1178: America by Claude McKay, with special guest Tonya Mosley

The Slowdown: Poetry & Reflection Daily

American Public Media

Arts, Performing Arts

4.8 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 7 August 2024

⏱️ 8 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Today’s poem is America by Claude McKay, with special guest Tonya Mosley. Tonya is the host and creator of Truth Be Told and founder of TMI Productions. She is also a co-host of Fresh Air, and a correspondent and former host of Here & Now, the midday radio show co-produced by NPR and WBUR. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Tonya shares… “The Harlem Renaissance feels so current and so now, and the thing about it is it always has for me. From the time I was a little girl, it didn't feel historical, in fact, it felt like that is the place I want to be, and I yearned for it all of my life. I understand what that yearning is. What it is, is to be a part of something that is a freedom movement. But it's not just a movement. a collective freedom movement. It's an individual movement too, through the creation of art. Those artists were, through expressing themselves, understanding themselves, and learning about themselves, and their contribution to the world allowed us to see ourselves in their art.”

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, it's Major. The best way to support the slowdown is with a monthly gift.
0:06.7	Show your love for the slowdown and help us plan for the future today at slowdown show
0:12.8	dot org slash donate.
0:16.8	Hey, it's slowdown producer Micah Kielbonne.
0:20.1	We all need to take a moment to pause.
0:22.4	Here at the show, we realized we know some pretty amazing poetry lovers who have their own slowdown moments to share with you.
0:29.7	Shefs, musicians, journalists, and more.
0:32.9	These late summer Wednesdays,
0:34.9	we're bringing you their selections.
0:37.4	We hope you enjoy. I'm Tanya Mosley and this is the slowdown.
0:47.0	And this is the slowdown. When I was a child my mother brought home these flashcards. You remember those flashcards that
1:05.8	were basically the alphabet or cat hat, bat type of flashcards were on one side there was the picture and the other side
1:14.8	was the word or the letter or in the case of these flashcards an explanation of the person on the
1:21.2	front a description of the person in their life.
1:24.9	And these flashcards were black and white and they were sketches of notable black Americans.
1:31.0	Honestly, I did know that it was important for me to know it, but I'd often roll my eyes at the fact
1:36.0	that we'd have to go through these flashcards, but in particular, I always love the
1:40.5	artists. I felt like I could see myself in them some way. One of the most
1:45.2	beautiful things about now being middle-aged which I'm sitting in that is that I am able to step inside of poems at different parts of my life and see things,
2:00.9	understand words, and ideas, and they carry deeper meaning for me as I move through life.
2:07.8	I'm able to step back to my childhood and understand what my mother was doing and also appreciate it because what
2:15.5	she set it up for me was this walk where I could learn more based on what she was teaching
	...

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