{"podcast":{"title":"The Slowdown: Poetry & Reflection Daily","slug":"the-slowdown-poetry-reflection-daily-7043130","podcast_index_feed_id":7043130,"rss_url":"https://www.spreaker.com/show/6220773/episodes/feed","website_url":"https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-slowdown-poetry-reflection-daily--6220773","image_url":"https://d3wo5wojvuv7l.cloudfront.net/t_rss_itunes_square_1400/images.spreaker.com/original/da0c6a368b84c1071fbd347ea97864da.jpg","author":"Eliana Benavides","episode_count":933,"summary":"Poet Major Jackson is your guide on the pathways to feel and understand our common journey – through poetry. In sharing poems, we take a moment to pause and acknowledge the world’s magnitude, and how poets illuminate that mystery. Join The Slowdown for a poem and a moment of reflection in one short episode, every weekday. Produced by APM Studios in partnership with The Poetry Foundation and supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. Make us a part of your routine as you drink coffee in the morning, as you take a walk in nature, or as you wind down to go to sleep in the evening. With host Major Jackson, we collectively take a moment to calm, to inspire, to learn, and to engage with the best emerging poets and established writers of our time and generations past, from Emily Dickinson to Danez Smith, from Amanda Gorman to Mary Oliver. Listen to our back catalog for episodes by our previous hosts, Tracy K. Smith and Ada Limón, as well as guest hosts Jenny Xie, Brenda Shaughnessy, Tina Chang, Nate Marshall, Shira Erlichiman, and Jason Schneiderman. Our hosts and production team select poems that move them, and we hope they move y…","last_synced_at":"2026-07-20T16:20:32.051676+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-slowdown-poetry-reflection-daily-7043130"},"episode":{"title":"1537: Against Melancholy by Nathan McClain","slug":"1537-against-melancholy-by-nathan-mcclain","published_at":"2026-06-15T08:00:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-slowdown-poetry-reflection-daily-7043130/1537-against-melancholy-by-nathan-mcclain","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-slowdown-poetry-reflection-daily-7043130","url":"https://www.spreaker.com/episode/1537-against-melancholy-by-nathan-mcclain--72531586","audio_url":"https://api.spreaker.com/download/episode/72531586/theslowdown_20260615_20260615_128.mp3","summary":"Today’s poem is Against Melancholy by Nathan McClain. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Diannely Antigua writes… “I often hear the phrase “the risk of joy,” and I keep returning to it. Is joy a risk? And if it is, what is it that we are risking? Can I open my chest to joy, knowing it might hurt me if it leaves?” This show is supported by gifts from listeners. Support The Slowdown with a donation and get access to the sponsor-free version of The Slowdown today. Slowdownshow.org/donate","meta_description":"Today’s poem is Against Melancholy by Nathan McClain. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Diannely Antigua writes… “I of…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":426,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/the-slowdown-poetry-reflection-daily-7043130/episodes/1537-against-melancholy-by-nathan-mcclain/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-slowdown-poetry-reflection-daily-7043130/1537-against-melancholy-by-nathan-mcclain.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}