Today’s poem is The Evening Meeting by Matthew Zapruder.

663: The Evening Meeting

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 Egrets, While War by Tishani Doshi.
The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s compelling poem honors the ancient and indomitable essence of human beings who continue on even in the face of tragedy, who crossover into the perfect fullness of their truth and emotions.” 
Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

1113: Egrets, While War by Tishani Doshi

Today’s poem is Sl(e)ight by Alice White. 
The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “We recognize the vulnerability in children. Our natural impulse is to protect them from the troubles and potential harms that will come their way, knowing that suffering is an inevitable part of their journey. For this reason, the speaker in today’s poem is on alert, like any parent, knowing that the tricks of the world, and of people, disguise the most horrid possibilities.” 
Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

1112: Sl(e)ight by Alice White

Today’s poem is The Nation by Roy Fisher.
The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “It’s important for us to avoid what Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka once phrased as “saline consciousness,” that is, the belief that only what lies within our boundaries is worth noticing. We can roam beyond our familiar provinces. Today’s poem satirizes a vision of nationhood that only sees itself in relation to the known and all that has been sanctioned.” 
Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

1111: The Nation by Roy Fisher

Today’s poem is Blue Hour by Chanda Feldman. 
The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Although about the birth of a child, what I love about today’s poem is how it parallels my growing sense of care for natural environments. When my children were born, their bodies demanded a softness from my body, not to mention a constant attention.” 
Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

1110: Blue Hour by Chanda Feldman

Today’s poem is Never Did Say So by Caridad Moro-Gronlier. 
The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem explores the depths of its speaker by applying the lyrics of an iconic artist who gets that indomitable spirit of smart, independent women.” 
Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

663: The Evening Meeting

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