The Slowdown is a radio show and podcast about poetry produced in collaboration between ''

American Public Media American Public Media (APM) is an American company that produces and distributes public radio programs in the United States, the second largest company of its type after NPR. Its non-profit parent, American Public Media Group, also owns and o ...

'', the ''

Poetry Foundation The Poetry Foundation is a United States literary society that seeks to promote poetry and lyricism in the wider culture. It was formed from ''Poetry'' magazine, which it continues to publish, with a 2003 gift of $200 million from philanthrop ...

'', and the ''

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is a research library in Washington, D.C., serving as the library and research service for the United States Congress and the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It also administers Copyright law o ...

''. The first two seasons of the show were hosted by Tracy K. Smith.

Background

In each episode the host introduces and then reads a poem. The podcast is produced by

American Public Radio Public Radio International (PRI) was an American public radio organization. Headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota, PRI provided programming to over 850 public radio stations in the United States. PRI was one of the main providers of programmin ...

, funded by the

, and supported by the

. The podcast debuted on November 26, 2018, and was later made available as a radio program on January 14, 2019. Episodes are released every weekday and are each about five minutes in length. The podcast is syndicated by radio stations in seven different cities including

WEKU WEKU (88.9 FM) is a non-commercial, listener-supported, public radio station in Richmond, Kentucky. It is a charter member of National Public Radio and it is owned by Eastern Kentucky University, broadcasting a news, talk and information ...

and

WGTE-FM WGTE-FM (91.3 MHz) is a non-commercial, listener-supported, public radio station in Toledo, Ohio, and is the sister station of Channel 30 WGTE-TV, Toledo's PBS network affiliate. WGTE-FM features classical music and jazz along with news and ta ...

. Smith's idea for the podcast was inspired by a reading series she was doing called "American Conversations: Celebrating Poems in Rural Communities". She was travelling throughout the country for the reading series from 2017 to 2019. The first two seasons of the podcast were hosted by Tracy K. Smith. The third season was launched on September 21, 2021, and was hosted by

Ada Limón Ada Limón (born March 28, 1976) is an American poet. On July 12, 2022, she was named the 24th United States Poet Laureate, Poet Laureate of the United States by the Librarian of Congress. This made her the first Latinas, Latina to be Poet Laurea ...

. The show has featured politicians such as

Anthony Scaramucci Anthony Scaramucci ( ; born January 6, 1964) is an American financier and broadcaster who briefly served as the White House communications director from July 21 to July 31, 2017. Scaramucci worked at Goldman Sachs's investment banking, equitie ...

and

Janet Napolitano Janet Ann Napolitano (; born November 29, 1957) is an American politician, lawyer, and academic administrator. She served as president of the University of California from 2013 to 2020, on the faculty at the Goldman School of Public Policy at t ...

. According to the

National Endowment for the Arts The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the feder ...

, only 11.7% of adults read poetry in 2017 whereas young people are more likely to have read poetry because social media platforms such as

Instagram Instagram is an American photo sharing, photo and Short-form content, short-form video sharing social networking service owned by Meta Platforms. It allows users to upload media that can be edited with Social media camera filter, filters, be ...

have become a popular way of sharing poetry. The podcast was a finalist in the 2020 Discover Pods awards and was an honoree in the 2022

Webby Awards The Webby Awards (colloquially referred to as the Webbys) are awards for excellence on the Internet presented annually by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, a judging body composed of over three thousand industry experts a ...

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Slowdown, The Audio podcasts 2018 podcast debuts Monologue podcasts Book podcasts American podcasts