The Slowdown: Poetry & Reflection Daily

By: American Public Media
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  • Summary

  • Poet Major Jackson is your guide on the pathways to feel and understand our common journey – through poetry. In sharing poems, we take a moment to pause and acknowledge the world’s magnitude, and how poets illuminate that mystery. Join The Slowdown for a poem and a moment of reflection in one short episode, every weekday. Produced by APM Studios in partnership with The Poetry Foundation and supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts.

    The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. Make us a part of your routine as you drink coffee in the morning, as you take a walk in nature, or as you wind down to go to sleep in the evening. With host Major Jackson, we collectively take a moment to calm, to inspire, to learn, and to engage with the best emerging poets and established writers of our time and generations past, from Emily Dickinson to Danez Smith, from Amanda Gorman to Mary Oliver.

    Listen to our back catalog for episodes by our previous hosts, Tracy K. Smith and Ada Limón, as well as guest hosts Jenny Xie, Brenda Shaughnessy, Tina Chang, Nate Marshall, Shira Erlichiman, and Jason Schneiderman. Our hosts and production team select poems that move them, and we hope they move you, too.
    Copyright 2025 Minnesota Public Radio
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Episodes
  • [encore] 476: Minneapolipstick by Rachel McKibbens

    [encore] 476: Minneapolipstick by Rachel McKibbens
    Apr 25 2025

    Today’s poem is Minneapolipstick by Rachel McKibbens. The Slowdown is currently taking a break. We’ll be back soon with new episodes. This week, we’re going back into the archive to revisit Tracy K. Smith’s time as host. Today’s episode was originally released on September 21, 2020.


    In this episode, former host Tracy K. Smith writes… “Sometimes a dance party is the only means of conflict resolution in my house.]”


    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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    6 mins
  • [encore] 499: Leaving Tulsa by Jennifer Elise Foerster

    [encore] 499: Leaving Tulsa by Jennifer Elise Foerster
    Apr 24 2025

    Today’s poem is Leaving Tulsa by Jennifer Elise Foerster. The Slowdown is currently taking a break. We’ll be back soon with new episodes. This week, we’re going back into the archive to revisit Tracy K. Smith’s time as host. Today’s episode was originally released on October 22, 2020.


    In this episode, former host Tracy K. Smith writes… “History is a worn path. Deep ruts eaten into Earth make up a road. But there are additional routes, footprints, and wheel grooves and grassy straits few have traveled. The Myth of a central history of America is damaging to those whose stories have been left untended, overgrown, and it is damaging for those who believe the one heavily trafficked road is the only road. It has become clear to me that the work of survival for this fraught nation is the work of stopping to listen to the many divergent narratives of America.”


    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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    5 mins
  • [encore] 143: Untitled by Sesshu Foster

    [encore] 143: Untitled by Sesshu Foster
    Apr 23 2025

    Today’s poem is Untitled by Sesshu Foster. The Slowdown is currently taking a break. We’ll be back soon with new episodes. This week, we’re going back into the archive to revisit Tracy K. Smith’s time as host. Today’s episode was originally released on June 12, 2019.


    In this episode, former host Tracy K. Smith writes… “Sometimes, I return to memories of my past and feel as though I'm peering in upon strangers. And yet, I know something fundamental to the person I now am, resides there.” 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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    5 mins
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