1560 Episodes

  1. 461: For Black Children at the End of the World—and the Beginning

    Published: 8/31/2020

  2. 460: American Mother

    Published: 8/28/2020

  3. 459: The Feeling

    Published: 8/27/2020

  4. 458: Tyranny of the Human Face

    Published: 8/26/2020

  5. 457: I Found Kin in a Thrift Store Photograph

    Published: 8/25/2020

  6. 456: Pelvic Ultrasound

    Published: 8/24/2020

  7. 455: Mercury in Retrograde

    Published: 8/21/2020

  8. 454: On a Spaceship Somewhere, Long After Empire's Collapse

    Published: 8/20/2020

  9. 453: You Can Take Off Your Sweater, I've Made Today Warm

    Published: 8/19/2020

  10. 452: The Ghosts of the Space Dogs

    Published: 8/18/2020

  11. 451: Dancing with Kiko on the Moon

    Published: 8/17/2020

  12. 450: Essay on Reentry

    Published: 8/14/2020

  13. 449: Soft-Bodied Animals Leave Few Traces

    Published: 8/13/2020

  14. 448: Telephone of the Wind

    Published: 8/12/2020

  15. 447: We Eat Out Together

    Published: 8/11/2020

  16. 446: When Fannie Lou Hamer Said

    Published: 8/10/2020

  17. 445: Pomegranate Means Grenade

    Published: 8/7/2020

  18. 444: Mood Ring

    Published: 8/6/2020

  19. 443: The Aisle Not Taken

    Published: 8/5/2020

  20. 442: Climbing China's Great Wall

    Published: 8/4/2020

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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.