Happy Poetry Month!

Friends of the Slowdown are invited to celebrate

with a special offer from Poetry Magazine.

This April, an annual subscription to poetry includes a limited edition notebook.

The notebook features a devious quote from Dorothy Alaska on its cover.

I'm almost always lying in a poem.

And the full poem is inside.

Use the notebook for your own poems, lies, and secrets.

Subscribe today at poetry magazine.org slash lying.

Each episode of The Slowdown offers you a moment of attention, a poem and reflection that

shift your perspective during busy days. In celebration of National Poetry Month,

you can now receive an added benefit when you

support the Slowdown, a sponsorship-free version of the podcast. Keep your listening centered on poetry

because the best moments of your day are uninterrupted. Learn more when you make your gift at slowdown show.org

and thank you.

I'm Maggie Smith, and this is the slowdown.

Thank you. is the slowdown. Several years ago, my marriage ended, and with it the life I expected to have.

I had no idea what the rest of my life would look like. I was freaked out,

to put it mildly, and I turned to anything I thought might help calm me down and give me

greater perspective. I tried meditation. I tried yoga. I tried exercise. I tried the advice of books.

I suppose I could have been reading about divorce, but instead I read Pemishodran's

when things fall apart which a poet friend sent me, and the Tibetan book of the dead.

...