Hi friends. Today's episode is hosted by the poet and writer Victoria Chang.

Don't worry, I'll be back on April 8th. I'm Victoria Chang and this is the slowdown.

I'm Victoria Chang and this is the slowdown. slow down. I sometimes wonder why my childhood Michigan landscapes are such a big part of who I am.

My cells are in the shape of snowflakes and my bones are made of ice.

I was born in the great city of Detroit, Michigan and grew up in Southgate

and West Bloomfield. My childhood was spent shoveling snow, putting salt on ice each morning so that we could walk without

falling, mowing huge yards and raking endless fall leaves. As a child I loved the

outdoors because so much of Michigan weather was As a child, I loved the outdoors.

Because so much of Michigan weather was cold,

I had all the necessary equipment.

A red full body snow suit with a furry hood, mittens, snow boots, and a scarf. I would go outside, no matter how cold, and play in the snow until my cheeks were big ruddy apples. I would stick my tongue out to catch the snowflakes, lie down on the ground

and make snow angels. No winter would be without building snowmen. As a sensitive child, I always felt sad while making them, knowing

they would eventually disappear. My first memory of understanding the power of the poetic image was in a Michigan winter.

I stood quietly out in the snow and marveled at how slowly smoke came out of a neighbor's chimney

so that it looked like a painting. It felt like I stood

there for hours. That image seemed to slow down time. I admit, I spent much of my childhood imagining my future away from

Michigan, but now I only have positive memories of my childhood landscape. The Michigan landscape is my country.

We are all always living and writing from somewhere, and thus we are being defined by our landscapes.

We wouldn't be someone without a somewhere.

Today's poem is by the reclusive modernist poet Loreen Niedecur, who spent most of her life on Black Hawk Island in Wisconsin,

a marshy peninsula prone to flooding.

It was almost as if Niedicur was made of the water that

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