Maggie Smith

Text graphic that reads: That the fact that I’m still reaching out & up should be enough, that faith is only faith when there's no proof.

Photograph of poet Emma Bolden.

"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

Text graphic featuring a portion of Jay Hopler's poem. it reads: Maybe we can invent something; I'd like a new Way of experiencing the world, a way of taking Into myself the single light shining at the center Of all things without losing the dense, eccentric Planets orbiting around it.

"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

❤️🥰🥹😭

Heard. ❤️😘

You know I’m an enormous fan! ❤️🥰🥹

A gorgeous book, inside and out. Thanks for letting us share this one!

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!

Emma! You’re a marvel. Thank YOU for this poem!

1474: Epistemic Distance by Emma Bolden Today’s poem is Epistemic Distance by Emma Bolden.

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...

graphic featuring a portion of Aimee's poem, which can be found in full at the link in the post

photograph of poet Aimee Nezhukumatathil

"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

❤️❤️❤️❤️

1472: The Road to Baghdad by Seth Brady Tucker Today’s poem is The Road to Baghdad by Seth Brady Tucker.

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...

Graphic featuring a portion of Seth Brady Tucker's poem. it reads: Is less a road than a floral collection of spongy and soft bodies, a gathering of the myriad colors of nations—burnt umber, puce, kiln red, olive drab, hot steel. It is a road that stretches eternally into the ochre mocha of the horizon.

Photograph of poet Seth Brady Tucker. He's a white man with shoulder-length blonde hair, and he's wearing glasses and a black collared shirt

"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

text graphic featuring a portion of Cynthia's poem, which reads: They explain: The earth is a school. The earth is a projection. The earth’s vibration is rising and you’ll either be shaken off or taken up with the vibration. Earth souls stay to learn the lesson they haven’t learned yet. Our human world is not operating at frequencies as high as most other worlds. Which explains a lot.

photograph of poet Cynthia Arrieu-King. She has dark hair and is wearing a black shirt.

"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

text graphic featuring a portion of Jane Hirshfield's poem. it reads: It was like this: you were happy, then you were sad, then happy again, then not. It went on. You were innocent or you were guilty. Actions were taken, or not.

photograph of poet Jane Hirshfield. She has wavy, hair and is resting her head in her hand.

"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

text graphic featuring a portion of Marcus Jackson's poem. it reads: Pardon my heart if you have to kick it out. After you’ve muzzled the music and brightened the lights to tidy, my heart will ignore and keep doing its little two-step, aglow in the middle of the room, never happier to have nowhere else to go.

"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

Graphic featuring a portion of Kelly Hoffer's poem, which can be found in full at the link in the post.

Photograph of poet Kelly Hoffer

"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

text graphic featuring a portion of Matthew Dickman's poem. it reads: But if he can't come back. If he can't ever wake up again, then I want nothing but his absence. I want that absence whole and warm and alive.

Photograph of Matthew Dickman. He is wearing eyeglasses with black frames and a navy blue t-shirt

“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

text graphic featuring a portion of Adam J. Gellings, which can be found in full at the link in the post

photograph of poet Adam J. Gellings

"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 The day is winter bright. I blink against it. Each time the sun glints in my eyes, each time I close my lids & let them go orange & freckled with light, my mind files it into a folder that contains every other time it’s happened before: folders nested inside folders going back, I imagine, to one morning standing in my crib, waiting for my mother to reach down & lift me out, the sun keeping me company until her arms appeared. In the file: sun, sun_2, sun_3, sun_75, sun_700. Each a document I can return to & open, even revising old experience with new thinking. As if the eye has its own memory— not the mind’s eye but the eye’s mind— cataloging material it claims as its own. Cataloging as long as I live. Sun_7000, sun_final, sun_final_revised, sun_final_final.

A person with short hair is smiling at the camera. They wear a black top and a geometric necklace. The image includes text about Maggie Smith, highlighting achievements as a New York Times bestselling author and host of The Slowdown.

“Document” by Maggie Smith (@maggiesmithpoet.bsky.social) from the January/February 2026 issue of POETRY magazine.

Link to poem here: https://bit.ly/3ZCVc7X

graphic featuring a portion of Kevin Craft's poem

photograph of poet Kevin Craft

"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

a text graphic featuring a portion of Corey Van Langindham's poem

photograph of poet Corey Van Landingham

"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

Text graphic featuring a portion of Raena Shirali's poem.

Photograph of poet Raena Shirali

"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

Thank you for letting us share this on the show!

Graphic featuring a portion of Sophie Klahr and Corey Zeller's poem. It reads: Christmas in Virginia, your first time at his family’s home, and he presented the ring to you in front of everyone. It was a family ring, an opal. When you put it on you thought, My god, he doesn’t know me at all.

Photograph of poet Corey Zeller. He's wearing a plaid shirt, a baseball cap, and glasses and is standing in front of an open window.

Photograph of poet Sophie Klahr. She has red, wavy hair and is standing in front of a world map.

"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 ✨🎉