The Slowdown: Poetry & Reflection Daily
American Public Media
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.
Episodes
Mentioned books
Mar 17, 2026 • 6min
1478: If Night You Were a City by Adam Wiedewitsch
A meditation that imagines night as a golden-jacketed city and an urban escape. Images of lifting past bricks toward stars, neon, and perched moons appear. Heat, longing, and solitary nights mingle with memories of missing seasons and recreated metropolis life abroad. Dreams, identity, distant drums, and caution about flying too high round out the piece.
Mar 16, 2026 • 6min
1477: Surety by Anna Zumbahlen
A meditation on how poems freeze sensory moments and act as portals to the past. Reflections on choosing presence versus noting details. Thoughts about admitting the effort to memorize moments aloud. A reading that catalogs small images, sounds, and quiet epiphanies.
Mar 13, 2026 • 6min
1476: The Quiet World by Jeffrey McDaniel
A meditation on brevity and the craft of compression in poetry. Discussion of revising to let fewer words carry more weight. Introduction and reading of a poem that imagines a world with strict daily word limits. Reflections on how language shapes human behavior and consequence.
Mar 12, 2026 • 6min
1475: Out of These Wounds, the Moon Will Rise by Jay Hopler
A meditation on wishing and the strange, hopeful rituals around birthdays and desire. A poet’s imagery is read aloud to let its tone and symbols breathe. The conversation frames hope as the force that makes farfetched wishes possible. Information on how to receive daily poems and support the show closes the segment.
Mar 11, 2026 • 7min
1474: Epistemic Distance by Emma Bolden
A meditation on epistemology and why knowing matters now. Brief reflections on justified belief, contested facts, and how media fractures shared reality. A warning about denial of clear evidence and the danger of gaslighting. A poem reading that explores faith, absence, and distance between earth and the divine.
Mar 10, 2026 • 6min
1473: Solar Eclipse by Aimee Nezhukumatathil
A reflective dive into communal skywatching and family memories of a total solar eclipse. Short scenes about photographing clouds and the small rituals that make strangers feel like neighbors. A poem frames the fleeting intimacy of the moon meeting the sun and the urge to speak love aloud.
Mar 9, 2026 • 7min
1472: The Road to Baghdad by Seth Brady Tucker
A reflection on how maps and memory trace the emotional shape of home. Vivid imagery of a road that feels both floral and haunted. Scenes mix ordinary parade debris with sudden flashes of violence. A vanished place lingers in scratches, questions, and the tension between recorded history and private memory.
Mar 6, 2026 • 6min
1471: It Was Like This: You Were Happy by Jane Hirshfield
A quiet meditation on how to sum up a whole life in a few sentences. Reflections on memory, ordinary pleasures, and the way others will remember you. Plain-spoken gratitude and tiny domestic images that linger. Wonder at the improbability of existence and what it means to be content.
Mar 5, 2026 • 6min
1470: Common Denominators by Cynthia Arrieu-King
A reflection on a poem that imagines near-death visions and life-review scenes. It explores the idea that the earth is a school where souls return to learn unfinished lessons. The narrator shares a child’s profound question about the purpose of the world and lingers on a striking repeated phrase.
Mar 4, 2026 • 6min
1469: Pardon My Heart by Marcus Jackson
A meditation on having a big, tender heart and what that sensitivity reveals. Reflections on whether numbing feelings would change how one sees the world. A heartfelt reading of Marcus Jackson’s poem that leans into unabashed emotion. Short closing notes and a brief promo.
