[encore] 1022: Two Shadows by Maurice Manning

Today’s poem is You Reading This, Be Ready by William Stafford.The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “We spend so much money in this country on things we think will make us happier and more fulfilled, but presence isn’t a thing at all — it’s an ...  Show more

Today’s poem is Queen of Collapse by Hadara Bar-Nadav. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Repeating the same word or phrase when we write opens something up, forces us to finish the thought in a new way each time. I always surprise myself. ...  Show more

Today we pay tribute, with poems by Andrea Cohen and Elizabeth Alexander, to the indispensable golden wonder.

About twenty years ago, I heard William Stafford read his poetry for about twenty minutes. For a young aspiring writer like I was then, he was mesmerizing, a mix of poetic energy and grandfatherly wisdom, with a high-spirited charm. I think it was the first poetry reading that I ...  Show more

Today’s poem is for all those already wondering what they will do when the baseball season ends next month. Happy reading.

In his poem “You Who Never Arrived,” Rainer Maria Rilke suggests that we can mourn love as an unrealized possibility, and see this loss signified everywhere in the ordinary objects of the external world. In “Be Ahead of All Parting” (II.13 from his “Sonnets to Orpheus”), he seems ...  Show more