1453: Closing Time; Iskandariya by Brigit Pegeen Kelly
2026-2-10 | 5 min.
Today’s poem is Closing Time; Iskandariya by Brigit Pegeen Kelly. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Samiya Bashir writes… “Today’s poem, in ways that I aspire to in my own writing life, manages to take a deep breath in and collapse two thousand years of danger into a single moment of misunderstanding.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
1452: A Backstory Beyond My Recounting by Paulann Petersen
2026-2-09 | 4 min.
Today’s poem is A Backstory Beyond My Recounting by Paulann Petersen. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Samiya Bashir writes… “Today’s poem asks who we think we are. That existential question can feel like judgment or threat, but the poet turns it back toward the daily realities of our own agency.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
1451: Diving into the Wreck by Adrienne Rich
2026-2-06 | 6 min.
Today’s poem is Diving into the Wreck by Adrienne Rich. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Samiya Bashir writes… “Our most important journeys often take us through vistas that we hadn’t, couldn’t, even imagine when we took our first steps. Leaning into adventure forces us to embrace uncertainty.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
1450: Home by Warsan Shire
2026-2-05 | 6 min.
Today’s poem is Home by Warsan Shire. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Samiya Bashir writes… “Immigration, which built the United States—for better and for worse—is again on trial not just here, but in much of the West. The crackdowns are beyond devastating, yet the potential for complete societal collapse seems unable to trigger our better natures to see each other’s humanity.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp
1449: Nightline: September 20, 1982 by June Jordan
2026-2-04 | 4 min.
Today’s poem is Nightline: September 20, 1982 by June Jordan. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Samiya Bashir writes… “Today’s poem reminds me of the power of poetry to comment, to respond, to shed light and offer us space to form our own impressions of what the facts may mean. To decide, then, with the knowledge provided by our very own bodies, what we mean to do about it.” 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.