Today’s poem is 52 Blue by Sappho Stanley. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual.

In this episode, Major writes… “Today's poem probes into the ocean within the self — the mysteries of love.”

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Today’s poem is Farmers’ Market by Molly Fisk. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual.

In this episode, Major writes… “When I was younger, as an introverted kid, I did not value large family gatherings during holidays, especially not Thanksgiving. Now, I appreciate what I once shunned. Gather me among kinfolks. Let’s talk loudly with drinks in our hands. Let’s enjoy the bounty of family and rituals that fill us with connection and the purpose of loving each other. And when we sit down to dinner, let our blessings surround us. Let us relish joyful interactions.”

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Today’s poem is Listening to Monk's Misterioso I Remember Braiding My Sisters' Hair by Christopher Gilbert. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual.

In this episode, Major writes… “The phrase “take me away” sounds passive. But music requires work, requires paying attention to changes, knowing a passage is an improvisational homage to some legendary artist. I love keeping up with the fast thinking behind the notes like little sunbursts. The nuances, say, of a Thelonious Monk off-chord is an intentional discordant act which announces presence.”

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Today’s poem is A Garden and a Street by Teresa Cader. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual.

In this episode, Major writes… “Poetry holds that place of both awakening and frustration, of perseverance against unimaginable violence and the flight away from the pains of our fragile world. Someday the bombs will stop falling. Someday the rhetoric of hatred will not have an audience. Isn’t this something that we all should work toward? Until then, so says the speaker in today’s poem, we must find a way to restore ourselves to a place of harmonious connection with and belief in all life.”

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Today’s poem is Big Purple Peonies by Margaret Ross. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual.

In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s deeply satisfying poem arrives from an exacting eye. The poet’s kinetic imagination and mental roaming feel gorgeously reportorial and cinematic, mapping self-reflection through their portrayal of vibrant landscapes.”

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Today’s poem is Telescope by Louise Glück. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual.

In this episode, guest host Myka Kielbon writes… “I live on a hill on the edge of a valley. I look out my window and watch cars creep by on the interstate that could take me a thousand miles to my birthplace if I so choose. This slice of Los Angeles – the one I look out over everyday – is odd to reconcile with the map that I see on my phone. So now, as I live in it, I try to find my own authentic knowledge of the earth I see and the earth I feel, some melding of technologies and body.”

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Today’s poem is Poem (“Instant coffee with…”) by Frank O'Hara. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual.

In this episode, guest host Myka Kielbon writes… “Loren was the person I knew in New York who was the same kind of lost as me. There is a magic to how we find each other when we need each other. It seems like our souls sort of… orbit until they reach out. They land. They find ground and we find a friend, even if it’s temporary.”

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Today’s poem is Waiting for the Annular Eclipse by Rhoni Blankenhorn. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual.

In this episode, guest host Myka Kielbon writes… “Rock bottom is a funny place. If anyone has been there, then I suppose we all end up in our own rock bottom at some point. The truth about nothing ever ending, nothing ever being final, is that things will be the same again, too. Just not all at the same time, in the same way. You’ll find a new rock bottom. And, a new way out.”

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Today’s poem is Aleppo by Hala Alyan. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual.

In this episode, guest host Myka Kielbon writes… “Recently, I dreamt that my friend and I were moving into a big, old apartment. Once we got the couch in the living room, my grandmother appeared, sitting on it. I haven’t seen her in a decade. She died in 2015. I think my grandmother, a woman who witnessed and bore great suffering, a woman who was courageous and loving, came to me to remind me of the strength we need to carry each other.”

Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Today’s poem is Brooklyn is for Breakups by Chen Chen. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual.

In this episode, guest host Myka Kielbon writes… “I have experienced a whole lot of life, and romance only forms threads of that life, woven into all the other moments. The threads are often short. They have loose ends. What I struggle with – what I’ve struggled with for years – is naming the importance of the relationships I’ve had with people that don’t fit neatly into a category.”

Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp