Today’s poem is Telescope by Louise Glück. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual.

In this episode, guest host Myka Kielbon writes… “I live on a hill on the edge of a valley. I look out my window and watch cars creep by on the interstate that could take me a thousand miles to my birthplace if I so choose. This slice of Los Angeles – the one I look out over everyday – is odd to reconcile with the map that I see on my phone. So now, as I live in it, I try to find my own authentic knowledge of the earth I see and the earth I feel, some melding of technologies and body.”

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 Poem (“Instant coffee with…”) by Frank O'Hara. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual.

In this episode, guest host Myka Kielbon writes… “Loren was the person I knew in New York who was the same kind of lost as me. There is a magic to how we find each other when we need each other. It seems like our souls sort of… orbit until they reach out. They land. They find ground and we find a friend, even if it’s temporary.”

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 Waiting for the Annular Eclipse by Rhoni Blankenhorn. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual.

In this episode, guest host Myka Kielbon writes… “Rock bottom is a funny place. If anyone has been there, then I suppose we all end up in our own rock bottom at some point. The truth about nothing ever ending, nothing ever being final, is that things will be the same again, too. Just not all at the same time, in the same way. You’ll find a new rock bottom. And, a new way out.”

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 Aleppo by Hala Alyan. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual.

In this episode, guest host Myka Kielbon writes… “Recently, I dreamt that my friend and I were moving into a big, old apartment. Once we got the couch in the living room, my grandmother appeared, sitting on it. I haven’t seen her in a decade. She died in 2015. I think my grandmother, a woman who witnessed and bore great suffering, a woman who was courageous and loving, came to me to remind me of the strength we need to carry each other.”

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 Brooklyn is for Breakups by Chen Chen. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual.

In this episode, guest host Myka Kielbon writes… “I have experienced a whole lot of life, and romance only forms threads of that life, woven into all the other moments. The threads are often short. They have loose ends. What I struggle with – what I’ve struggled with for years – is naming the importance of the relationships I’ve had with people that don’t fit neatly into a category.”

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 of the English Language by Nicole Arocho Hernández. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual.

In this episode, guest host Myka Kielbon writes… “Today’s poem has that kind of intimacy you only achieve by deciding to be weird together. When we forgo a tight grip on meaning, sometimes we get a little closer to the truth of feeling.”

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 My Father Flying by Jan Beatty. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual.

In this episode, guest host Myka Kielbon writes… “Grief feels, sometimes, like a burden. A heavy one. But it is also a practice. People we love leave this earth, but they don’t leave us. We can find lightness in small rituals, small memorials to share with the world the version of the person that we have folded up inside of 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 Forgiveness Rock Record by Tawanda Mulalu. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual.

In this episode, guest host Myka Kielbon writes… “Today’s poem excavates the hard route to self-love, but it also shows us the trick: that self-love doesn’t happen all alone.”

Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp