Today’s poem is You're Supposed to Enjoy Dying by Colin Pope.

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “There are so many things to fear — spiders, snakes, heights, deep water, the dark. I have a friend who is so fearful of rats, you can’t even say the word in her presence. I’d say that most of these fears are rational. Snakes and spiders can bite, and some are venomous. You could drown in deep water or fall from a great height. The one thing that humans seem almost universally afraid of is also the only part of life that is certain: death.”

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Today’s poem is Northern Flicker Reconsidered by Susan Rich.

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Once, during a Q&A after a reading, a woman raised her hand to ask, ‘What’s with all the birds in your poems?’ I had to laugh. She was right: the hawks, grackles, and starlings of my neighborhood have called and swooped into many of my poems. I told her that birds are wildlife that we all have access to, no matter where we live. Birds are everywhere … in cities, in suburbs, in the country. They make cameo appearances in many of my poems, and sometimes they’re even the stars.”

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Today’s poem is Pocket Dial by James Davis May.

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes... "It’s a strangely intimate thing, the pocket dial. When we’re on the receiving end, we find ourselves listening from a tucked away place close to someone’s body. It’s a pitfall of carrying our devices with us. Previous generations, generations who grew up without cell phones, didn’t have to contend with things like pocket dials."

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