Friends, if you're looking for other ways to incorporate poetry into your life, I'd be delighted

if you'd go and check out the slowdown if you don't already.

The slowdown podcast comes out every weekday and it's got short episodes that guide you

on the pathways to feeling, understand our common journey, life through poetry.

And the newest host of the slowdown is the award-winning poet and good friend, Major Jackson.

I met him a few years ago at a meal and ever since we've stayed in touch and skimmed

about how to deepen the love and the readership of poetry through podcasts.

So you can join Major for a hand-picked poem and a moment of reflection every single weekday.

Find the slowdown wherever you get your podcasts.

I love listening to it and I know you will too.

My name is Padre Gautuma and for years, almost 15 years, I lived in community houses.

And you get to know all kinds of powerful things about people when you go through your morning

routine with other people in community houses.

Who is it that doesn't even want to be said?

Hello to who is it that will offer people a cup of tea?

Who is it that will try to start a conversation about existentialism or something and you need

to avoid them?

There's something about the languages of each other, which isn't just the words you're

saying, but how it is and who it is you are, first thing in the morning, that is powerfully

intimate and filled with information.

Self-portrait by John Lee Clark.

On the morning of my 42nd birthday.

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