Recovery from a week of travel (six flights in six days) = Elliott Smith turned up loud, an IPA, & a very hot bath. Works every time.

Loving @maggiesmithpoet.bsky.social 's new A SUIT OR A SUITCASE. So, so good! #poetry #poetrycommunity #booksky #amreading

Currently reading @maggiesmithpoet.bsky.social 's Dear Writer and it is EXACTLY what I need right now. I've been feeling stale and there has been SO MUCH resistance. It's reminding me what I love about writing. #writesky

"Today’s poem takes something banal, something we do every day — lying in bed, doing nothing but thinking — and totally transforms it," @maggiesmithpoet.bsky.social shares in episode 1481. Read "from Mosaic" by Supritha Rajan and our full episode transcript: bit.ly/40Kd6pW

"When I was young, the myth of Icarus was one that captured my imagination," @maggiesmithpoet.bsky.social shares in episode 1478. "Today’s poem references this myth — this cautionary tale — in beautiful, unexpected ways." Read "If Night You Were a City" by Adam Wiedewitsch: bit.ly/4uABIyY

"When we return to our rituals, we bring whoever we are that unique day, and we link it with whoever we’ve been before," @maggiesmithpoet.bsky.social shares in episode 1479. "In our rituals, we can find our own wholeness in a fractured world." Read "After Dinner" by James Ciano: bit.ly/3PILbEs

“Today’s poem inspired me to learn more about requiems — what they are, how they’ve evolved, and how we might think of them more broadly and metaphorically," @maggiesmithpoet.bsky.social shares in episode 1480. Read "Reverse Requiem" by Ina Cariño and our full episode transcript: bit.ly/4cXBE6m

A gift to be read by @maggiesmithpoet.bsky.social (thank you!!), whose words about this poem feel intimately true to the way I think about poetry: a way of memorizing moments. ❤️

"Sometimes I just want to sit and live the experience without trying to find language for it yet," @maggiesmithpoet.bsky.social shares in episode 1477. Read "Surety" by @annazum.bsky.social and our full episode transcript here or wherever you listen to podcasts: bit.ly/3Ns4LnR 🎧

"Today’s poem is about being limited in the language we can use and having to spend those words wisely," @maggiesmithpoet.bsky.social shares in episode 1476. Read "The Quiet World" by Jeffrey McDaniel — from THE FORGIVENESS PARADE — and our full episode transcript: bit.ly/3OZUgIX

"If there was ever a time to think about what we know, and how we know it, it’s now," @maggiesmithpoet.bsky.social shares in episode number 1474. Read "Epistemic Distance" by @emmabolden.bsky.social: bit.ly/3Pv631S

"Today’s poem is about wishing, and in that way, I think it’s about hope," @maggiesmithpoet.bsky.social shares in today's episode. Read “Out of These Wounds, the Moon Will Rise” by Jay Hopler — from GREEN SQUALL (@yalebooks.bsky.social) — and our full episode transcript: bit.ly/3P6PnxB

Thank you @maggiesmithpoet.bsky.social and @slowdownshow.org for featuring a new poem from my forthcoming book, NIGHT OWL- out at the end of the month!

i am so, so grateful and so deeply honored to have a poem featured on @slowdownshow.org today. you can listen to the poem and @maggiesmithpoet.bsky.social’s beautiful thoughts on what we know and how we know it here: www.slowdownshow.org/episode/2026...

"Today’s poem transported me back to [a] shared experience," @maggiesmithpoet.bsky.social says in episode 1473 of The Slowdown. Read “Solar Eclipse” by @nezhukumatathil.bsky.social and our full episode transcript: bit.ly/3MY4jh0

Imagine my surprise to wake to @maggiesmithpoet.bsky.social featuring one of my poems on The Slowdown?! If you don't yet subscribe or support this endeavor, now is your chance! www.slowdownshow.org/episode/2026...

"The emotional cartography of any place is different from its actual cartography," @maggiesmithpoet.bsky.social shares in episode 1472. Read “The Road to Baghdad” by Seth Brady Tucker @sethbtucker.bsky.social — from MORMON BOY — and our full episode transcript: bit.ly/40SM4N0

"The world is for learning and becoming, and we humans — we students — have so very much to learn," @maggiesmithpoet.bsky.social shares in episode 1470 of The Slowdown. Read “Common Denominators” by Cynthia Arrieu-King and our full episode transcript: bit.ly/4rfuAW3

"Whatever my life has been like, I’m lucky to have lived it. I know that now, and I hope I feel that way at the end," @maggiesmithpoet.bsky.social shares in episode 1471 of The Slowdown. Read “It Was Like This: You Were Happy” by Jane Hirshfield and our full episode transcript: bit.ly/47utOgF

"I can’t imagine feeling less, or caring less. That’s not the heart I have," @maggiesmithpoet.bsky.social shares in today's episode of The Slowdown, number 1469. Read "Pardon My Heart" by Marcus Jackson — from PARDON: POEMS — and our full episode transcript: https://bit.ly/4lbRRqu

"It’s odd, when I think about ... how we are soothed by the contained version of something that can harm us," @maggiesmithpoet.bsky.social shares in episode 1465. Read "Or am I a room with a roof taken off, still holding onto my idea of ceiling" by @kellyrosehoffer.bsky.social: bit.ly/40ird5P

“Poems so often say the things we can’t," @maggiesmithpoet.bsky.social shares in episode 1463. "They give language and shape to ideas that feel too big for words — like love, and mortality, and grief.” Read "Sleep" by Matthew Dickman: bit.ly/4cefn3F

"All of this is either useless information — time of day, day of the week, month of the year — or it’s part of our own myth-making," @maggiesmithpoet.bsky.social shares in episode 1464. Read “Somewhere Else” by Adam J. Gellings, originally published by @poetsorg.bsky.social: bit.ly/4cTNXQK

“Document” by Maggie Smith (@maggiesmithpoet.bsky.social) from the January/February 2026 issue of POETRY magazine. Link to poem here: https://bit.ly/3ZCVc7X

"Today’s poem is about paying attention to the beauty around us, and to the life around us, even if we don’t fully understand it," @maggiesmithpoet.bsky.social shares in today's episode, number 1461. Read "Word for It" by Kevin Craft and our full episode transcript: bit.ly/4ayfOmM

"Today’s poem is an ekphrastic poem, a poem inspired by a piece of art," @maggiesmithpoet.bsky.social shares in today's episode, number 1462. Read “Perspective, Coyoacán” by Corey Van Landingham and our full episode transcript: bit.ly/4tQ6Bzf

"One of the things I love about poetry — one of the things I look forward to, and revel in, as a reader and listener — is the way a poet can make the familiar strange," @maggiesmithpoet.bsky.social shares in episode 1458. Read "on projection" by @raenainthemorning.bsky.social: bit.ly/4aHyy3x

"I love the way [today's poem] begins with the legend of the Bermuda Triangle but then turns toward the incredibly personal," @maggiesmithpoet.bsky.social shares in episode 1457. Read “Untitled (Despite legend, the Bermuda Triangle...)” by @sophieklahr.bsky.social and Corey Zeller: bit.ly/4tFNIiq

I can’t wait to read these manuscripts.

Tonight I turned on the Magnetic Fields’ 69 Love Songs & got into the bathtub with a book & a cocktail…& I came out with pruny fingertips & the start of a new poem. That feels like a little miracle. So whatever else there is, there’s that.

Looking forward to this local launch! April 2 ✨🎉

"There’s a sense of relief when we realize we’re looking at an object, not a dead creature," @maggiesmithpoet.bsky.social notes in episode 1446 of The Slowdown. Read “Mistake” by Heather Christle: bit.ly/3Z9Xc7t 📖: @weslpress.bsky.social

"Today’s poem is a kind of love poem — to a beloved tree, and to the sense of home it created," @maggiesmithpoet.bsky.social shares in episode 1445. Read "Hackberry" by Cecily Parks — from THE SEEDS (@alicejamesbooks.bsky.social): bit.ly/4bZhnwu

"Today’s poem captures a time of grief in the speaker’s life, when life goes a little quiet after a flurry of support and care," our host, @maggiesmithpoet.bsky.social, shares in today's episode. Read "Congratulations! Your Grief Is About to Stop Being Relevant!" by Bridget Bell: bit.ly/4tb8Vk4

“One of the poets I discovered in college was H.D.," @maggiesmithpoet.bsky.social shares in episode 1443. "I remember being wowed by her poems, which were experimental and strange, unlike anything I’d read before." Read “Come Back!" by Camille Guthrie: bit.ly/4rarcfo

Book tour for A Suit or a Suitcase ☁️📖🧳 open.substack.com/pub/maggiesm...

"Life will throw at us things that are hard or impossible to describe, both beautiful and awful things," @maggiesmithpoet.bsky.social shares in episode 1442. "So I think [language play] isn't just a writing tool — it's a life skill." Read “Apocatastasis” by G.C. Waldrep: bit.ly/3M2lI7D

This is a really incredible piece. Share it widely 🎁https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/2026/01/minneapolis-uprising/685755/?gift=C-rzmQ8PsUHt15odxTKJDn7xrpPNxSpotkNz_P27oI0

I randomly grabbed this book last night while straightening up my bedroom. When I opened it, I read and then reread and then read one more time this poem by Joy Harjo. I then sat, leaned back, and continued reading. Thank you for this book, @theferocity.bsky.social and @maggiesmithpoet.bsky.social 🙏🏻

Abolish and prosecute.

"I don’t think there’s ever an expiration date on well wishes, and frankly, we need all the well wishes we can get for 2026," @maggiesmithpoet.bsky.social says in today's episode. Read "New Year" by @katejbaer.bsky.social — from WHAT KIND OF WOMAN (@harpercollins.bsky.social): bit.ly/3LZ8pEU

"Today’s poem explores memory and loss — and how objects can help us resurrect the past," @maggiesmithpoet.bsky.social shares in episode 1439 of The Slowdown. Read "I Have Lost It" by Monica Ferrell — from THE FUTURE (@fourwaybooks.bsky.social) — and our full episode transcript: bit.ly/49W02SK

"Today’s poem addresses a child — a child full of questions about the world," @maggiesmithpoet.bsky.social shares in episode 1438 of The Slowdown. Read "The Long Now" by Robin Beth Schaer and our full episode transcript: bit.ly/4b3k3sB

"Today’s poem is a love poem, one in which the long-married speaker can hardly imagine their own 'beforetimes' — the life before their spouse," @maggiesmithpoet.bsky.social shares in episode 1437. Read “Now that we’ve been married all these years" by Keetje Kuipers: bit.ly/3ZlrrbC

"Today’s poem ... reflected my own experience back to me — in a way that helped me see it differently," our host, @maggiesmithpoet.bsky.social, shares in today's episode of The Slowdown. Read "Vacation" by Sara Moore Wagner and our full episode transcript: bit.ly/4jFNLX1

Student 1: You got an A on the final paper?! I wanted an A but I got an F! Will you give me your A paper? Student 2: Uh….sure. Student 2 hands him the paper with a big red A at the top. Student 2 still gets an A. Student 1 still fails, but he’s grinning and holding an A paper. 🤡🏅

Angela, thank you! 🥰 bookshop.org/p/books/a-su...

"Today’s poem feels to me like an invitation INTO poetry, into a space where the reader, or listener, can move freely," our host, @maggiesmithpoet.bsky.social shares in today's episode, number 1435. "I hope you find yourself welcome." Read "ars poetica, 2019" by Airea D. Matthews: bit.ly/49Pl4mR