1482 Episodes

  1. 1319: The Rain, Life, and Other Things by Leah Umansky

    Published: 3/25/2025

  2. 1318: Desert Sayings by Donovan McAbee

    Published: 3/24/2025

  3. 1317: Grinning in Sardinia by Tomás Q. Morín

    Published: 3/21/2025

  4. 1316: Portrait of My Mother Studying for Her Citizenship Exam by Eduardo Martínez-Leyva

    Published: 3/20/2025

  5. encore [1224]: Here We Are by Lauren K. Watel

    Published: 3/19/2025

  6. 1315: Milestone 2 (We Laugh About the Weather, Its Permanence) by Divya Victor

    Published: 3/18/2025

  7. 1314: If we had known, by Marissa Davis

    Published: 3/17/2025

  8. 1313: A Little Slice of Heaven by Jaswinder Bolina

    Published: 3/14/2025

  9. 1312: small comment by Sonia Sanchez

    Published: 3/13/2025

  10. [encore] 1078: Ferment by Monica Rico

    Published: 3/12/2025

  11. 1311: Gratitude by Patrick Dundon

    Published: 3/11/2025

  12. 1310: Divinity School by Ariana Reines

    Published: 3/10/2025

  13. 1309: 5 A.M. by Michael Ondaatje

    Published: 3/7/2025

  14. 1308: Mother's Rules by Yalie Saweda Kamara

    Published: 3/6/2025

  15. [encore] 1039: What Good Is Silence by Phuong T. Vuong

    Published: 3/5/2025

  16. 1307: Field Guide as Sonnet by A. D. Lauren-Abunassar

    Published: 3/4/2025

  17. 1306: Ode to the Pink Cowboy Hat by Quinn Carver Johnson

    Published: 3/3/2025

  18. 1305: An Apology for Trashing Magazines in Which You Appear by Nicole Sealey

    Published: 2/28/2025

  19. 1304: Cinema Paradiso by Claire Booker

    Published: 2/27/2025

  20. 1303: Chaplinesque by Hart Crane

    Published: 2/26/2025

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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.