The Slowdown: Poetry & Reflection Daily

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

Today’s poem is Refuge by Nehassaiu deGannes. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s formally rich poem positions gardening as a powerful means of holding on to one’s culture, to one’s culinary identity in a new land.”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 Gift to Sing by James Weldon Johnson. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “For those of us who want to hold onto the light as long as we can, we make sure to embrace more than the material comforts — we can make sure to surround ourselves with family, friends and song.” 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 Grace by Orlando Ricardo Menes. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “I believe in grace, which arrives from a sacred belief that all of us are deserving of 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 The Pacific by Jennifer Jean. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “What I appreciate in today’s poem is the speaker’s indomitable outlook that echoes my grandparents’ optimistic spirit, especially in the face of deprivation and difficulty. Today’s poem lands on what is both a beautiful notion and a pragmatic belief: that even in our states of lack, we still live a miraculous existence, where love and natural beauty abound.” 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 the Body Gives Away by Saba Keramati. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “I like to believe that my senses are open as I take in music, food, travel, new adventures, new friends. I like to think poetry makes me extrasensory. But, then again, my wife would argue I spend too much time in my head, thinking my life away. I enjoy how today’s poem makes it a goal to be keenly aware, intuitive, and innate.” 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 Echo by Christina Rossetti. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem calls back to a deceased beloved, to return to this side of existence, to traverse the layers of time — an incantation that wishes to reunite us with the bliss we once knew.” 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 Something Sweet by Hannah Lowe. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. We’re taking a break this week, so we’re sharing some of our favorite episodes from the archive. We’ll be back with new episodes on January 6, 2025. This episode was originally released on November 24, 2023. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem, a sonnet, holds the truth that the world is capable of awakening us out of our petrified states. We can be charmed back into our bodies and repaired, so that we feel again, sometimes acutely, the sweetness of our existence more than the hostile and profane.” 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 abundance of light by erica lewis. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. We’re taking a break this week, so we’re sharing some of our favorite episodes from the archive. We’ll be back with new episodes on January 6, 2025. This episode was originally released on September 13, 2023. In this episode, Major writes… “I hear in today’s poem a haunting, reckoning, and nostalgia – dominant themes among poets on the road. On stages and podiums, we traded poems about heartbreak, childhood memories, and personal loss. What emerges is a triumphant questioning spirit that overcomes grief and uncertainty.” 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 Counting, This New Year’s Morning, What Powers Yet Remain To Me by Jane Hirshfield. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. We’re taking a break this week, so we’re sharing some of our favorite episodes from the archive. We’ll be back with new episodes on January 6, 2025. This episode was originally released on January 1, 2024.In this episode, Major writes… “The clocks have struck another year. Soon, I will box up and archive 2023 in the mental basement of my mind, although I'm sure certain events of the past 365 days will reverberate in both predictable and not-so-predictable ways into the future. Today’s poem makes a powerful assertion that maybe what we bring to the problems of the world, to our sense of survival, is our attention—and our joy.” 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 End of December by Ashjan Hendi, translated by Moneera Al-Ghadeer. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. We’re taking a break this week, so we’re sharing some of our favorite episodes from the archive. We’ll be back with new episodes on January 6, 2025. This episode was originally released on August 15, 2024. In this episode, Major writes… “Tests to long-term commitments are bound to happen. Expending too much affection can lead to exhaustion and the bruise of eventual disappointment. As today’s poem suggests, one of the secrets to a successful marriage is moderation and restraint.” 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 Dear Future Me (#12) by Lena Moses-Schmitt.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. We’re taking a break this week, so we’re sharing some of our favorite episodes from the archive. We’ll be back with new episodes on January 6, 2025. This episode was originally released on March 30, 2023. In this episode, Major writes… “Writing poetry is chiefly a search for language that makes a tidy explanation of both the present and the past, with the hope our mind grabs on so that the poem emerges also as a visceral experience of thinking, that is, thinking as an unfolding and awakening, both for the author and the reader or in this instance, a listener. But then occasionally, writing poetry is also an offering to the future: poem as a container of time, whose language signifies the era in which it was written.” 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 Bones by Lynne Thompson. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. We’re taking a break this week, so we’re sharing some of our favorite episodes from the archive. We’ll be back with new episodes on January 6, 2025. This episode was originally released on December 22, 2023. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem riffs off a childhood name, to caravan us to all the possibilities of association which brings the speaker back to the uniqueness and individual nature of their being.” 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 After the Farm was Sold to FedEx by Carlie Hoffman. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. We’re taking a break this week, so we’re sharing some of our favorite episodes from the archive. We’ll be back with new episodes on January 6, 2025. This episode was originally released on June 27, 2023. In this episode, Major writes… “Often, nostalgia can look like that woodblock key handed to us at the interstate rest stop. It opens a door, but the past is really a little room and kind of smelly, yet, in our mind, exists as a golden age. One we urgently grasp for.” 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 Childhood by David Baker. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. We’re taking a break this week, so we’re sharing some of our favorite episodes from the archive. We’ll be back with new episodes on January 6, 2025. This episode was originally released on May 21, 2024. In this episode, Major writes… “I enjoy today’s poem immensely for how it makes its opening comparison, then leads us to the sweet conclusion, one about an experience we all share. Yet, it individualizes through the power of metaphor.” 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 Two Shadows by Maurice Manning. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. We’re taking a break this week, so we’re sharing some of our favorite episodes from the archive. We’ll be back with new episodes on January 6, 2025. This episode was originally released on December 18, 2023. In this episode, Major writes… “I want someone in my daughter’s life who will sing to her when she is most full of doubts and uncertainties, when storms inevitably arrive. Today’s poem gorgeously anticipates the day ahead when our children will pursue their own loves, and what magic we might model for them.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

This episode was originally released on July 17, 2024. Today’s poem is Voice Clear As by Kemi Alabi.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Long ago, I knew I needed a new conception of heaven. The one with pearly white gates and winged angels from my youth in church just wasn’t working for me. I mean, I get clouds and blue skies as symbols of ascension from earthly plains. And it wasn’t just in church — heaven was everywhere, in museums and in movies, too. But those early images, lodged into my subconscious, weren’t inclusive or realistic, except for the 1936 Hollywood classic Green Pastures.”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 Gorgon Loves Googie's by Rebecca Morgan Frank. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Yet, how do we refresh and enfold long-standing tales, figures, and voices such that they hold special meaning for us tomorrow? Today’s poem intertwines a figure of the past and a vision of the future, expressing the difficulty of attaining desire, and the reality of unfulfilled longing.” 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 Room is a Rectangle by Marianne Chan. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem invites discussion of the physical and emotional barriers that exist between family members when dealing with mental health issues, spotlighting feelings of confinement and helplessness.” 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 Film Theory by Xan Forest Phillips. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem reminds me that artists exist in a culture of rejection. And over time, the little illusory nicks to your ego, and the weight of commitment to your art, either extinguishes your fire or has you recommit even more, driven by that sheer love of making.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp