The Slowdown: Poetry & Reflection Daily

Latest Episodes:

1322: [as freedom is a breakfastfood] by E.E. Cummings Mar 31, 2025

Show notes

Today’s poem is [as freedom is a breakfastfood] by E.E. Cummings.

Last week, our team attended the 2025 AWP Conference in Los Angeles. AWP is the Association of Writers and Writing Programs — the conference is an annual moment to gather together colleagues across the writer world. This week’s episodes include audio we recorded onsite, bringing together many voices, Slowdown style. Today’s poem explores our subjectivity, exposing the beauty and the ridiculousness in our impermanence.

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

1321: The Running of Several Simulations at Once May Lead to Murky Data by Heather Christle Mar 28, 2025

Show notes

Today’s poem is The Running of Several Simulations at Once May Lead to Murky Data by Heather Christle.

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Some might call it fantastical, but in fact, for many, magic is our orientation, or the place where we began as children and never experienced the rupture that befalls most when they become adults.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today.

Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

1320: mulberry fields by Lucille Clifton Mar 27, 2025

Show notes

Today’s poem is mulberry fields by Lucille Clifton.

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “American poetry gently mediates our rich and complicated history. It points the way to healing and affirms timeless values that secure all Americans' freedoms.”

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

encore [902]: Morning in a City by J. Mae Barizo Mar 26, 2025

Show notes

Our episode today is one of many from the archives. We’ll be back tomorrow with more new poetry and reflection!

Today’s poem is Morning in a City by J. Mae Barizo.

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem, an homage to poet Robert Hass, suggests one possible way of retaining is to live in the music of our existence, where memories though fleeting and at our peripheries, still carry indulgences of delight.”

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

1319: The Rain, Life, and Other Things by Leah Umansky Mar 25, 2025

Show notes

Today’s poem is The Rain, Life, and Other Things by Leah Umansky.

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “I hear in today’s poem a spirit of riffing and casting forward in expressive notes. The speaker progresses by way of shifts and variations that ultimately arrives like a jazz solo. It’s where I find solace in movement and truth, in an embrace of simplicity.”

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

1318: Desert Sayings by Donovan McAbee Mar 24, 2025

Show notes

Today’s poem is Desert Sayings by Donovan McAbee.

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s uproarious poem makes me want to abandon our life of chatter. To throw off our overly scheduled existence. I want to wake up to truths that can only be gleaned when I fade-out sequentially every duty that impresses upon me as needing to get done.”

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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