What's up, it's Major. Today's episode is special.

When we record it live in person at OnAirFest 2023.

Do you want to see us do more live events?

Let us know your thoughts at slowdownshow.org slash contact.

There's this place called the Woodbury Poetry Room.

It's where some of the oldest known recordings of poems are saved.

Recordings of poets have been kept and made available for listening since the earliest days

of commercial recording technology. Back in a day that room was called the listening room.

They even started their own record label.

They called it the Harvard Vocarium, quite literally a library of voices.

And the space was the first conceived as one of collective independent listening.

So much like for podcasts today. Poetry is inextricably linked to performance.

It is also a tradition. And by writing and reading, we step into that tradition.

We borrow words and tools and feelings. We respond and we dedicate.

When we share poems with others, we join the rich chorus of voices old and new.

I'm Major Jackson and I'm the host of the slowdown and my producer is Michael Kilbong.

The slowdown is a podcast that allows me to daily, collaboratively contemplate our

existence through the words of our most gifted living and past poets. We hunger for clarity

during moments in our life that seem empty of meaning. The poets, however,

are forever present to the world swirling about them.

They record its passages and images and rhythms that frankly are breathtaking, galvanizing and

beautiful. I attempt to honor the threshold of their poems at the top of the podcast

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