834: Two Boys Ago

The Slowdown: Poetry & Reflection Daily

American Public Media

Arts, Performing Arts

4.8 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 15 March 2023

⏱️ 6 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Today’s poem is Two Boys Ago by Kazim Ali. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, guest host Jason Schneiderman writes… “There’s something wonderful about having no context, about the first time you encounter an idea in art or life, that shock of recognition and that glimpse of a new world, but there’s also something wonderful about being able to see how that idea fits into a bigger picture. Today’s poem offers us those puzzle pieces one by one, but as a negative. In refusing the things the speaker no longer wants, fragments of life come into focus, and we discover a gorgeous portrait of the artist and the poet, and the mystery of negation that makes each piece present.” 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	Today's episode is courtesy of the fantastic poet, Jason Snyderman.
0:06.0	Hang tight, and I'll be back on March 27th.
0:16.0	I'm Jason Snyderman.
0:18.0	A myth is the slowdown.
0:30.0	Can I share a milestone in holding?
0:33.0	I was watching Saturday Night Live, and this boy van came on,
0:37.0	and instead of thinking, wow, these guys are great!
0:41.0	Or this is terrible, I can't believe this is what the kid's like.
0:45.0	I thought, huh!
0:47.0	So that's what boy vans look like now.
0:52.0	They were well choreographed, handsome.
0:55.0	I was a little surprised at the old archetypes,
0:58.0	the brain, the jock, the prep seem to have dissolved into a single persona.
1:04.0	But maybe I have just lost the ability to distinguish types of young men,
1:09.0	because I'm not one anymore.
1:12.0	This isn't about me being jaded exactly,
1:16.0	or aging into grumpiness, or anything like that.
1:20.0	It's about having too much context,
1:24.0	or so much context that I simply placed this boy band into my existing framework.
1:31.0	I've lived through in sync, and take that, and boys to men,
1:35.0	and backstreet boys, 98 degrees, and new addition,
1:39.0	and I remember so clearly my first boy band.
	...

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