Today?s poem is Intaglio by Emma Aylor.

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes? ?When we hear the word ?print? in regards to a painting, we might think of a copy or duplicate ? in other words, not the real thing. There?s Gustav Klimt?s famous painting ?The Kiss,? worth millions of dollars, and then there are poster prints of the original, which anyone can buy and hang in their home. Printmaking as a technology began just before the invention of movable type allowed for the mass production of books ? in both cases, opening the floodgates of knowledge and ideas. Today, many forms of printmaking are practiced as a craft and as an art. Some printmaking, like intaglio, is used to create both limited-edition art that would hang in a museum or a piece of paper money.?

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Today?s poem is Love Song to the Alpacas of Solomon Lane by Kenzie Allen.

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes? ?I have a soft spot for poems that center animals, and there are many such poems. I?m thinking about the horse in James Wright?s famous poem, ?A Blessing.? I?m thinking about the poor dead goat in Brigit Pegeen Kelly?s poem ?Song,? which might just be my favorite poem of all time. (It?s so hard to choose just one!)?

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Today?s poem is Pathway by Paula Bohince.

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes? ?What if we saw turning to community not as a sign of weakness, but as a sign of wealth ? an acknowledgement that we are so rich with support, so rich with friendship. And beyond that, I think of community as being broader than just people. Isn?t place part of community? The creatures, the landscape, the trees and plants. When I feel grounded in a place, I have a sense of being held. You can see love everywhere if you look closely enough.?

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Today?s poem is Graduation by Edgar Kunz.

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes? ?Today?s poem reminds me that even when distance is necessary ? or imposed ? love and memory are tethers that are elastic. They stretch to accommodate separation. And if we?re lucky, they stretch as needed but don?t snap.?

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Today?s poem is Stadium by Heather Tone.

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes? ?Meditation on death awareness, called maranasati, is one of the oldest practices in all Buddhist traditions. It may seem morbid to make a practice from contemplating your own death while you?re still alive, but the idea of your death is probably affecting the way you live.?

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 Community by Emily Bright.

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes? ?I want our house to be a place where anyone can be themselves and know they are with people who care about them, people they can trust. I want my friends and my kids? friends to feel safe and comfortable, to relax and have fun, and to leave feeling ready to face the world outside, which isn?t always as warm and welcoming as I?d like it to be. Today?s poem is about how the small things we offer one another ? meals, conversation, a soft place to land ? are not small at all. They?re everything.?

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Today?s poem is The plum you're going to eat next summer by Gayle Brandeis.

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes? ?I know optimism can be a tough sell when there?s so much suffering, so much difficulty, in the world. But this brokenness is exactly why we need more poems, more paintings, more films, more plays. More art. To make things that don?t exist yet ? and don?t need to exist, because that is the very definition of art ? and to send them out into the world is wildly, impractically, gorgeously hopeful.?

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Today?s poem is Smalltown Lift by Brian Blanchfield.

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes? ?One of the most challenging things about being in a relationship, especially a new one, is communication. I?ve certainly been guilty of doing what some of you listening have probably done, too: not saying how I feel, not asking for what I want, not being clear in my communication. When we don?t say what?s on our minds, it?s usually out of fear ? fear of being rejected, of upsetting the other person, of blowing the whole thing up. You might not share music you love or activities you enjoy if you think they?ll be judged as uncool; you might try to play it safe and not show too much of your true, quirky self.?

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Today?s poem is Sonnet Overheard at Phone Booth by Elane Kim.

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes? ?The sonnet has survived multiple centuries by always adapting. In a contemporary sonnet, poets are altering its shape and rethinking what the container can hold. Women in particular have transformed the formal tradition of the sonnet in America ? poets like Wanda Coleman, who invented the unrhymed American Sonnet. Other women who helped transform the contemporary sonnet are Gwendolyn Brooks, Rita Dove, Patricia Smith, Monica Youn, and Diane Seuss. Today?s poet is part of this tradition. If a sonnet is about turning to the unexpected, then the poet takes it further by looking in unexpected places.?

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Today?s poem is Anniversary by Edward Salem.

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes? ?Cemeteries are peaceful, reverent places, and yet they?re places I don?t visit regularly ? not unless I?m birding, apparently. If I want to feel close to someone I?ve lost, I?m more likely to look at photos, or tell stories, or listen to songs that remind me of them. And yes, I?m likely to write about them. That?s part of how I honor their memory and keep them close.?

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 The Problem With Early Warnings by Charles Rafferty.

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes? ?You?ve probably heard the boiling frog theory. It goes like this: If a frog is dropped into a pot of tepid water that is slowly heated, the creature won?t perceive the danger until it?s too late ? when the water is finally boiling, and it?s cooked to death. But if a frog is dropped directly into boiling water, it will jump out immediately, saving itself. I don?t need to tell you that in this analogy, we?re the frog. We?re in hot water that keeps getting hotter. So why aren?t more of us jumping? Why are we slow to react? This analogy suggests that it?s because the water didn?t start out boiling. We?ve been slowly acclimating to the increase in temperature ? or rather, the increase in danger.?

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Today?s poem is from Perihelion: A History of Touch by Franny Choi.

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes? ?Today?s poem is about the snow moon, the first full moon of February. The explanation behind the name ?snow moon? is fairly straightforward: February is often the snowiest month. After reading this quiet stunner of a poem, I was inspired to turn on one of my favorite Nick Drake songs, ?Pink Moon.? I highly recommend this poem/song pairing.?

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Today?s poem is Scheduling the Bone Scan by Katie Farris.

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes? ?I know our hearing involves sound waves and the structures of the ear, but I wouldn?t have been able to explain it in depth or draw you a diagram. So I did a little research, and as I suspected, there is plenty of poetry ? by which I mean music and mystery ? in the science.?

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Today?s poem is Crossing by C. Rees. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes? ?Today?s poem carries us to the Delaware River, cold and dark in winter, and also a place that feels both beautiful and haunted.? 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 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.?

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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.?

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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.?

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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 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

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 poem is The Situation in Our City by Ciona Rouse. Today?s episode was originally released on October 28, 2025.

In this episode, Maggie writes? ?This poem has me thinking more and more about chance, and about our circumstances. It also has me thinking about the ways we take care of one another, and how we can?and must?do BETTER. As James Baldwin famously wrote, ?The children are always ours.??

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Today?s poem is Congratulations! Your Grief Is About to Stop Being Relevant! by Bridget Bell.

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 January 28, 2026.

In this episode, Maggie writes? ?Today?s poem captures a time of grief in the speaker?s life, when life goes a little quiet after a flurry of support and care.?

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Today?s poem is from Mosaic by Supritha Rajan.

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes? ?When I see the word productivity, it?s hard not to see the word product nestled inside it, reminding me again of capitalism. I think we should try to keep whatever we can from getting chewed up ? and spit out! ? by capitalism. Creativity included. Creativity, especially.?

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 Reverse Requiem by Ina Carin?o.

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes? ?Today?s poem inspired me to learn more about requiems ? what they are, how they?ve evolved, and how we might think of them more broadly and metaphorically.?

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Today?s poem is After Dinner by James Ciano.

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes? ?Today?s poem reminded me of one of my father?s rituals when I was young, one of his ways of taking care of himself. He?d go to the driving range at the local golf center some evenings after dinner to, in his words, ?hit a bucket of balls.? When we return to our rituals, we bring whoever we are that unique day, and we link it with whoever we?ve been before. In our rituals, we can find our own wholeness in a fractured world.?

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Today?s poem is If Night You Were a City by Adam Wiedewitsch.

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes? ?I?ve always loved myths, legends, fables, and fairy tales. When I was young, the myth of Icarus was one that captured my imagination.?

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 Surety by Anna Zumbahlen.

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes? ?Writing is a way of memorizing moments. I know this. I do this. Because a poem can act as a portal, taking me back to a specific time and place. So often, mid-experience, I start to sense the poetic possibility of the moment. I find myself making a metaphor or grasping for imagery and descriptive language. I?m half living in the present, half processing this moment?s future on the page.?

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Today?s poem is The Quiet World by Jeffrey McDaniel.

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes? ?Poets are known for making big moves in small spaces. We value brevity and compression, which go hand in hand. In a brief poem, maybe a poem with only a handful of lines, each word weighs a ton. We have to choose them carefully. An enormous amount of meaning ? and possibility ? is packed inside every word. I picture them as expandable suitcases, unzipped so that we can stuff even more inside them. That?s compression! The words themselves may be few, but they carry a great deal.?

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Today?s poem is Out of These Wounds, the Moon Will Rise by Jay Hopler. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes? ?Today?s poem is about wishing, and in that way, I think it?s about hope. Even when a wish is farfetched and seems less than likely, hope is what allows us to make it anyway.? 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 Epistemic Distance by Emma Bolden.

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes? ?I?m a poet, so I?m all for nuance. I embrace ambiguity, and I?m flexible in my thinking. But I refuse to believe that we?re living in a post-factual world. We might be tempted to call epistemology too abstract, too intellectual, too high brow, not relevant to the lives of real people. Who needs to know about this branch of philosophy when we?re just trying to get by, day by day? But if there was ever a time to think about what we know, and how we know it, it?s now.?

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Today?s poem is Solar Eclipse by Aimee Nezhukumatathil.

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes? ?The last total solar eclipse, my kids and I put on cardboard eclipse glasses and spread a big quilt in our backyard, where we could lay and look up. I could see neighbors in the yards around us doing the same thing. We were all ogling the sky. When totality happened, the sky got darker and the air felt cooler. Our patio lights, which automatically come on at dusk, lit up. It was so eerie. And at the same time, it was so nice to be looking up with everyone else, sharing the same 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 The Road to Baghdad by Seth Brady Tucker. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes? ?Home is a mythic place as much as a real place. It?s different in our minds than it is on the map. And some of what we remember isn?t on the map at all ? the way we felt when we were there, how we spent our time in that place, and who we were with. The emotional cartography of any place is different from its actual cartography.? 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 It Was Like This: You Were Happy by Jane Hirshfield.

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes? ?If someone asked you, at the end of your life, ?What was your life like?? I wonder what you might say. How would you characterize your lived experience ? the whole of it, cradle to grave? You couldn?t tell every story, or detail every friendship or romantic relationship. You couldn?t list all of your jobs or accomplishments in some sort of highlight reel. You couldn?t describe every place you visited and what you experienced there. So how would you summarize your life? Your tiny-in-the-grand-scheme-of-things-but-enormous-to-you life??

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Today?s poem is Common Denominators by Cynthia Arrieu-King.

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes? ?There?s one phrase toward the end of this poem that I keep coming back to: ?The earth is a school.? The more I hear it, the more I agree. The earth is a school. The world is for learning and becoming, and we humans ? we students ? have so very much to learn.?

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 Pardon My Heart by Marcus Jackson.

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes? ?If I had a different kind of heart, a tougher heart, would I be able to see what?s happening in the world around me and not feel so brokenhearted? What would it be like to be able to sleep through the night, unbothered? I can?t imagine feeling less, or caring less. That?s not the heart I have.?

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Today?s poem is Five Paragraph Essay on Time by Kathleen Flenniken.

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes? ?Recently, I told a friend that I had procrastinated a task, and so I had to really hustle to get it done on time, and she kindly corrected me. Or, rather, she reframed what I was calling procrastination as something else: triage. That?s what she called it. She said, ?You have so much to do, you have to triage tasks?tackle the big and immediate ones first, and let some of the smaller ones go for a bit.? She had a point. I didn?t have a time management issue or a lack of focus. I was juggling multiple tasks, and that meant that some of them naturally had to wait.?

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Today?s poem is Geranium by Karen Solie.

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes? ?Today?s poem reminds me that even though ?volunteer plants? may create extra work for me, I respect their hardiness, their resourcefulness, and their ability to take root.?

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 about everything except? by Amy Lemmon. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes? ?I was drawn to today?s poem from the get-go because of its title: ?Poem about everything except?.? I went in anticipating maximalism ? ?everything but the kitchen sink,? as the saying goes, and the poem delivered.? 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 Or am I a room with a roof taken off, still holding onto my idea of ceiling by Kelly Hoffer. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes? ?Fireplaces, thunderstorms, ocean waves?these sounds are popular ?white noise? for sleep and relaxation. And it?s odd, when I think about how these sounds represent very real dangers in nature. About how we are soothed by the contained version of something that can harm 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 Somewhere Else by Adam J. Gellings. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes? ?I was born at 4:30 in the afternoon on a cold Sunday in February. All of this is either useless information ? time of day, day of the week, month of the year ? or it?s part of our own myth-making.? 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 Sleep by Matthew Dickman. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes? ?Poems so often say the things we can?t. They give language and shape to ideas that feel too big for words ? like love, and mortality, and grief.? 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 Perspective, Coyoacán by Corey Van Landingham.

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes? ?Today?s poem is an ekphrastic poem, a poem inspired by a piece of art. It opens with an epigraph that is a quote by Frida Kahlo. It strikes me now, reading that line of hers, that while she?s talking about painting herself, it can also refer to writing about oneself.?

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 Word for It by Kevin Craft. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes? ?The planet we call home is full of miracles, and we don?t have to look hard to find them. Today?s poem is about paying attention to the beauty around us, and to the life around us, even if we don?t fully understand it. Especially if we don?t fully understand 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 Poem to Remind Myself of the Natural Order of Things by Donika Kelly.

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. 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

Today?s poem is February by Jim Moore. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes? ?Despite February being my birth month, it is easily my least favorite month of the year. The winter weather in the Midwest is brutal. By mid-January, the twinkling lights and holiday cheer that make December bearable are gone. By February, I?m over 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 on projection by Raena Shirali. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes? ?One of the things I love about poetry?one of the things I look forward to, and revel in, as a reader and listener?is the way a poet can make the familiar strange. A familiar landscape, thanks to poetic language, can be transformed into something unfamiliar.? 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 excerpt from THERE IS ONLY ONE GHOST IN THE WORLD by Sophie Klahr and Corey Zeller.

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes? ? Today?s piece is collaborative, written by Sophie Klahr and Cory Zeller. I love the way it begins with the legend of the Bermuda Triangle but then turns toward the incredibly personal, though there isn?t a single person?s perspective or experience behind 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 Rubicon by Carl Phillips. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Samiya Bashir writes? ??Crossing the Rubicon? has long been a widely used idiom. It refers to having stepped over a line, or passed a point of no return. We use it to say that one has taken the final step into dangerous waters from which there is no retreat; once that line has been crossed, nothing will ever be the same. A new beginning of a certain kind.? 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 Historical Site by Tommye Blount. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Samiya Bashir writes? ?Today?s poem is one of those that crushes me with its ending. Our Detroit poet manages to whittle the grand and often devastating expansiveness of history right down to the explosive synapses which drive and alight our very gray matter.? 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 Katherine with the Lazy Eye. Short. And Not a Good Poet by francine j. harris. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Samiya Bashir writes? ?Everyone is a hero to someone, or a beauty, or a problem, or all of the above. Today?s poem acknowledges exactly that with a brutal, identifiable honesty. But what this poet insists that we remember is how we are all, also, even if not loved, then so, so very lovable.? 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 Closing Time; Iskandariya by Brigit Pegeen Kelly. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Samiya Bashir writes? ?Today?s poem, in ways that I aspire to in my own writing life, manages to take a deep breath in and collapse two thousand years of danger into a single moment of misunderstanding.? Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp