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The Slowdown: Poetry & Reflection Daily

985: Might Kindred

The Slowdown: Poetry & Reflection Daily

American Public Media

Arts, Performing Arts

4.81.2K Ratings

🗓️ 26 October 2023

⏱️ 6 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Today’s poem is Might Kindred by Mónica Gomery. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual.


In this episode, guest host Shira Erlichman writes… “Today’s poem is a seeking of belonging. My favorite part about it is how shyness and a longing for friendship coexist.”


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

Hi friends, today's episode is hosted by the poet Shira Erlichman.

0:05.4

Don't worry, I'll be back on October 30th.

0:14.7

I'm Shira Erlichman, and this is The Slowdown.

0:19.4

I attended a large public high school in Brookline, Massachusetts.

0:34.1

On the top floor of the four-story building, there is a 53-year-old program

0:39.2

called School Within a School, or SWS. It is a participatory democratic alternative program

0:48.6

for 120 sophomores, juniors, and seniors.

0:53.5

My introduction to SWS came one day in a vegan restaurant.

0:58.2

At the time, veganism was not normalized in our cultural lexicon,

1:02.9

so when I shyly followed a friend into the hole in the wall restaurant to meet his friends,

1:07.7

I felt like I was attending a secret basement punk show.

1:11.7

Around a long table was a gaggle of short-haired girls and long-haired boys.

1:17.5

I later learned that three of them were dating, that most of them were queer,

1:24.4

and all of them were vegan and artists. Paper cutouts were scattered on the table.

1:30.2

They were collectively working on a scene.

1:33.7

Because SWS was on the fourth floor, SWS kids were affectionately called upstairs kids,

1:40.7

the mainstream students downstairs kids.

1:44.1

I was a downstairs kid, bored to death by mainstream education, longing for risk and intimacy

1:50.8

in the classroom. Upstairs, they called teachers by their first names,

1:55.6

had Tuesday town meetings, with all 120 students weighing in on issues from the curriculum to where

2:02.6

the couch should be in the lounge. SWSers had their own lounge with posters, cubbies, and a boombox.

2:10.9

I started to tag along with the artists and vegans to protests against the US invasion of Iraq,

...

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