1491 Episodes

  1. [encore] 710: Acknowledgments by Nkosi Nkululeko

    Published: 6/30/2025

  2. [encore] 463: To be of use by Marge Piercy

    Published: 6/27/2025

  3. [encore] 403: The Book of Genesis by Morgan Parker

    Published: 6/26/2025

  4. [encore] 387: Stop Looking At My Last Name Like That by Michael Torres

    Published: 6/25/2025

  5. [encore] 448: Telephone of the Wind by Eddie Kim

    Published: 6/24/2025

  6. [encore] 377: Moon Pull by Carlina Duan

    Published: 6/23/2025

  7. [encore] 871: Flesh (“You in your ecstasy of coffee”) by Deborah Landau

    Published: 6/20/2025

  8. [encore] 1104: Black Book of Creation by Shanta Lee Gander

    Published: 6/19/2025

  9. 1332: Slow Take: An Evening of Poetry and Reflection with The Slowdown and The Porch

    Published: 6/18/2025

  10. [encore] 969: Us by Zaffar Kunial

    Published: 6/17/2025

  11. [encore] 1152: from "The Crystal Text" by Clark Coolidge

    Published: 6/16/2025

  12. [encore] 684: I Would Do Anything For Love, But I Won't by Traci Brimhall

    Published: 6/13/2025

  13. [encore] 531: anti-immigration by Evie Shockley

    Published: 6/12/2025

  14. [encore] 676: Last Sundays at Bootleggers by Carlos Andrés Gómez

    Published: 6/11/2025

  15. [encore] 516: In Response to Feeling Alone by t. liem

    Published: 6/10/2025

  16. [encore] 603: Sligo Abbey by Rebecca Lindenberg

    Published: 6/9/2025

  17. [encore] 373: Tracing the Horse by Diana Marie Delgado

    Published: 6/6/2025

  18. [encore] 459: The Feeling by Ari Banias

    Published: 6/5/2025

  19. [encore] 303: Telling My Father by James Crews

    Published: 6/4/2025

  20. [encore] 9: Portrait of the Alcoholic with Withdrawal by Kaveh Akbar

    Published: 6/3/2025

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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.