Today’s poem is  Portable Paradise by Roger Robinson. 
The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. We’re taking a break this week, so we’re running some of our favorite episodes from this season so far. This episode was originally released on 11/10/2023.
In this episode, Major writes… “As so much poetry reminds us, suffering is at the core of being human. Yes, we fumble along. We live a melancholic existence. Some of us protest, confess, and bring the news in our works. Yet, today’s poem wisely announces that we should always keep that place which feels like heaven within sight. We should maintain an inner utopia, even if hidden from others. It, too, is worthy of mapping in literature.” 
Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

[encore] 996: Portable Paradise

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.

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Today’s poem is Life on Earth by Dorianne Laux. 
The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Poems buttress me against the hurt and the harm and the uncertainty of life itself. I fear that the global conflicts we’re witnessing are negatively impacting the health and mental wellbeing of people who are susceptible to the frailty of this moment. I read poetry profusely during times like these.” 
Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

1108: Life on Earth by Dorianne Laux

Today’s poem is Accessory to War by Kim Stafford.
The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s sobering poem lands a powerful reminder: that even when we adhere to a belief against war, even when we wish not to collude in acts of aggression, in a powerful nation as ours, mere citizenship implicates us.” 
Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

1107: Accessory to War by Kim Stafford

Today’s poem is Life In The Gush Of Boasts by Elijah Burrell. 
The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Most writers are not “All eyes on me,” but the psychology of the social media “like” and “follower” becomes validation, it seems, between books.” 
Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

1106: Life In The Gush Of Boasts by Elijah Burrell

Today’s poem is Self-Portrait with Tumbling and Lasso by Eduardo C. Corral.
The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… "These days, we are loving reading and writing self-portrait poems, what I call the “verbal selfie.” It allows the author to be the runway, to elevate themselves into the frame of language. In so doing, the poet, like the author of today’s poem, experiments with perceptions of the self. I like how the poet in Rembrandt-fashion mythologizes himself in the lyric.” 
Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

1105: Self-Portrait with Tumbling and Lasso by Eduardo C. Corral

Today’s poem is Black Book of Creation by Shanta Lee Gander.
The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem builds on the belief that imagining is a kind of magic and time travel, that listening to the soil and all the voices within is a monumental way into both history, and our future.” 
Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

[encore] 996: Portable Paradise

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