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 ack... More
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 ack... More
Available Episodes
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895: Burnt Plastic
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
08/06/2023
5:05
894: Part
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
07/06/2023
5:19
893: To the Friend Who Is Crying on the Phone
Today’s poem is To the Friend Who Is Crying on the Phone by Vanessa Angélica Villarreal.
The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Jason Schneiderman writes… “In today’s poem, the poet looks at what it means for things to change—what it means to live in the present and to plan for the future—and how painful and destabilizing it can be when what we expected, planned for, worked for, and dreamed of—is suddenly taken away.”
Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
06/06/2023
5:36
892: in the dormitories after dark
Today’s poem is in the dormitories after dark by James Fujinami Moore.
The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Jason Schneiderman writes… “In today’s poem, the poet revisits a childhood experience in which the youthful collective exerts its power by ganging up on another boy. Notice how the poem moves from observation, to complicity, and then to how a youthful wound might take a lifetime to heal.”
Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
05/06/2023
5:22
891: Uh Huh: Hi, Hula Tooth
Today’s poem is Uh Huh: Hi, Hula Tooth by K. Silem Mohammad.
The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Jason Schneiderman writes… “Today’s poem is part of a series that the poet calls Sonnagrams. He uses a program to rearrange the letters in each of Shakespeare’s sonnets to get a whole new poem, and then he makes a title out of the letters he didn’t use yet. Without knowing that the poem is an anagram of sonnet 135, it might not make a lot of sense. But knowing that it is, you’ll hear both the technical accomplishment of the poem-sized anagram and the playfulness of the composition process.”
Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
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. Smith and Ada Limón, as well as guest hosts Jenny Xie, Brenda Shaughnessy, Tina Chang, Nate Marshall, Shira Erlichiman, and Jason Schneiderman. Our hosts and production team select poems that move them, and we hope they move you, too.