1541: Poem to Watch over You by Omotara James
The Slowdown: Poetry & Reflection Daily
American Public Media
4.8 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 19 June 2026
⏱️ 9 minutes
🔗️ Recording | Apple Podcasts | RSS
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Summary
Today’s poem is Poem to Watch over You by Omotara James.
The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Diannely Antigua writes… “On Juneteenth, freedom feels like a welcome long denied. It is also a welcome we must keep making possible for each other every day. Not only in law, but in practice. Freedom should be both a declaration and a way of living. Today’s poem imagines that kind of welcome. It speaks to that miracle of arrival, to a life entering the world without needing justification. It reminds us that before the world teaches us otherwise, there is the simple and sacred fact of being received.”
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Celebrate America's 250th with DISH. |
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| 0:20.9 | That's 888 Add Dish. |
| 0:23.8 | Offer ends August 12. |
| 0:25.3 | Terms apply. |
| 0:30.1 | Hey there. |
| 0:31.6 | Today's episode is hosted by the poet De Anelli Antigua. |
| 0:35.9 | Enjoy. |
| 0:36.9 | And I'll be back on June 22nd. |
| 0:45.6 | I'm Dianeli Antigua, and this is The Slowdown. |
| 0:49.7 | I'm Dianeli Antigua, and this is The Slowdown. Juneteenth marked the day when enslaved people in Galveston, Texas, were informed of their freedom. |
| 1:08.8 | It was June 19, 1865, more than two years after Lincoln's emancipation |
| 1:16.2 | proclamation. To receive that news meant hearing that their lives were finally their own. |
| 1:25.4 | Freedom is not only a legal condition. |
| 1:29.7 | It is bodily and spiritual. |
| 1:32.9 | It is the right to move through the world |
| 1:35.1 | without asking permission to exist. |
| 1:39.0 | It is the right to rest, |
| 1:41.4 | to gather, to love, to make a life, and to be recognized as fully human. |
| 1:51.7 | I keep thinking that freedom is as radical as birth. A baby enters the world with no documents, no explanation, no proof of belonging. |
| 2:08.2 | A body arrives before language can claim it. A new life arrives before any system can measure it, before anyone asks who we are or where we come from. |
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