everything Back (Liza Minnelli) by Jason Schneiderman.
Today’s poem is It’s 9:30am, I’ve ran four miles, cried four times, & eaten two chicken sandwiches by Christian Aldana.
Today’s poem is Explication on a Nude Photograph Taken After Hours at the Bright Beach by A. Prevett.
Today's poem is Without Enchantment by Víctor Fowler Calzada, translated from the Spanish by Katerina Gonzalez Seligmann.
Today's poem is During the Pandemic I Listen to the July 26, 1965, Juan-les-Pins Recording of A Love Supreme by Ellen Bass
Today's poem is "Let my anger be the celebration we were never / supposed to have." by Natasha Oladokun.
Today's poem is What We Talk About When We Talk About the Pursuit of Gender Euphoria by Levi Cain.
Today's poem is Let's Crawl Into That Photograph & Stay There for a While by Rachel McKibbens.
Today's poem is City That Does Not Sleep by Federico García Lorca. Translated by Robert Bly.
Today's poem is Ouroboros (Or: A Brief Dip Into the Relationship I Have with My Mother) by Juliette Givhan.
Today's poem is Response, Years Later, to Two Male Poets I Overheard Discussing How Sick They Were of Women's Poems about the Body by Meghan Dunn.
Today's episode is Do You Ever Think About Leaving, My Mother Asks by Angela María Spring.
Poetry can help anchor us to the world amidst the chaos and uncertainty of daily life. Look for new weekday episodes with host Ada Limón beginning September 21, 2021.
Transcript Ada Limón: Many years ago, when I was just 20 and heartbroken, I walked home from my bus stop and noticed a tree illuminated by a streetlight. Each time I passed that tree, I grew more attached to it. It seemed it was the only living thing in the world that wasn’t asking me how I was doing or offering me some unasked for advice. And when the fall deepened and the leaves fell, it seemed to be extending some sort of goodness toward me. Like notes scattered at its roots asking me to pay attention. Each large and many-colored leaf was like a new contract with possibility. A small doorway where I might enter the world again. Enter the world through attention.
To me, that is what poetry does. It offers no advice, no breaking news, no wisdom, no “and the moral of the story.” Instead, it offers connection and reciprocity. The inner and outer world colliding for one brief instant so that it’s not about having answers, being right or being wrong, but recommitting ourselves again to the mystery, silence, and awe of the world.
I hope The Slowdown can be that type of unexpected goodness for its listeners. Brought to you by American Public Media and produced in partnership with the Poetry Foundation, The Slowdown will begin on September 21st with me, your host, Ada Limón. With a poem offered every weekday and, like that tree that I used to pass, only asking for a brief moment of attention.
The Slowdown hopes to give you a much-needed break to stop and recognize what matters. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.
Today's poem is Naming Ceremony by Hafizah Geter.
This episode originally aired on April 4, 2020.
Today's poem is And We Love Life by Mahmoud Darwish.
This episode originally aired May 14, 2020.
Today's poem is Reports of the Dream You're Not Likely to Recover From by Jay Deshpande.
Today's poem is The Bald Truth by Bob Hicok.
This episode originally aired on April 14, 2020.
Today's poem is Blues for Almost Forgotten Music by Roxane Beth Johnson.
This week, we're featuring poems related to music. Songs that move and change us. Songs that heal us. What can we discover about ourselves, when we listen to music? A lot, it seems.
Today's poem is The Piano Speaks by Sandra Beasley.
This week, we're featuring poems related to music. Songs that move and change us. Songs that heal us. What can we discover about ourselves, when we listen to music? A lot, it seems.
Today's poem is There Is a Light That Never Goes Out by Kevin Young.
This week, we're featuring poems related to music. Songs that move and change us. Songs that heal us. What can we discover about ourselves, when we listen to music? A lot, it seems.
Today's poem is Groovin' Low by A.B. Spellman.
This week, we're featuring poems related to music. Songs that move and change us. Songs that heal us. What can we discover about ourselves, when we listen to music? A lot, it seems.
Today's poem is Minneapolipstick by Rachel McKibbens.
This week, we're featuring poems related to music. Songs that move and change us. Songs that heal us. What can we discover about ourselves, when we listen to music? A lot, it seems.
Today's poem is In the middle of Metro Manila's water crisis, my mother posts a picture of my siblings in a swimming pool by Kabel Mishka Ligot.
Today's poem is The Hastily Assembled Angel Falls at the Beginning of the World by Shane McCrae.
Today's episode is For Black Children at the End of the World—and the Beginning by Roger Reeves.
Today's poem is American Mother by Pamela Hart. This episode originally aired on May 15, 2020.
Today's poem is Mercury in Retrograde by Sheryl Luna.
This week, we're featuring poems related to outer space. Stars. Planets. Even aliens. What can we discover about ourselves, when we consider the cosmos?
Today's poem is On a Spaceship Somewhere, Long After Empire's Collapse by Jesús I. Valles.
This week, we're featuring poems related to outer space. Stars. Planets. Even aliens. What can we discover about ourselves, when we consider the cosmos?
Today's poem is You Can Take Off Your Sweater, I've Made Today Warm by Paige Lewis.
This week, we're featuring poems related to outer space. Stars. Planets. Even aliens. What can we discover about ourselves, when we consider the cosmos?
Today's poem is The Ghosts of the Space Dogs by Alexandra Oliver.
This week, we're featuring poems related to outer space. Stars. Planets. Even aliens. What can we discover about ourselves, when we consider the cosmos?
Today's poem is Dancing with Kiko on the Moon by Rosebud Ben-Oni.
This week, we're featuring poems related to outer space. Stars. Planets. Even aliens. What can we discover about ourselves, when we consider the cosmos?
Today's poem is Essay on Reentry by Reginald Dwayne Betts. This episode originally aired on January 27, 2020.
Today's poem is Pomegranate Means Grenade by Jamaal May.
This episode originally aired on January 28, 2020.
Today's poem is Miz Rosa Rides the Bus by Angela Jackson.
This episode originally aired on February 24, 2020.
Today's poem is Inheritance by Camille Rankine.
This episode originally aired on February 17, 2020.
Today's poem is For the Woman on Main Street Stopping to Pull Up Her Pantyhose by Kristene Kaye Brown.
This week, we’re featuring poems about food and all the many ways it sustains us. Because food is community and memory. It’s struggle, joy, and so much more.
Read an automated transcript
Fish Heads
by R.A. Villanueva
``` Yanked free at the gills from cartilage and spine, these fish heads my mother cleans, whose bodies she scales, throws all into salt water and crushed tamarind. At dinner she alone will spoon out their eyes with her fingers,
suck down each pair as we watch. See, this is why the three of you could never hide anything from me—as though these organs brought her sight to be soaked through the tongue. When I tell her that I have tried to make this stew from memory,
she warns, Don’t waste what should be eaten. Reminds me of every delicate gift we have thrown away: tilapia stomach best soured with vinegar, milkfish liver to melt against the dome of the mouth. That after church,
a bucket of chicken soon became a blessing of wing gristle and skin, dark meat no one else wanted to save. We refused to taste her gizzards and hearts fried in fat, mocked the smell of pig blood curdled on the stove, wished gone
her tripe steamed with beef bouillon and onion broth. After my brother and sister push aside bowls of baby squid in garlic ink, gag at my mention of ducks in their shells, boiled alive in brine, my mother believes I was the only one to share
in such things. Which maybe means, she says, in some former life you and I were seabirds or vampires or wolves.
```
"Fish Heads," by R.A. Villanueva, from RELIQUARIA by R.A. Villanueva, copyright © 2014 University of Nebraska Press. Used by permission of University of Nebraska Press.
This week, we’re featuring poems about food and all the many ways it sustains us. Because food is community and memory. It’s struggle, joy, and so much more.
Read an automated transcript
Bliss Point or What Can Best Be Achieved by Cheese
by Benjamin Garcia
``` A.k.a.
the other gold.
Now that’s the stuff,
shredded or melted
or powdered
or canned.
Behold
the pinnacle of man
in a cheeto puff!
Now that’s the stuff
you’ve been primed for:
fatty & salty & crunchy
and poof—gone. There’s the proof.
Though your grandmother
never even had one. You can’t
have just one. You
inhale them puff—
after puff—
after puff—
You’re a chain smoker. Tongue
coated & coaxed
but not saturated or satiated.
It’s like pure flavor,
but sadder. Each pink ping
in your pinball-mouth
expertly played
by the makers who have studied you,
the human animal, and culled
from the rind
your Eve in the shape
of a cheese curl.
Girl,
come curl in the dim light of the TV.
Veg out on the verge of no urge
of anything.
Long ago we beached ourselves,
climbed up the trees then
down the trees,
knuckled across the dirt
& grasses & thorns & Berber carpet.
Now is the age of sitting,
so sit.
And I must say,
crouched on the couch like that,
you resemble no animal.
Smug in your Snuggie and snug
in your sloth, you look
nothing like a sloth.
And you are not an anteater,
an anteater eats ants
without fear
of diabetes. Though breathing,
one could say, resembles a chronic disease.
What’s real
cheese and what is cheese product?
It’s difficult to say
but being alive today
is real-
real-
really
like a book you can’t put down, a stone
that plummets from a great height. Life’s
a “page-turner” alright.
But don’t worry
if you miss the finale
of your favorite show, you can
catch it on queue. Make room
for me and I’ll binge on this,
the final season with you.
```
"Bliss Point or What Can Best Be Achieved by Cheese," by Benjamin Garcia. Used by permission of the poet.
This week, we’re featuring poems about food and all the many ways it sustains us. Because food is community and memory. It’s struggle, joy, and so much more.
Read an automated transcript
Oxtail Stew
by David Dominguez
``` At five o’clock in the morning, I walked to work and passed the green ponds of Horizon Park where the last bluegill, caught on the low, slight bank, panted hard in the dark mud, crushed glass, sour bottle caps, whiskey, and the iron weight of heat and smog. This haze stared through eyes gray as the broken window panes on the cheap side of town, and when this haze held you and whispered in your ears its quiet tragedies, it stole your breath quick as time. This is where men gathered to sell peanuts, buckets of oranges, and roses, and they sat on the benches and watched the trucks drive by and disappear.
What I want to say is simple: a man must do more than sell roses where the bums go and beg— he must keep something holy. He must breathe the winds that rustle the orchards of the valley where the white almond blooms replenish with their soft scent. He must learn from the Appaloosa when she walks in from the fields and bows her head to a trough of water that reflects nothing but her eyes and the stars.
Shoulder, fat, bone, and loose sheet metal banged out a day-long cacophony. Twenty-eight pounds of spice had to be mixed before the grinder was done. Mustard powder, paprika, salt, and chili powder boiled in my nose, in my eyes, and in the red throb of my hard nicked-up knuckles. By late morning the meat defrosted, and the boxes began their ooze. Pig parts became easy to recognize. Eighty pounds of guts, kidneys, and stomach fell across my chest each time a box ripped apart. We dared not stop the music of our work: the clack of a clean pine pallet, pink meat and white fat ground to a pulp, sweetened, stuffed, and crimped, the chorizo boxed, the boxes labeled, stacked, and wrapped.
At lunch, I watched Guillermo hunker over the table and dig into his stew—carrots, potatoes, celery, oxtail, and gravy, made from chili peppers and fat, smoldering in a ceramic bowl. Guillermo took out a white cotton napkin and spread it evenly across his lap, picked up a piece of sourdough ripped from a loaf and soaked the bread in the stew for a long time . . . his own tired body taking back what the work took, and he ate. He sucked on chili peppers the color of blood and took another bite of the bread. He sucked out the beef from the eyes of the bones and gnawed on the soft marrow, and he drank hot coffee sweetened con canela. “Eloisa,” he said, “can cook,” and he touched the brown lace crocheted into the edge of his cotton napkin, rubbed his gut, wiped the table, and walked out to complete his work.
```
"Oxtail Stew" by David Dominguez, from WORK DONE RIGHT by David Dominguez, copyright © 2003 David Dominguez. Used by permission of the University of Arizona Press.
This week, we’re featuring poems about food and all the many ways it sustains us. Because food is community and memory. It’s struggle, joy, and so much more.
Read an automated transcript
Butter
by Elizabeth Alexander
``` My mother loves butter more than I do, more than anyone. She pulls chunks off the stick and eats it plain, explaining cream spun around into butter! Growing up we ate turkey cutlets sauteed in lemon and butter, butter and cheese on green noodles, butter melting in small pools in the hearts of Yorkshire puddings, butter better than gravy staining white rice yellow, butter glazing corn in slipping squares, butter the lava in white volcanoes of hominy grits, butter softening in a white bowl to be creamed with white sugar, butter disappearing into whipped sweet potatoes, with pineapple, butter melted and curdy to pour over pancakes, butter licked off the plate with warm Alaga syrup. When I picture the good old days I am grinning greasy with my brother, having watched the tiger chase his tail and turn to butter. We are Mumbo and Jumbo’s children despite historical revision, despite our parent’s efforts, glowing from the inside out, one hundred megawatts of butter.
```
"Butter" by Elizabeth Alexander, from CRAVE RADIANCE by Elizabeth Alexander, copyright © 2012 Elizabeth Alexander. Used by permission of Graywolf Press.
This week, we’re featuring poems about food and all the many ways it sustains us. Because food is community and memory. It’s struggle, joy, and so much more.
Read an automated transcript
Lesson: Chicken Soup
by Christine Kitano
``` My grandmother pours salt into my right palm, places thin slivers of garlic in my left. She explains
something about blood, how to salt the raw bird to drain its fluids, but my mind already wanders:
I watch the chicken shrivel but compose instead the grandfather I’ve only met in story: daybreak, he’s just finished
mopping up in the buildings that sculpt this city’s skyline, but it’s someone else’s view of Los Angeles.
The immigrant sees, not the postcard-perfect lights, but the scuffed tiles, dust-lined desks, the darkening throats of toilet after toilet.
Home, he tiptoes upstairs not to wake his daughters, holding his shoes like a thief. He’s fired
for stealing a roll of toilet paper, a can of soda for my mother. Children are nothing but trouble, my grandmother says,
shaking a wooden spoon. My mother claims the story otherwise: it was she who accompanied father to work, she
who stole a box of stale donuts, she who lost the family’s first job. Grandmother shrugs and repeats the same
conclusion. Never have children, she says, though her expression is hidden by the steam now rising from the pot.
It’s a simple recipe: boil until the meat falls from the bones, easy, like a girl shedding a summer dress.
Last night, I cooked for friends. After dinner, my friend handed me his one-month son, who only
blinked when I nudged my thumb into his fist. Earlier, washing the pale bird, I struggled to keep the body
from slipping through my hands: I held its small-fleshed form under cold water, pulled the giblets out the round hollow
between its ribs and was surprised to be surprised when it didn’t make a sound. ```
"Lesson: Chicken Soup" by Christine Kitano, from SKY COUNTRY by Christine Kitano, copyright © 2017 Christine Kitano. Used by permission of BOA Editions.
Today's poem is Frequently Asked Questions: #7 by Camille T. Dungy. This episode originally aired on November 12, 2019.
Today's poem is Kerosene Litany by Mahogany L. Browne. This episode originally aired December 27, 2019.
Today's poem is Variations in Blue by Lauren K. Alleyne. This episode originally aired on July 15, 2019.
Today's poem is For My People by Margaret Walker. This episode originally aired on April 1, 2020.
Today's poem is How Can Black People Write About Flowers at a Time Like This by Hanif Abdurraqib. This episode originally aired on February 14, 2020.
Today's poem is The Emperor's Deer by Kamilah Aisha Moon. This episode originally aired January 29, 2019.
Today's poem is from here i saw what happened and i cried by t'ai freedom ford. This episode originally aired on July 4, 2019.
Today's poem is We Are Not Responsible by Harryette Mullen. This episode originally aired October 31, 2019.
Today's poem is On the D Train by Jacqueline Johnson. This episode originally aired October 16, 2019.
Today's poem is Whipping Tree by Rachel Eliza Griffiths. This episode originally aired May 14, 2019.
Today's poem is Eliza Harris by Frances Ellen Watkins Harper. This episode originally aired on March 13, 2020.
Today's poem is [They will tell you that I was sick, that I was a drug addict.] by Dawn Lundy Martin. This episode originally aired on November 6, 2019.
Today's poem is supply and demand by Evie Shockley. This episode originally aired on February 18, 2019.
Today's poem is American Sonnet for My Past and Future Assassin ["You don't seem to want it, but you wanted it"] by Terrance Hayes. This episode originally aired on April 9, 2019.
Today's poem is A Small Needful Fact by Ross Gay. This episode originally aired July 10, 2019.
For the remainder of this week, we’ve chosen to replay episodes that take up questions of social justice. The outrage and heartbreak brought on by the murders of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor and other black citizens remind us that courageous dialogue about racial prejudice is critical to the survival of our culture. And we believe that poetry is a perfect vehicle for just such dialogue.
-Tracy K. Smith
Today's poem When Your Mother Asks If You're Seeing Anyone And No Longer Means A Therapist by Cindy King.
Today's poem is After all those years of fear and raging in my poems by Toi Derricotte.
Today's poem is Peace Path by Heid E. Erdrich.
Take a moment to slow down with family, with our kid-friendly episode list— or find an extra moment of calm with our favorite episodes on hope, kindness and more. You can also find our playlists on our website, SlowdownShow.org
We could all use an extra moment of calm right now. So we’ve compiled all of our favorite episodes of The Slowdown about hope, kindness, community (and more) into a playlist.
And if you’re looking for something for your kids to do (maybe away from a screen) … we have a kid-friendly playlist too.
Here's where to find both of our playlists:
The Slowdown Playlist on Hope, Kindness & More: https://spoti.fi/3bKbAIU
The Slowdown Poetry Playlist for Kids: https://spoti.fi/3dOGEJb
You can also find both playlists on SlowdownShow.org. Take care.
Today's poem is Leaving the University Gym by Sasha Pimentel.
Take a moment to slow down with family, with our kid-friendly episode list— or find an extra moment of calm with our favorite episodes on hope, kindness and more. You can also find our playlists on our website, SlowdownShow.org
Today's poem is Home by Letitia Elizabeth Landon.
Take a moment to slow down with family, with our kid-friendly episode list— or find an extra moment of calm with our favorite episodes on hope, kindness and more. You can also find our playlists on our website, SlowdownShow.org
Today's poem is The Bald Truth by Bob Hicok.
Take a moment to slow down with family, with our kid-friendly episode list— or find an extra moment of calm with our favorite episodes on hope, kindness and more. You can also find our playlists on our website, SlowdownShow.org
Today's poem is Song for the Festival by Gretchen Marquette.
Take a moment to slow down with family, with our kid-friendly episode list— or find an extra moment of calm with our favorite episodes on hope, kindness and more. You can also find our playlists on our website, SlowdownShow.org
This is a special message from Tracy. It's a startling and anxious-making time, and our daily lives have been thrown into a state of upheaval. We want to hear from you. What kinds of poems would be useful for the thoughts and feelings you're living with? Reach out to us at bit.ly/slowdowncontact
Today's poem is ABC for Refugees by Monica Sok. This episode features guest host Jenny Xie.
Today's poem is Paramount by Robin Coste Lewis. This episode features guest host Jenny Xie.
Today's poem is Meditation on a Grapefruit by Craig Arnold. This episode features guest host Jenny Xie.
Today's poem is Seeing the Ocean from a Night Flight by Wang Xiaoni. This episode features guest host Jenny Xie.
Today's poem is an excerpt from Gates by Sahar Muradi. This episode features guest host Jenny Xie.
Today's poem is Strawberries and Cream by Jeff Dolven. This episode features guest host Jenny Xie.
Today's poem is Lincoln Town Car by Taylor Johnson. This episode features guest host Jenny Xie.
Today's poem is If You're Going to Look Like a Wolf They Have to Love You More Than They Fear You. by Abigail Chabitnoy.
Today's poem is Northeast Corridor by Cat Richardson. This episode features guest host Jenny Xie.
Today's poem is How Can Black People Write About Flowers at a Time Like This by Hanif Abdurraqib.
Today's poem is I Will Love You Most When I Can Barely Remember Anything by William Evans.
Today's poem is Domestic by Deborah Landau. This episode features guest host Jenny Xie.
Today's poem is Prayer On Aladdin's Lamp by Marcus Wicker. This episode originally aired Dec. 19, 2018.
Today's poem is Interrogation Suite: Where did you come from / how did you arrive? by Remica Bingham-Risher.
Today's poem is [They will tell you that I was sick, that I was a drug addict.] by Dawn Lundy Martin.
Note: This poem contains an instance of explicit language. Today's poem is Club Icarus by Matt Miller. This episode features guest host Brenda Shaughnessy; Tracy K. Smith returns this week.
Note: This poem contains an instance of explicit language. Today's poem is No War by Mariam Fayez. This episode features guest host Tina Chang; Tracy K. Smith returns this week.
Today's poem is Through a Glass though Which We Cannot See by Lo Kwa Mei-en. This episode features guest host Brenda Shaughnessy.
Today's poem is Personals by C.D. Wright. This episode features guest host Brenda Shaughnessy.
Today's poem is Enough by Suzanne Buffam. This episode features guest host Brenda Shaughnessy.
Today's poem is Essay on Wood by James Richardson. This episode features guest host Brenda Shaughnessy.
Today's poem is The Wooden Overcoat by Rick Barot. This episode features guest host Brenda Shaughnessy.