Today’s poem is After Vallejo by A.B. Spellman. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual.

In this episode, Major writes… “Recently, I decided to be responsible and begin the process of creating a trust and establishing a will. I thought it morbid at first. Yet, planning the aftermath of my death empowered me. I don’t know when or where I will die. So having some say in that eventful day for me feels like a lavish gift to myself.”

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 Here We Are by Lauren K. Watel. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual.

In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem begins from the idea that we yearn for connection and healing, but that our conflicts feel irreconcilable — to the point that we do not trust a future free of our trauma, grief, and suffering.”

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 Between You and You by Sham-e-Ali Nayeem. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual.

In this episode, Major writes… “Writing can change the mind for the better. Poems shape our breathing, allow us to enter seas of consciousness that become part of the spontaneous energy of life. The improvised, spirited words in a poem are born out of a body free enough to let go.”

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 Post- by Corey Van Landingham. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual.

In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem reminds me that life shapes us into authentic beings. Looking behind at our own journey can sometimes cause pain — but it can also liberate us.”

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 Home Movies: A Sort of Ode by Mary Jo Salter. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual.

In this episode, Major writes… “With so much of our treasured moments digitized on servers, it seems we’ve lost physical evidence of our lives. Yet, we own thousands more photos of ourselves than our parents and grandparents. Like many, I wonder what will happen to the virtual record of our existence once we depart the earth.”

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 Taking Stock by Elaine Equi. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual.

In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem invites us to find the balance between deepening our self-awareness and actually living life. Sometimes our journey means not letting that journey inhibit our sense of fun.”

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 from "Elegy for the Times" by Adonis, translated by Robyn Creswell. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual.

In this episode, Major writes… “For stateless people, writing poems, taking pictures, composing songs is precarious, but making art happens, nonetheless. Often, it is a counter insistence of one’s presence on earth. Today’s poem is a humanizing statement of profound sorrow borne of conflict and exile.”

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 Vulture by Ted Kooser. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual.

In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem invites us to attune, to notice, to hear what’s communicated beneath our words and bodies, to read the signs, even if what is heard or seen or felt bears an ominous message.”

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 Abide by Jake Adam York. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual.

In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem sees existence as a fleeting encounter of sublime immensity — one where we intertwine with the natural world, such that we have no other choice, but to awaken to all life around us.”

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 oracle by Duriel E. Harris. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual.

In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem intrigues me for how it upholds the possibility of poetry as a terse, sacred voicing that emerges from within, where the inexpressible finds its way to the world as transcendent music, something far more compelling than the language of machines.”

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