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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
11911,191 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

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