[encore] 1444: Congratulations! Your Grief Is About to Stop Being Relevant! by Bridget Bell
2026-03-23 | 5 mins.
Today’s poem is Congratulations! Your Grief Is About to Stop Being Relevant! by Bridget Bell.
The Slowdown is taking a week to return to some of our favorite episodes from Maggie’s tenure so far. We’ll be back on Monday, March 30 with new episodes. Today’s episode was originally released on January 28, 2026.
In this episode, Maggie writes… “Today’s poem captures a time of grief in the speaker’s life, when life goes a little quiet after a flurry of support and care.”
Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
1481: from Mosaic by Supritha Rajan
2026-03-20 | 6 mins.
Today’s poem is from Mosaic by Supritha Rajan.
The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “When I see the word productivity, it’s hard not to see the word product nestled inside it, reminding me again of capitalism. I think we should try to keep whatever we can from getting chewed up — and spit out! — by capitalism. Creativity included. Creativity, especially.”
Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
1480: Reverse Requiem by Ina Cariño
2026-03-19 | 7 mins.
Today’s poem is Reverse Requiem by Ina Cariño.
The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Today’s poem inspired me to learn more about requiems — what they are, how they’ve evolved, and how we might think of them more broadly and metaphorically.”
Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
1479: After Dinner by James Ciano
2026-03-18 | 5 mins.
Today’s poem is After Dinner by James Ciano.
The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Today’s poem reminded me of one of my father’s rituals when I was young, one of his ways of taking care of himself. He’d go to the driving range at the local golf center some evenings after dinner to, in his words, ‘hit a bucket of balls.’ When we return to our rituals, we bring whoever we are that unique day, and we link it with whoever we’ve been before. In our rituals, we can find our own wholeness in a fractured world.”
Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
1478: If Night You Were a City by Adam Wiedewitsch
2026-03-17 | 6 mins.
Today’s poem is If Night You Were a City by Adam Wiedewitsch.
The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “I’ve always loved myths, legends, fables, and fairy tales. When I was young, the myth of Icarus was one that captured my imagination.”
Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
Host Maggie Smith is your daily poetry companion. Poetry is one of the greatest tools we have to wield our own attention — to consider our own lives and the lives of others, to help us live creatively and compassionately, to use that attention to lean into wonder, and joy, and truth, and to find hope — to keep hoping. The Slowdown community knows that reflecting on a poem, every weekday, can connect us to our inner world and the world around us. Listen as you make your morning coffee, as you go on a walk in your neighborhood, as you pull away from the to-do list, as you resist the dismal, endless scroll to share five minutes of perspective through the lens of poetry, from poets old and new, well-loved and emerging onto the scene. Brought to you by American Public Media, in partnership with the Poetry Foundation.
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