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.
| Title | Date published | ||
| 1065: First of March by Stacie Cassarino | 2024-03-01 | ||
| 1064: Dry Spell by Lisa Sewell | 2024-02-29 | ||
| 1063: Love Poem by Sophie Cabot Black | 2024-02-28 | ||
| 1062: A Response to the Misguided Student by Wesley Rothman | 2024-02-27 | ||
| 1061: Mirror, Mirror by Tom Healy | 2024-02-26 | ||
| [encore] 996: Portable Paradise | 2024-02-23 | ||
| [encore] 1008: Kinds of Silence | 2024-02-22 | ||
| [encore] 923: A Funeral Ending with Beyoncé | 2024-02-21 | ||
| [encore] 990: Feeding the Koi | 2024-02-20 | ||
| [encore] 929: this is a library | 2024-02-19 | ||
| [encore] 966: Love Poem, with Birds | 2024-02-16 | ||
| [encore] 955: Love Sits by My Father | 2024-02-15 | ||
| [encore] 807: Short Essay on Love | 2024-02-14 | ||
| [encore] 1003: Without Name | 2024-02-13 | ||
| [encore] 917: Love and the Deli Counter | 2024-02-12 | ||
| 1060: Perhaps | 2024-02-09 | ||
| 1059: Love and the Moon | 2024-02-08 | ||
| 1058: The Dangers of Contemplation | 2024-02-07 | ||
| 1057: Facebook Status | 2024-02-06 |