The Slowdown: Poetry & Reflection Daily

Latest Episodes:

[encore] 1444: Congratulations! Your Grief Is About to Stop Being Relevant! by Bridget Bell Mar 23, 2026

Show notes

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.”

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

1481: from Mosaic by Supritha Rajan Mar 20, 2026

Show notes

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

1480: Reverse Requiem by Ina Cariño Mar 19, 2026

Show notes

Today’s poem is Reverse Requiem by Ina Cariño.

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.”

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

1479: After Dinner by James Ciano Mar 18, 2026

Show notes

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.”

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

1478: If Night You Were a City by Adam Wiedewitsch Mar 17, 2026

Show notes

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

1477: Surety by Anna Zumbahlen Mar 16, 2026

Show notes

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.”

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

1476: The Quiet World by Jeffrey McDaniel Mar 13, 2026

Show notes

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.”

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

1475: Out of These Wounds, the Moon Will Rise by Jay Hopler Mar 12, 2026

Show notes

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

1474: Epistemic Distance by Emma Bolden Mar 11, 2026

Show notes

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.”

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

1473: Solar Eclipse by Aimee Nezhukumatathil Mar 10, 2026

Show notes

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

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