I'm Maggie Smith, and this is The Slowdown.

You've probably heard this quote from Fred Rogers of the famous PBS show, Mr. Rogers' neighborhood.

When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me,

look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.

Look for the helpers is a phrase I think about a lot, and when I see people sharing on social media

or quoting in interviews. I've been seeing a lot of scary things in the news,

and I'm looking for the helpers.

I'm looking for the people we need in this moment.

We need courageous legislators and judges.

We need activists and civil rights attorneys. We need skilled doctors and nurses.

We need free-thinking professors and university administrators. We need climatologists. We need historians.

We need urban planners. We need climatologists. We need historians. We need urban planners.

We need experts in public policy and community organizing.

We need all of these helpers right now.

But here's the thing.

I'm not any of these.

I'm a poet. I'm also a parent and an occasional educator and now the host of the only poetry podcast on public media. I'm proud of all of these things and I want to use them to be a helper in my own way. I think we all

want to do good with the skills, talents, and resources we have. To ask, what can a poem do to help

is to gesture toward a bigger question? What can art do? What can literature or music

or film or performance or visual art do for us, particularly when we are struggling,

individually and collectively? I think art can articulate the beauty and horrors of being alive.

I think it can make people feel seen and understood and therefore less alone. I think it can bear witness to what our planet is enduring.

...