Today’s poem is Ethnic Arithmetic by Sara R. Burnett.
The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “One of the deeply harmful and insidious ways white supremacy wounds people is having them believe they are superior to (or less than), based merely on skin color. There’s a deep sadness in not seeing each other as whole human beings, in not recognizing the gift and potential beyond bureaucratic designations that confine us. Even here, I almost wrote “define us.” Identity is fraught and never more so than when we are reduced to a box to check on a census document, employment record, or audience survey.” 
Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

869: Ethnic Arithmetic

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 Mercy, Mercy Me by Olatunde Osinaike.
The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… "The speaker in today’s poem survives by an adherence to their values — but also by a willingness to adopt new codes, to risk new experiences, to take on new attitudes.” 
Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

1097: Mercy, Mercy Me by Olatunde Osinaike

Today’s poem is Gacela of the Dark Death by Federico García Lorca, translated by Merryn Williams.
The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… "Today’s poem has me recall a pilgrimage to the home of a cherished poet, whose mystery is the very fire that channels my faith in poetry as nothing less than pure feeling.” 
Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

1096: Gacela of the Dark Death by Federico García Lorca, translated by Merryn Williams

Today’s poem is Nameless Places by Tony Petrosky. 
The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… "This summer, I get to write in a castle in Italy at an artist retreat. I am hoping my assigned room is in a dungeon. Otherwise, I am afraid high ceilings will mean high windows, which will mean a room flooded with light. I wish to arrive at light like a burst that suddenly suffuses my eyelids; I want the page to contain inexpressible awe at our existence, to enact a calamitous and beautiful journey. Today’s short poem honors the unseen, formidable spaces that define us as much as our existence in the light." 
Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

1095: Nameless Places by Tony Petrosky

Today’s poem is 00000000 by Erin Marie Lynch.
The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… "Today’s poem disentangles the quest for money, transactional desire, and lyric subjectivity. Its teasing interplay of language brings into close proximity art, social class, and manners of currency.” 
Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

1094: 00000000 by Erin Marie Lynch

Today’s poem is When Your Month is Lonely… by Christine Kwon. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. 
In this episode, Major writes… "I read all those articles that proclaim how lonely we are becoming; I believe there’s some truth to it. Here’s my fear: all my work is making me alien to myself and others. I’m happy people are in my life. I wish not to skirt over their humanity, nor my own. I do not want our relationship to devolve to obligation, or come off as transactional. But we naturally negotiate that space of difference between ourselves and others; how rewarding when we can really connect to others.”  
Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

869: Ethnic Arithmetic

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