The Slowdown: Poetry & Reflection Daily

Today?s poem is Nameless Places by Tony Petrosky.

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes? "This summer, I get to write in a castle in Italy at an artist retreat. I am hoping my assigned room is in a dungeon. Otherwise, I am afraid high ceilings will mean high windows, which will mean a room flooded with light. I wish to arrive at light like a burst that suddenly suffuses my eyelids; I want the page to contain inexpressible awe at our existence, to enact a calamitous and beautiful journey. Today?s short poem honors the unseen, formidable spaces that define us as much as our existence in the light."

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Today?s poem is 00000000 by Erin Marie Lynch.

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes? "Today?s poem disentangles the quest for money, transactional desire, and lyric subjectivity. Its teasing interplay of language brings into close proximity art, social class, and manners of currency.?

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Today?s poem is When Your Month is Lonely? by Christine Kwon. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual.

In this episode, Major writes? "I read all those articles that proclaim how lonely we are becoming; I believe there?s some truth to it. Here?s my fear: all my work is making me alien to myself and others. I?m happy people are in my life. I wish not to skirt over their humanity, nor my own. I do not want our relationship to devolve to obligation, or come off as transactional. But we naturally negotiate that space of difference between ourselves and others; how rewarding when we can really connect to others.?

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Today?s poem is Eid Mubarak by Fady Joudah.

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes? "Today?s poem makes a profound commitment to carry the living and the dead in language forward into time, to record our presence, to meld the collectivity and richness of humanity into a singular vision that feels like love.?

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Today?s poem is To Find Stars in Another Language by Elizabeth Bradfield.

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes? "Sometimes it is necessary to create our own stories and poems that account for our reality, for who we are, presently, in the 21st century. Our dreams and imagination serve as a bridge in expanding conceptions of the self. One of my favorite poets once declared ?The dream of every poem is to be a myth.? I like this idea, that poems can order our world, give agency and permission, cultivate, and open our collective unconscious.?

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Today?s poem is My Life by Water by Lorine Niedecker.

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Victoria Chang writes? "I admit, I spent much of my childhood imagining my future away from Michigan. But now, I only have positive memories of my childhood landscape. The Michigan landscape is my country. We are all always living and writing from somewhere, and thus we are being defined by our landscapes. We wouldn?t be someone without a somewhere."

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Today?s poem is The Loquat Trees & The Boy Next Door by Saúl Hernández.

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Victoria Chang writes? "Today?s poem reminds me of how, under every tree that bears fruit, there are secret stories of desire, of loss, and of love."

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Today?s poem is Perhaps the World Ends Here by Joy Harjo.

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Victoria Chang writes? "Today?s poem is an ode to the kitchen table and all the ways that a table holds everything in our lives ? all the pain of the world, its history, and all the beauty at once."

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Today?s poem is After She Died by Mary Szybist.

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Victoria Chang writes? "As the years have gone by since my mother?s passing, since my father?s passing, something else has bloomed unexpectedly, which is a connection with others who have experienced deep loss. The details of other people?s losses are always different, but the feelings are familiar. These shared experiences are the things that tie us to each other. I?ve learned that to see and share our experiences with others is to be alive and in the world."

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Today?s poem is It's This Way by Nâzim Hikmet, translated by Randy Blasing and Mutlu Konuk.

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Victoria Chang writes? "I have begun to think that hope is a presentness, that perhaps hope is within the present, not the future, not in the subjunctive, the what if? For there is beauty all around us all the time. To have hope is to wake up and perceive in the now, instead of spending the little mindspace we have caught up in the future and possibility."

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Today?s poem is Spring View by Du Fu, translated by Arthur Sze. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual.

In this episode, guest host Victoria Chang writes? ?I have always loved imagining how people lived a long time ago, what they thought about, how they dressed, what they ate. One of the best ways to see how people really lived is through poems, really old poems. Du Fu is a poet who lived during the Tang Dynasty in China from 721 to 770, A.D. He was one of the three most prominent poets in the Tang era, along with Wang Wei and Li Bai. Du Fu lived during turbulent war times, which feels like every era of history, including our present times.?

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Today?s poem is Mahmoud by Maya Abu Al-Hayyat, translated by Fady Joudah. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual.

In this episode, guest host Victoria Chang writes? ?As an adult, one of the things I?ve always wondered about was the baby boy we lost to a miscarriage. He was almost three months old by the time he passed away. I still carry the hospital bracelet in my wallet, the one that says simply, ?baby boy.? Some days, I still wonder about him ? what he would have looked like as a teenager. He would have been sixteen years old this year. I imagine him having just received his driver?s license, the loud sound of the door opening, his backpack with all of the little tchotchkes and keychains hanging from them rattling and hitting the door. I can almost hear his voice as he enters the house. Almost.?

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Today?s poem is first person by Ed Roberson. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual.

In this episode, guest host Victoria Chang writes? ?How can we learn if no one helps us to learn? How can we help each other learn if we don?t speak up, if we don?t talk to each other honestly? How can we learn if we don?t look harder at ourselves and the things we do or don?t do, know or don?t know, every single day??

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Today?s poem is A Certain Light by Marie Howe. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual.

In this episode, guest host Victoria Chang writes? ?Today?s poem always moves me. I love the way this poem so lyrically depicts the surprising beauty and connection that can emerge amidst the deepest darkest moments of illness.?

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Today?s poem is The Leaving by Brigit Pegeen Kelly. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual.

In this episode, guest host Victoria Chang writes? ?This is a poem that seems so easy to describe, yet it?s so hard to pin down?my favorite kind of poem?both clear and mysterious. It?s dreamlike, mystical, biblical, and so much more. It magically depicts what it?s like to be a child on the cusp of something, in the face of the largeness of the world.?

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Today?s poem is Dream Song 14 by John Berryman.

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes? ?I miss being bored. I miss idly sitting in a chair, looking out a window, wondering what next to do with myself. I want the feeling of time as an endless desert ? nothing in sight, nothing on the horizon.?

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Today?s poem is Cassandra by Sasha West.

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes? ?The speaker in today?s poem, taken from Greek mythology, has sight beyond the veil. Their relationship to objects points to the kind of clairvoyance that artists exercise, connecting our physical, emotional, and spiritual worlds.?

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 Ferment by Monica Rico.

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes? ?As a person who sticks to the recipe, step by step, exact measurements and all, I appreciate how today?s poem lifts up the magic of feeling and improvisation, of putting one?s whole body into a task.?

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The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes? ?Why is it so hard to write a love poem? Well, I think sentimentality is often the culprit. Today?s poem, by contrast, avoids sentimentality by showing how our perceptions change when we fall in love, how the inner and outer worlds come to reflect each other.?

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Today?s poem is a story from the eighties by Debra Marquart.

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes? ?Occasionally, I pretend to resist feelings of nostalgia. Somehow, I got it in my mind that remembrances of things past prevented me from standing fully in the here and now ? that musings about foregone events would eclipse any potential value I placed in the present."

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Today?s poem is Translation by Anne Spencer.

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes? ?The last time I camped, a wolf?s howl gave me chills; it brought me closer to some primitive ancestor. I fell asleep to fantasies of leading a pack through boreal forest. The last time I camped, I gazed on evening stars blinking their wondrous code, jeweling the dark sky.?

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Today?s poem is My Father and I Drive to St. Louis for His Mother's Funeral and the Wildflowers by Chaun Ballard.

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes? ?Current global conflicts and discussions of borders spotlight the privilege of mobility. An American passport admits entry into 184 countries. Yet, even movement within the United States, for some people, is unsafe. Race and other identity markers, even today, circumscribe where people can travel and live with ease.?

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Today?s poem is Great Question by Lisa Olstein.

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes? ?Why do we lean on love so much for sustenance? When passion dwindles to a set of burned twigs, where once there was a raging fire; it?s as though a theft has occurred, the result of which makes us homesick for ourselves.?

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Today?s poem is Under the Bed by Kirun Kapur.

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes? ?While not the equivalent of glimpsing the spirit world cleave the air, the insight of poets amounts to a kind of clairvoyance. They make connections that close the gap between the known and the unknown.?

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Today?s poem is Ode to the Idea of France by Dan Alter.

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes? ?At parties, I jokingly discuss with friends about collectively purchasing property, maybe even a castle. I want us to live out our days together, to communally enact our shared values. They? are not convinced. I romanticize social utopias, especially those that, guided by equity and love, espouse alternative ways of coexisting with each other and the land.?

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Today?s poem is Thirteen by Anna V.Q. Ross.

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes? ?Today?s poem celebrates the glow and growth of daughters, their energy and curiosity, their intuition and vulnerability.?

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 An Exchange by Corey Marks.

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes? ?After a decade and a half of living in Vermont, one morning I thought, ?Road signs all over the state and still no sighting of a moose?? Then, one morning, a large four-legged bulk of an animal appeared at the edge of a clearing along the road. I saw it from a distance as I rounded an ascending curve on Route 125. I slowed to a stop, and looked it over. We were eye-to-eye. It was massive and serene. For a long while, I thought the encounter improbable, but here I was: suspended in the moment, expecting transcendence of some kind, some boundless wisdom on a forested path to myself.?

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Today?s poem is Fish Pier, Santa Monica by Vernon Duke, translated by Boris Dralyuk.

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes? ?Today?s poem taps into the beauty and spirit of California seaside beaches, whose amassed mythology and symbolism feeds so much of how we imagine and hear America.?

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Today?s poem is blues-elegy for cheryl by Evie Shockley.

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes? ?Despite the attacks on academic institutions, despite the diminishing power of free inquiry, scholarly work benefits us all. So much critical inquiry is born out of wonder and curiosity, like a crackling in the soul. Curiosity leads to exploration and research.?

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 Casual Labor by Sandy Solomon.

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes? ?Today?s wonderful poem models a courageous leap beyond fear into a wholehearted kindness. The poem invites us to lean into each other with generosity so that we no longer flinch at the messy richness of our humanity.?

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 First of March by Stacie Cassarino.

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes? ?I learned from all those mornings of weekly commuting ? living in Burlington, Vermont and teaching in New York City ? that my passions run in every direction. To the critique and dismay of friends, I would simply say, travel fulfills the country-mouse-city-mouse in me.?

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Today?s poem is Dry Spell by Lisa Sewell.

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes? ?Like so much of what our teachers share as advice about our writing, today?s poem can also be applied to our life off the page.?

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 Poem by Sophie Cabot Black.

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes? ?Today?s poem reminds me of the daunting and ongoing and heartrending work of preparing ourselves to love and to dare to receive it, if we can.?

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 Response to the Misguided Student by Wesley Rothman.

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes? ?I gain as much, if not more, from my students as I believe they receive from me. Sometimes, a truly breathtaking poem lands on my desk, and I am utterly grateful for the miracle of language: a student writing about her developmentally disabled uncle and his heartbreaking kindness, a mother who emotionally wrestles with the challenges and joys of raising a transgender daughter.?

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Today?s poem is Mirror, Mirror by Tom Healy.

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes? ?Today?s fine poem balances humor with hard truth-telling. It revives in me the bravery of boldly saying that which dignifies our existence with clarity. ?

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Today?s poem is Portable Paradise by Roger Robinson.

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. We?re taking a break this week, so we?re running some of our favorite episodes from this season so far. This episode was originally released on 11/10/2023.

In this episode, Major writes? ?As so much poetry reminds us, suffering is at the core of being human. Yes, we fumble along. We live a melancholic existence. Some of us protest, confess, and bring the news in our works. Yet, today?s poem wisely announces that we should always keep that place which feels like heaven within sight. We should maintain an inner utopia, even if hidden from others. It, too, is worthy of mapping in literature.?

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Today?s poem is Kinds of Silence by Elisabeth Murawski.

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. We?re taking a break this week, so we?re running some of our favorite episodes from this season so far. This episode was originally released on 11/28/2023.

In this episode, Major writes? ?Today?s poem captures that feeling of expectancy and uncertainty, a feeling that resonates lately, as I find myself wondering about the future ? with so much of the earth and its inhabitants hurting, yet also, working towards a peaceful vision of our humanity.?

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. We?re taking a break this week, so we?re running some of our favorite episodes from this season so far. This episode was originally released on 07/18/2023.

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.?

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Today?s poem is Feeding the Koi by Rosanna Young Oh.

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. We?re taking a break this week, so we?re running some of our favorite episodes from this season so far. This episode was originally released on 11/02/2023.

In this episode, Major writes? ?Today?s poem exemplifies those moments when sometimes we cannot speak or act on our truth because of debilitating fears. And on occasion, art is what provides clarity when we seek signs beyond the surface of our worlds.?

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Today?s poem is this is a library by Asiya Wadud.

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. We?re taking a break this week, so we?re running some of our favorite episodes from this season so far. This episode was originally released on 07/26/2023.

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.?

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Today?s poem is Love Poem, with Birds by Barbara Kingsolver.

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. This week, in honor of Valentine?s Day, we?re revisiting some of our favorite episodes on love. This episode was originally released on September 15, 2023.

In this episode, Major writes? ?Today?s poem gives voice to the intimidating feeling of competing with a partner?s personal passion. However begrudgingly we come around to their idiosyncratic awarenesses, such an intense engagement is exactly what attracts us in the end.?

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Today?s poem is Love Sits by My Father by Qutouf Elobaid.

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. This week, in honor of Valentine?s Day, we?re revisiting some of our favorite episodes on love. This episode was originally released on August 31, 2023.

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.?

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Today?s poem is Short Essay on Love by Sarah Manguso.

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. This week, in honor of Valentine?s Day, we?re revisiting some of our favorite episodes on love. This episode was originally released on February 6, 2023.

In this episode, Major writes? ?Today?s poem understands to the core that love requires, even anticipates failure. But maybe, even too, that a commitment to finding happiness and joy with someone requires failing and doing it again.?

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 Without Name by Pauli Murray.

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. This week, in honor of Valentine?s Day, we?re revisiting some of our favorite episodes on love. This episode was originally released on November 21, 2023.

In this episode, Major writes? ?Today, words lead me to pockets of understanding, which I've carefully cultivated through writing poetry. The journey to insights and those momentary stays against confusion are often filled with inarticulate, wayward wanderings and long stretches of speechlessness. Part of my love of poetry is owed to how it stages eloquence and puts a finishing touch on the thing that I finally needed to say. But, on occasion, we find silence as a vessel of our innermost feelings. Today?s poem illustrates how, when language is muted, strong emotions such as love and desire are amplified ? and echo into a future without end.?

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Today?s poem is Love and the Deli Counter by Jill McDonough.

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. This week, in honor of Valentine?s Day, we?re revisiting some of our favorite episodes on love. This episode was originally released on July 10, 2023.

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.?

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Today?s poem is Perhaps by Wen Yiduo, translated by Arthur Sze.

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes? ?Today?s poem takes me to the ancient grounds of the imagination, and a cultivated wonder that brings us closer to its magic and possibility.?

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 Moon by Nan Cohen.

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes? ?Sometimes, every which way we turn, the world reminds us that we carry a wounded heart. Love is beautiful until it is not, and then we are handed a chainmail of armor along with our insecurities. When we stumble out of those woods, we bring along burrs and nettles, but also, too, faded reminiscences of favorite activities, gestures, habits, and memories that once bonded us to a person ? all the hurt joy. Today?s poem calls attention to how the past is resurrected, how the lingering presence of people we used to know ? can haunt the loveliest of things.?

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Today?s poem is The Dangers of Contemplation by Ron Slate.

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes? ?Every poem is a map, a transcription of a contemplative and roaming mind. I am curious about the images that arise out of the poet?s subconscious and the associative thoughts that follow. I particularly delight in the poet whose brain works at scale, a mind that soars from the granular level to expansive ideas, and hovers in between.?

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Today?s poem is Facebook Status by Adrian Blevins.

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes? ?It is human to be curious about each other?s lives, to celebrate our friends? wins and mourn, along with them, their losses. To acknowledge our inevitable changes. Today?s poem hilariously explains why our internet connections are like electrical wires that thread the night, connecting all of our lives.?

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Today?s poem is Ghazal for Mothers & Tongues by Sahar Muradi.

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes? ?Today?s fine poem is gorgeous for many reasons, but one is the way the poet enriches our ears with the sounds of words. Poems that are designed like today?s poem turn language into more than just a tool of communication ? and into a ceremonial and opulent form of human address.?

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