1174: Separation Wall by Naomi Shihab Nye

The Slowdown: Poetry & Reflection Daily

American Public Media

Arts, Performing Arts

4.8 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 1 August 2024

⏱️ 7 minutes

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Summary

Today’s poem is Separation Wall by Naomi Shihab Nye.

This spring, we asked our community to submit poems that have helped you slow down in your lives. Thank you to the nearly 300 of you who sent us poems to read and enjoy. This week we’re featuring the team’s selections. Today’s selection was submitted by Meital from Washington, D.C. In this episode, Major writes… “Coexistence on the planet demands that we transcend reactionary treatment of each other. For this reason, we need poems to tease out our innocence, that part of us untouched by the callousness of the world, to bring us to a sanity beyond inherited hurts and old fears, away from the logic of ‘an eye for an eye.’ Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said that this kind of violence ‘destroys communities and makes humanity impossible. It creates bitterness in the survivors and brutality in the destroyers.’”

Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Transcript

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0:00.0	You turn to the slowdown for inspiring thought-provoking poetry and reflection.
0:05.3	As a public media program, we turn to our community for support.
0:10.0	Visit slowdown Show.org
0:13.0	slash donate to give today.
0:16.0	Hi, it's Slowdown producer Micah Kielbond.
0:19.0	This spring we asked you to help us curate the poems we share on the show, to submit poems that have helped
0:24.6	you pause and reflect in this busy world. In just a few days we received almost 300 submissions.
0:35.4	The slowdown team selected five to feature this week. Here's today's community curator to share why they want you to hear this poem.
0:40.2	My name is Matal Tupper. I use they them pronouns and I live in Washington, D.C.
0:47.0	Poetry can be construed often as empty words.
0:51.0	While in the outside world, we have rubble, we have burned outside world we have rubble we have burnt bodies we have the
0:55.4	desecration of humanity but I think poetry is also allowing us in this moment to
1:00.4	be expansive with our empathy and our drive to imagine a better world and a better future.
1:06.3	We talk about the current seat on Gaza on Rafa as current without recognizing or understanding
1:12.0	what started eight months ago
1:13.4	is continued for the last 80 years.
1:17.4	How we amplify our enemies into unimaginable things
1:21.5	that are the opposite of normal.
1:23.0	What does it really take for us to try and focus statistics, numbers,
1:28.0	and I really want people to understand that we all are trying to be
1:32.0	normal people with fantastic dilemmas.
1:34.3	I'm Major Jackson and this is the slowdown. This summer I visited Belgrade. I gave a poetry reading and met wonderful people,
	...

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