1559 Episodes

  1. 499: Leaving Tulsa

    Published: 10/22/2020

  2. 498: Owed to the 99 Cent Store

    Published: 10/21/2020

  3. 497: Gwendolyn Brooks: America in the Wintertime

    Published: 10/20/2020

  4. News from The Slowdown

    Published: 10/19/2020

  5. 496: a brief meditation on breath

    Published: 10/19/2020

  6. 495: Naming Ceremony

    Published: 10/16/2020

  7. 494: Often I am Permitted to Return to the City

    Published: 10/15/2020

  8. 493: Red Wine Spills

    Published: 10/14/2020

  9. 492: i woke up and the day caught me

    Published: 10/13/2020

  10. 491: aubade for the whole hood

    Published: 10/12/2020

  11. 490: And We Love Life

    Published: 10/9/2020

  12. 489: Pigeon and Hawk

    Published: 10/8/2020

  13. 488: Bedtime Story

    Published: 10/7/2020

  14. 487: Reports of the Dream You're Not Likely to Recover From

    Published: 10/6/2020

  15. 486: Mount Rushmore

    Published: 10/5/2020

  16. 485: The Bald Truth

    Published: 10/2/2020

  17. 484: Letter to the Local Police

    Published: 10/1/2020

  18. 483: Bring Now the Angels

    Published: 9/30/2020

  19. 482: Nightingale Pledge

    Published: 9/29/2020

  20. 481: brown and black people on shark tank

    Published: 9/28/2020

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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.