1540 Episodes

  1. [encore] 1045: Sonnet for Ochún by Leslie Sainz

    Published: 4/18/2025

  2. [encore] 865: Worry (the Dybbuk) by Anthony Immergluck

    Published: 4/17/2025

  3. [encore] 915: Who Among You Knows the Essence of Garlic? by Garrett Hongo

    Published: 4/16/2025

  4. [encore] 848: Six for Gold by Kate Hanson Foster

    Published: 4/15/2025

  5. [encore] 846: Some Madness There by Charlotte Pence

    Published: 4/14/2025

  6. 1331: The Party is Downstairs by Didi Jackson

    Published: 4/11/2025

  7. 1330: Playback by Lauren Camp

    Published: 4/10/2025

  8. 1329: Mantle by Kevin Young

    Published: 4/9/2025

  9. 1328: Forge by Ethel Rackin

    Published: 4/8/2025

  10. 1327: Gertrude: In the Rooms by Kate Daniels

    Published: 4/7/2025

  11. 1326: The Slowdown Live

    Published: 4/4/2025

  12. 1325: Flame by C.D. Wright

    Published: 4/3/2025

  13. 1324: Why I Write Poetry by Major Jackson

    Published: 4/2/2025

  14. 1323: The Ways of Remembering Women by Lynne Thompson

    Published: 4/1/2025

  15. 1322: [as freedom is a breakfastfood] by E.E. Cummings

    Published: 3/31/2025

  16. 1321: The Running of Several Simulations at Once May Lead to Murky Data by Heather Christle

    Published: 3/28/2025

  17. 1320: mulberry fields by Lucille Clifton

    Published: 3/27/2025

  18. encore [902]: Morning in a City by J. Mae Barizo

    Published: 3/26/2025

  19. 1319: The Rain, Life, and Other Things by Leah Umansky

    Published: 3/25/2025

  20. 1318: Desert Sayings by Donovan McAbee

    Published: 3/24/2025

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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.