971: On Mars

Today’s poem is In the Seam of Life by Rachel Galvin. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “A recent YouTube search for something else led me to an how-to video on land transference and group deeds . . . in the virtual world known as Second Life. Turns out, one can purchase everything from biscuits for their avatar dog, to a virtual silver-studded leather jacket, to a renovated kitchen for one’s imaginary urban loft. The virtual world turned twenty years old this summer, enough time for users to program a free market parallel to our own. Frankly, I’m struggling with the realities of our offline economy, and lately, the seemingly insurmountable issues we face IRL: war, political discord, mass shootings. But that’s just the thing with roleplaying communities: they grant reprieve from our very human and very startling challenges. They permit entry into worlds where we can pursue an existence much different than our current reality, with all of its missed opportunities and deferred dreams. What we cannot have in this life—say, peace—we can render in another.” 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 Death Letter #2 by Sean Thomas Dougherty. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “We are lucky to hear in a poem one piece of wisdom to carry into our day. Today's poem yields so many, spoken from the protective spirit and love of a father and husband. It is a poem that is relentless in its simple truths, and thus, life-affirming at every turn.” 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 Date by Taneum Bambrick. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “There’s nothing wrong with being attracted to people, but there is something wrong with acting on that attraction in a way that reduces them. Today’s poem invokes that captive feeling, and asks what it leaves just under the surface.” 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 Reading Poetry in Illness by Anya Krugovoy Silver. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “These are poems that are meant to enter the body at the right time, to exist there, to do their healing and be on their way; they are not for close reading or exegesis. They protect the threshold between the living and the dead. They remind one of old roads. They return the frog to his kingdom.” 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 Morning Glory by Patricia Spears Jones. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem highlights the fierce omnipresence of nature, even in environments where we are trained not to notice, or are too busy to do so.” 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 Bloodroot by Mary-Alice Daniel. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual.In this episode, Major writes… “Bluegrass conjures up the past in ways that feel both celebratory and painful. They call it mountain music, and some believe the creeks, rivers, valleys, and woods carry a hurt that one hears in all that fiddling, a sentimental history of Appalachia, but also a palpable history of poverty, subjugation, bondage, and musical ingenuity. That haunting, for me, is embedded in the folklore and spirit of the South, which I am just beginning to feel in my 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 Self-care Bucket List by Nancy K. Pearson. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Bucket lists orient people toward the future, true. They can sweep one ahead into a momentum of deserved recognition. Yet, how powerful to live without the aid, or, the loom, of an imagined inventory of milestones.” 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 Teleology by Willie Lin. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “We’ve so much between us: awards shows, music, art, weather, and a final breath we do not know when will befall us. And yet, some remain alien and indifferent to others, incurious—sometimes for money, but sometimes, by choice. How we cherish our isolation.” 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 Kinds of Silence by Elisabeth Murawski. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem captures that feeling of expectancy and uncertainty, a feeling that resonates lately, as I find myself wondering about the future — with so much of the earth and its inhabitants hurting, yet also, working towards a peaceful vision of our humanity." 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 Do: Write Cephalopod Poem by Eleni Sikelianos. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem beautifully speaks to the notion of writing toward a future self, and understands that the echoes, even, of one’s breathing, are found in patterns of our thinking.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp