The Slowdown: Poetry & Reflection Daily

Today’s poem is Pocket Dial by James Davis May. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes... "It’s a strangely intimate thing, the pocket dial. When we’re on the receiving end, we find ourselves listening from a tucked away place close to someone’s body. It’s a pitfall of carrying our devices with us. Previous generations, generations who grew up without cell phones, didn’t have to contend with things like pocket dials."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

Today’s poem is Panis Angelicus by Carol Muske-Dukes. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… "There is music everywhere — played from the stereos of passing cars, sung by unselfconscious walkers wearing headphones. There’s the slamming of screen doors. The barking dogs. The occasional siren. And those noises are a kind of music, too."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

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

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

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

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

Today’s poem is A Love Poem Will Not Save the World by C. Russell Price. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “We read and share poems in times of tragedy because they say something we need to say, or need to hear. That is certainly true of today’s poem. It speaks to something that feels unspeakable. It sings to us in the dark.” 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

Today’s poem is Climacteric by Kelly Gray. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Midlife is a strange season. I find myself both embracing the changes to my life and also grieving a little. Some doors are closing as others open. My kids are almost grown. I’m nearing the end of a long and much-loved era.”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

Today’s poem is Dispatch as Prologue or Epilogue by Megan Gannon. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “I once heard the comedian Pete Holmes say, about his past, something along the lines of: “That life was the weird horse I rode to get to this life.” I think the speaker of today’s poem would like that imagery as much as I do. Here’s to weird horses, and to do-overs, and to new beginnings, which are endless.” We’re asking you, our community of listeners, to help us select poems to share on the show in an upcoming week of special programming. What poems have you sent friends and loved ones to encourage them to slow down? Send in your own selection, we’ll mail you a special Slowdown postcard and sticker as a thank you. Submit here: https://bit.ly/slowdownsubmissions

Today’s poem is The Magicians at Work by Nicky Beer. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Today’s poem reminds me of the trick that poetry performs, time after time. We can vanish into a poem and emerge whole, but changed. It’s magic.” We’re asking you, our community of listeners, to help us select poems to share on the show in an upcoming week of special programming. What poems have you sent friends and loved ones to encourage them to slow down? Send in your own selection, we’ll mail you a special Slowdown postcard and sticker as a thank you. Submit here: https://bit.ly/slowdownsubmissions

Today’s poem is The Beginning by Katherine Gibbel. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “I have the worst spring fever every year, because the winters in Ohio are so long and so bleak and gray. When the landscape comes alive and turns green again, I’m nearly drunk with joy. I’m in noticing heaven: ‘Look at the buds on the trees!’ and ‘Breathe in that green smell!’ I don’t even mind that the birds wake me up at four o-clock in the morning with their too-early songs. It’s the best alarm clock.” 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

Today’s poem is at the baggage claim in JFK by Lo Naylor. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “When I’m preparing for a multi-city book tour, I’m not nervous about reading in front of people or answering questions or finding my way around a strange place. I’m nervous about getting where I’m going. And with somewhat regular government shutdowns impacting TSA these days, those nerves aren’t coming from nowhere! But there are so many beautiful moments in airports, if you pay attention: parents comforting children, or occupying them with silly games; couples excited to be going on a trip together; teams of uniformed student athletes traveling to, or from, a big game.” 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

Today’s poem is Hiking Moraine State Park by Violeta Garcia-Mendoza. 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, December 15 with new episodes. Today’s episode was originally released on October 1, 2025. In this episode, Maggie writes… “A big part of loving someone, whether they’re a friend or a family member or someone you’re romantically involved with, is embracing them exactly as they are. Not hoping they’ll change, or waiting for them to change, or—worst of all—trying to change them yourself.”Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp