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The Slowdown: Poetry & Reflection Daily — Arts
The Slowdown: Poetry & Reflection Daily

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.

Copyright: © Copyright 2026 Minnesota Public Radio

Latest Episodes:

1472: The Road to Baghdad by Seth Brady Tucker Mar 09, 2026

Show notes

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

1471: It Was Like This: You Were Happy by Jane Hirshfield Mar 06, 2026

Show notes

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?”

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

1470: Common Denominators by Cynthia Arrieu-King Mar 05, 2026

Show notes

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

1469: Pardon My Heart by Marcus Jackson Mar 04, 2026

Show notes

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.”

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

1468: Five Paragraph Essay on Time by Kathleen Flenniken Mar 03, 2026

Show notes

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.”

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

1467: Geranium by Karen Solie Mar 02, 2026

Show notes

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

1466: Poem about everything except— by Amy Lemmon Feb 27, 2026

Show notes

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

1465: Or am I a room with a roof taken off, still holding onto my idea of ceiling by Kelly Hoffer Feb 26, 2026

Show notes

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

1464: Somewhere Else by Adam J. Gellings Feb 25, 2026

Show notes

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

1463: Sleep by Matthew Dickman Feb 24, 2026

Show notes

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

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