1550 Episodes

  1. 509: Wondrous

    Published: 9/24/2021

  2. 508: Rehearsal for the New World

    Published: 9/23/2021

  3. 507: Do You Ever Think About Leaving, My Mother Asks

    Published: 9/22/2021

  4. 506: At the Arcade I Paint Your Footprints

    Published: 9/21/2021

  5. The Slowdown returns with new host Ada Limón

    Published: 9/9/2021

  6. 505: You Are Who I Love

    Published: 10/30/2020

  7. 504: What the Kids in Subtle Asian Traits Know

    Published: 10/29/2020

  8. 503: Before the Riot

    Published: 10/28/2020

  9. 502: To D.B.

    Published: 10/27/2020

  10. 501: Facial Recognition

    Published: 10/26/2020

  11. 500: The Party

    Published: 10/23/2020

  12. 499: Leaving Tulsa

    Published: 10/22/2020

  13. 498: Owed to the 99 Cent Store

    Published: 10/21/2020

  14. 497: Gwendolyn Brooks: America in the Wintertime

    Published: 10/20/2020

  15. News from The Slowdown

    Published: 10/19/2020

  16. 496: a brief meditation on breath

    Published: 10/19/2020

  17. 495: Naming Ceremony

    Published: 10/16/2020

  18. 494: Often I am Permitted to Return to the City

    Published: 10/15/2020

  19. 493: Red Wine Spills

    Published: 10/14/2020

  20. 492: i woke up and the day caught me

    Published: 10/13/2020

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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.