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The Slowdown: Poetry & Reflection Daily

American Public Media
The Slowdown: Poetry & Reflection Daily
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619 episodes

  • The Slowdown: Poetry & Reflection Daily

    1483: How to Write by Anne Waldman

    31/03/2026 | 5 mins.
    Today’s poem is How to Write by Anne Waldman.

    The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Consciousness is just … exhausting sometimes, isn’t it? There’s no “power down” mode for our minds like there is for the devices we use: laptops and phones and televisions. Being a human is sort of like having 24/7 screentime, but the screen is your own mind, and there’s no real way to turn it off — none that’s worked for me, anyway.”

    Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
  • The Slowdown: Poetry & Reflection Daily

    1482: XII. Southern Constellations by Brandon Kilbourne

    30/03/2026 | 5 mins.
    Today’s poem is XII. Southern Constellations by Brandon Kilbourne.

    The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “No matter where I am in the world, no matter what beautiful landscape I might find myself in, no matter what new experience I might be having, I feel the pull of home. I don’t mean home as in place. I mean home as in people.”

    Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
  • The Slowdown: Poetry & Reflection Daily

    [encore] 1381: What Is This Air Changing, This Warm Aura, These Threads of Air Vibrating Rows of People by Ariel Yelen

    27/03/2026 | 6 mins.
    Today’s poem is What Is This Air Changing, This Warm Aura, These Threads of Air Vibrating Rows of People by Ariel Yelen.

    The Slowdown is taking a week to return to some of our favorite episodes from Maggie’s tenure so far. We’ll be back on Monday, March 30 with new episodes.

    Today’s episode was originally released on October 24, 2025. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Going to the elementary school choir concerts and winter music festivals, I got teary every time the kids sang. I told myself it was because of their sweet, little-kid voices, but that’s not the whole story. Something about hearing voices in unison—it’s powerful, and communal, and comforting, and deeply moving.”

    Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
  • The Slowdown: Poetry & Reflection Daily

    [encore] 1460: Poem to Remind Myself of the Natural Order of Things by Donika Kelly

    26/03/2026 | 5 mins.
    Today’s poem is Poem to Remind Myself of the Natural Order of Things by Donika Kelly.

    The Slowdown is taking a week to return to some of our favorite episodes from Maggie’s tenure so far. We’ll be back on Monday, March 30 with new episodes. Today’s episode was originally released on February 19, 2026.

    In this episode, Maggie writes… “Today’s poem is such a beautiful meditation on knowing ourselves, and knowing what we need to be at home in our own lives.”

    Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
  • The Slowdown: Poetry & Reflection Daily

    [encore] 1429: Midlife Crisis by Jane Zwart

    25/03/2026 | 5 mins.
    The Slowdown is taking a week to return to some of our favorite episodes from Maggie’s tenure so far. Today’s poem is Midlife Crisis by Jane Zwart. We’ll be back on Monday, March 30 with new episodes.

    Today’s episode was originally released on January 7, 2026. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Midlife has upended everything I thought about aging. It’s not at all what I expected. Certainly, when I was a child, I thought of people in their forties as old, and now that I’m closer to 50 than 40, I laugh at that. I feel … young! I feel younger, in many ways, than I did ten years ago.”

    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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About The Slowdown: Poetry & Reflection Daily

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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