1534 Episodes

  1. 415: Variations in Blue

    Published: 6/26/2020

  2. 414: Full Capacity

    Published: 6/25/2020

  3. 413: Ask Me Why I Love You

    Published: 6/24/2020

  4. 412: Words Were Changing

    Published: 6/23/2020

  5. 411: Soaking Up Sun

    Published: 6/22/2020

  6. 410: For My People

    Published: 6/19/2020

  7. 409: How Can Black People Write About Flowers at a Time Like This

    Published: 6/18/2020

  8. 408: The Emperor's Deer

    Published: 6/17/2020

  9. 407: At the Age of 18 - Ode to Girls of Color

    Published: 6/16/2020

  10. 406: from here i saw what happened and i cried

    Published: 6/15/2020

  11. 405: We Are Not Responsible

    Published: 6/12/2020

  12. 404: On the D Train

    Published: 6/11/2020

  13. 403: The Book of Genesis

    Published: 6/10/2020

  14. 402: Whipping Tree

    Published: 6/9/2020

  15. 401: Eliza Harris

    Published: 6/8/2020

  16. 400: [They will tell you that I was sick, that I was a drug addict.]

    Published: 6/5/2020

  17. 399: supply and demand

    Published: 6/4/2020

  18. 398: American Sonnet for My Past and Future Assassin [“You don’t seem to want it, but you wanted it”]

    Published: 6/3/2020

  19. 397: A Small Needful Fact

    Published: 6/2/2020

  20. 396: December

    Published: 6/1/2020

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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.