Today’s poem is this is a library by Asiya Wadud. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. We’re taking a break this week, so we’re running some of our favorite episodes from this season so far. This episode was originally released on 07/26/2023. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s empathetic poem, which takes the tone of an elementary school primer, encourages a greater noticing of those who are leastwise among us, who fall outside the social fabric of our care. In doing so, hopefully, we might reverse prevailing attitudes toward the unhoused, who often are the target of violence and intolerance.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

[encore] 990: Feeding the Koi

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.