
Sign up to save your podcasts
Or


Today’s poem is Thanks by W.S. Merwin.
The Slowdown is currently taking a break. We’ll be back soon with new episodes from a new host. 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 December 18, 2019.
In this episode, Tracy writes… “It takes a wise and gifted poet to create a panoramic portrait of life that allows guilt and anger and shame to occupy the very same space as gratitude. I believe the late W.S. Merwin was such a poet. Reading his poem, “Thanks,” takes courage, because it insists upon a fierce form of moral reckoning.”
Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
By American Public Media4.8
11951,195 ratings
Today’s poem is Thanks by W.S. Merwin.
The Slowdown is currently taking a break. We’ll be back soon with new episodes from a new host. 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 December 18, 2019.
In this episode, Tracy writes… “It takes a wise and gifted poet to create a panoramic portrait of life that allows guilt and anger and shame to occupy the very same space as gratitude. I believe the late W.S. Merwin was such a poet. Reading his poem, “Thanks,” takes courage, because it insists upon a fierce form of moral reckoning.”
Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

90,957 Listeners

38,507 Listeners

6,790 Listeners

8,760 Listeners

3,355 Listeners

3,999 Listeners

443 Listeners

521 Listeners

471 Listeners

2,877 Listeners

924 Listeners

1,389 Listeners

13,700 Listeners

3,086 Listeners

10,135 Listeners

2,135 Listeners

28,298 Listeners

13,236 Listeners

5,488 Listeners

794 Listeners

507 Listeners

14,106 Listeners

6,335 Listeners

16,354 Listeners

3,575 Listeners