Today’s poem is Soot by Kaveh Akbar.

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “My friend, the poet Dana Levin, once said that my poems are “God Curious,” and I loved that description. Part of what I do in my poems is pose existential questions to myself, and think—and feel—my way into them. That’s not the same as answering them! Luckily, poems don’t require us to have answers.”

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