The Slowdown: Poetry & Reflection Daily

Today’s poem is Desert Sayings by Donovan McAbee. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s uproarious poem makes me want to abandon our life of chatter. To throw off our overly scheduled existence. I want to wake up to truths that can only be gleaned when I fade-out sequentially every duty that impresses upon me as needing to get done.” 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 Grinning in Sardinia by Tomás Q. Morín. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Writing is mining. That’s what I tell students or anyone that aspires to give expression to their lives. It’s probably why the Greek goddess of memory, Mnemosyne, is credited with inventing language. So much of writing is digging into the past, is going in further to find words that shape our understanding of the irrational before we lose hold.” 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 Portrait of My Mother Studying for Her Citizenship Exam by Eduardo Martínez-Leyva. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “With watery eyes, Mrs. Kumar shared the feelings of being in a room full of people with different histories and cultures, all raising their hands together, in unison, giving voice to a shared belief in the freedoms espoused by their new country. Her story is but one of many. Today’s poem tells another story of a path to citizenship. Such stories deepen my appreciation for the principle of ‘We, the people.’” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Our episode today is one of many from the archives. We’ll be back tomorrow with more new poetry and reflection! 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 Milestone 2 (We Laugh About the Weather, Its Impermanence) by Divya Victor. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “I wish us not to slide over each other’s lives, but there are limits to becoming too familiar. What if the conversation is not well-intentioned, but packed with assumptions, or worse? I thought as much reading today’s poem, one where the speaker themself is silent, subject not only to a barrage of trapping questions, but also to the weight of their own journey.” 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 If we had known, by Marissa Davis. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “I love how nature disrupts the important goings-on of humans, how it forces us to grind to a halt and makes us one with our environs. We are smart to heed its signs.” 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 A Little Slice of Heaven by Jaswinder Bolina. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “What breaks through the impenetrable folly of it all? What lends itself as miraculous in the dailiness of our lives? The magic sprouting of a bed of daffodils in spring time, a sculpture made from black twizzlers that the artist intricately wove together into a font of wonder, or the breathtaking smile of a friend that is all the gardens you ever gazed at. Sometimes, just sometimes, someone will utter a phrase that sends us reeling inward, that seems off the grid of the unexpected, that lifts us above the quotidian. Likely, just likely, this is the work of poetry.” 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 small comment by Sonia Sanchez. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s sharp poem was written by one of our most revered living poets. Its analysis could not be more pertinent to our political reality today.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Our episode today is one of many from the archives. We’ll be back tomorrow with more new poetry and reflection! Today’s poem is Ferment by Monica Rico. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “When writing poems and essays, I saturate my brain, when in fact, I should instead let intuition and a meandering knowing take over. There is something in the old-time folk wisdom, in what some used to call “common sense,” that which cannot be learned in a book, but arrives from the sweet streets of living.” 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 Gratitude by Patrick Dundon. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem puts us in touch with what it means to experience unadulterated joy, one that is owed to an exquisite contentment.” 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 Divinity School by Ariana Reines. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Some people visit the Caribbean and other warmer climes. I drove to a lamp store. Some people dine by a fireside hearth at their favorite restaurant. I drove to a lamp store. Some people . . . you get my point. Reading the headlines, I thought recently, of those seeking refuge, of those on the social, economic, and political margins. I thought about how maybe America is a lamp shop, a place where people believe in light and transformation, who believe becoming a part of its suburbs, revered institutions, and social rituals will allow them to be better human beings.” 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 5 A.M. by Michael Ondaatje. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “The nature of my youth was one in which my passion for art lived out in my passion for life. At times, there was a recklessness about it. Like Greg, Quraysh, and me spilling out of a Soho bar at first light, having debated literature and writers with a seriousness that felt like life mattered, truly mattered.” 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 Mother's Rules by Yalie Saweda Kamara. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual.In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem shows how we impossibly carry our parents’ voices well into our adulthood, a measure by which to shape our lives independent of their nurturance and instructions.” 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 What Good Is Silence by Phuong T. Vuong. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. Our episode today is one of many from the archives. We’ll be back tomorrow with more new poetry and reflection! In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem illustrates returning to listening as a ventilation of the soul, sublimating the ego in the interest of interacting with more than just our thoughts.” 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 Field Guide as Sonnet by A. D. Lauren-Abunassar. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem honors the spirit of courageous women who humbly persist, who do not hold back on love.” 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 Ode to the Pink Cowboy Hat by Quinn Carver Johnson. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem honors how popular culture made room for a different kind of masculinity in the most unlikely of shows, the World Wrestling Federation with Chief Jay Strongbow, André the Giant, Hulk Hogan, Ric Flair and “Adorable” Adrian Adonis.” 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 An Apology for Trashing Magazines in Which You Appear by Nicole Sealey. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. Around what has become known as “awards season,” casual conversations are abuzz with talk of the year’s movies. This week’s episodes explore how poets take up movies as subjects — how the two art forms intertwine to make us feel more closely this life we share. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s cleverly sonic poem collapses the distance even more between celebrities and us, by using a parasocial relationship as a jumping off point for a journey of the imagination.” 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 Cinema Paradiso by Claire Booker. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. Around what has become known as “awards season,” casual conversations are abuzz with talk of the year’s movies. This week’s episodes explore how poets take up movies as subjects — how the two art forms intertwine to make us feel more closely this life we share. In this episode, Major writes… “One of my favorite moments in Italian Cinema is the movie Cinema Paradiso. It finds a young boy named Toto as the helper of a film projectionist named Alfredo. To satisfy Church authorities, Alfredo has to cut out all depictions of physical contact between people before showing the films. Young Toto moves away from the town of his youth to become a film director himself. When Alfredo dies, he leaves behind for Toto to view a gorgeous collage of kisses from banned movies over the years. The reel of intimate moments is a beautiful display of personal desires set against a national agenda of religious and moral strictures.” 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 Chaplinesque by Hart Crane. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. Around what has become known as “awards season,” casual conversations are abuzz with talk of the year’s movies. This week’s episodes explore how poets take up movies as subjects — how the two art forms intertwine to make us feel more closely this life we share. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s iconic Modernist poem celebrates the artist and movie icon who inspired generations of filmmakers and actors, but even more so, the man who both made us laugh at the folly of progress and urged us to embrace the tenderness of our hearts.” 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 One Shies at the Prospect of Raising Yet Another Defense of Cannibalism by Josh Bell. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. Around what has become known as “awards season,” casual conversations are abuzz with talk of the year’s movies. This week’s episodes explore how poets take up movies as subjects — how the two art forms intertwine to make us feel more closely this life we share. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem whimsically plays with faux intimacy as an aesthetic experience, and with the value of cinema, how our psychic needs for understanding are either thwarted or are actualized.” 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 Jaws by Emma Hine. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. Around what has become known as “awards season,” casual conversations are abuzz with talk of the year’s movies. This week’s episodes explore how poets take up movies as subjects — how the two art forms intertwine to make us feel more closely this life we share. In this episode, Major writes… “As a kid, I saw Steven Spielberg’s movie Jaws in 1975. It’s 2025. I now have an app that tells me the location of sharks. I do not have what psychologists call thalassophobia, a fear of the sea, but I just want notice of which beaches to avoid, you know, just in case.” 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 Genesis by Megan Pinto. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual.In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem makes it apparent how powerful human ingenuity is, how wondrous it is, but also, too, its limitations. Technology cannot console and quiet our restless, lonely spirits. Only we can.” 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 Hello, the Roses by Mei-mei Berssenbrugge. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “It is said, poets are perpetually at odds with scientists. But the truth is, poets have long been inspired by advances in engineering, astronomy, and biology.”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 Earth, Earth by Cyrée Jarelle Johnson. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Lately, I have upped my message of abiding by — or living — an ethos of care and compassion; my work in the classroom and on the page has taken greater urgency.” 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 Jamboree, Evening, Midsummer by Austin Araujo. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “I have borne witness to some profoundly tender relationships over the years between siblings. I realize how quiet I have been in acknowledging the beauty of those bonds. So, consider today’s episode a shout out, a lifting of siblinghood that avoids traditional predictable codes and stereotypes.” 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 In Which I Become (Skywoman) by Kenzie Allen.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s beautiful, incantatory poem contains a rich message of communal nurturance, how we soften each other’s fall, as we learn to acknowledge our purpose in the universe.” 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 Wind Ode by Sharon Olds. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Maggie Smith writes… “Today’s poem is an ode, a poem of praise or celebration. It reminds me that attention is a form of love. If you love the world, give it the gift of your attention. Don’t be afraid to get up close, to look deeper, to go inside. To reach out and touch, to smell, to engage your senses. We’re only here on this planet for a short time. We might as well soak up every last bit.” 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 White Peonies by Reginald Dwayne Betts. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Maggie Smith writes… “When I’m on a walk, I take pictures and make recordings so I can later identify what I’ve seen and heard. If my teenage daughter is with me, as she often is, she teases me when I use the birding app on my phone, or when I take photos of seed pods, or leaves, or bark, so I can identify a plant or a tree. She said once, “Why can’t you just see it and enjoy it? Why do you need to know its name?”” 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 Washing the Elephant by Barbara Ras. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Maggie Smith writes… “Today’s poem walloped me with its deep wisdom about childhood, memory, and love.” 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 Rabbitbrush by Molly McCully Brown. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Maggie Smith writes… “One of the things I love about being in a new place is experiencing the flora and fauna of that place. But it’s more than that, isn’t it? When we learn a new place, we also learn who we are in that new place. We learn new ways to be ourselves.” 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 Our Bodies by Michael Bazzett. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Maggie Smith writes… “I grew up pre-Internet, pre-cell phones. For most of my childhood we didn’t have cable TV or a VCR. If I had free time, I was riding my bike, playing outside, or reading a book. We call it “free range” now—the idea that children don’t need to be constantly supervised and entertained. There’s something about being left to your own devices, and having to be resourceful. Free time is an incomparable gift. It’s time to dream, time to imagine your way out of your own boredom, time to invent games or build things with your own two hands.” 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 Statement of Teaching Philosophy by Keith Leonard. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Maggie Smith writes… “I know I’m not the only one who’s experienced the inadequacy of language. I know I’m not the only one who’s struggled to communicate something I’ve been thinking or feeling. But maybe you’ve experienced the magic of language. Maybe you’ve read something that articulated what you’ve felt or experienced but could never describe yourself. Or created some of your own artful language that gets across what you couldn’t say literally. It feels like a miracle, and it’s why, I think, we turn to poems: Because they often say the unsayable.” 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 Things I Want to Tell You About California by Barbara Costas-Biggs. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Maggie Smith writes… “Today’s poem feels like a “wish you were here” postcard. It makes me wonder how I would describe where I live to someone faraway, what details I would include. What in my familiar world might woo them to join me here.” 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 A Drink in the Night by Deborah Garrison. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Maggie Smith writes… “Today’s poem captures a scene between a parent and child that feels both familiar and miraculous. I love that poems are a place where the everyday and the transcendent can live side by side. Because they live side by side in life, too. There’s wonder everywhere, even in the tiniest, most banal moments. We just have to open our eyes to see it—or, as this poem suggests, open our mouths to taste it.” 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 Astronomers Locate a New Planet by Matthew Olzmann. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Maggie Smith writes… “Today’s poem does something I admire a great deal, which is to bring two unexpected things together: a scientific discovery of a new planet, and the issue of marriage rights."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 Reasons to Live by Ruth Awad. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Maggie Smith writes… “I know hope can be a tough sell when there’s so much suffering in the world. It’s easier to notice what’s wrong with the world instead of what’s right. But in especially difficult times, we have to look harder for the light. It’s there. Even if it’s small, or flickering, or hard to see from a distance, the light is always there.” 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 It Too Remains by Glyn Maxwell. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Though spoken to a single person, today’s elegiac poem makes a universal claim about loss; our hearts, mind, and bodies and the memories within render permanent, even conjure, those we once loved on this side of life.” 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 When You Rise from the Dead I Drive You to the After Party by Melissa Studdard. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “I think my group chats are the best group chats. We hit each other up every day, give verbal daps, check-in on family, share progress videos of workouts. We pass on new drafts of poems with no pressure to give feedback (but, of course, we do). Or we simply say, “Good morning.” When birthdays roll around, we make sure each feels the love. On our phones, we are royalty.” 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 A Sword Shall Pierce Your Heart by Pádraig Ó Tuama. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “I think my group chats are the best group chats. We hit each other up every day, give verbal daps, check-in on family, share progress videos of workouts. We pass on new drafts of poems with no pressure to give feedback (but, of course, we do). Or we simply say, “Good morning.” When birthdays roll around, we make sure each feels the love. On our phones, we are royalty.” 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 Third Week of Ramadan by Sahar Romani. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem banishes any doubt that this is all a precious journey. It is a poem that points to a holy rite practiced the world over whose aim is purification and renewal.” 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 I Want to Die by Tariq Luthun. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Dining at a new restaurant, me and a group of friends landed on the topic of fears. I was kind of listening, but I was more into the food being set before us. Then it was my turn; I said I feared loneliness, that I would never experience the joy of friends, that I would lose out on moments like this, taking in the pleasures of the world. I was surprised by my expressiveness. I hear that same fear in today’s poem, against the backdrop of violence as the speaker wavers between joy and oblivion.” 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 If by Imtiaz Dharker. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… "Today’s poem encourages us to be aware of each other, to be more in awe of the miracle of now. With the presence of war on earth, I feel the beckoning call of this poem even more powerfully. Let kindness reign everywhere." 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 Ode to My Mama and “The Purple Dress,” circa 1992-1993 by Brittany Rogers. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… "It’s disconcerting seeing the younger me all these years later. I notice the sensitive, mildly insecure yet intellectually hungry me. I was trying to see a hidden world through the camera’s lens, my inner life in concert with the world around me. These pictures reveal how I strained to feel worthy. Time has cloaked that younger me in layers of earned confidence and extensive growth. I am not sure anyone in my life today would recognize that overly conscious, shy young man." 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 things people like to share: by Nuar Alsadir.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s whimsical poem, a minimalist list poem, meditates on the line between what we might be willing to let go and what we choose to keep for ourselves.” 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 Self-Portrait as Kendrick Lamar, Laughing to the Bank by Ashanti Anderson. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… "I first read today’s poem as the rap battle of the summer, arguably of the century, played out between Kendrick Lamar and Drake. This helped me understand again the relationship between hip-hop and poetry. Wit and insinuation are vital elements of our culture." 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 To Be Longing by Elizabeth Willis. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… "Today’s poem explores the situation of writing ourselves out of fixed meanings that confine us to labels, to disempowering social and political realities." 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 Love Language by Angela Narciso Torres. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Why do we need to know how much we are loved? In a way, aren’t we asking how thick is the shield of affection that protects us from the world, maybe even from ourselves?” 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 Ennui by Luis G. Dato. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem critiques the relentless, psychic demands of an inscrutable world, yet, too, encourages a side-ways road to tranquility, a way that we might secure a meaningful freedom.” 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 Sorrow Ghazal by Mary Elder Jacobsen. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem is a loving exchange that underscores the importance of giving room for what makes those we love different from us, even if we wish to change them.” 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 The Paper Nautilus by Marianne Moore. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Treat poetry like a rollercoaster. You may not know the laws of physics, but it does not prevent you from enjoying the ride. Poetry values ambiguity and it is okay not to know all of its layers.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp