[encore] 389: Kissing the Opelu by Donovan Kūhiō

The Slowdown: Poetry & Reflection Daily

American Public Media

Arts, Performing Arts

4.8 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 15 May 2025

⏱️ 7 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Today’s poem is Kissing the Opelu by Donovan Kūhiō Colleps.

The Slowdown is currently taking a break. We’ll be back soon with new episodes from a new host. This week, we’re going back into the archive to revisit Tracy K. Smith’s time as host. Today’s episode was originally released on May 21, 2020.

In this episode, Tracy writes… “Today’s poem speaks to me of ancestry, tradition, and the fluidity of perception. We are who we are, the poem suggests to me, because of what we inherit from the people we love. Why does it have me thinking about ghosts and visitations? Maybe because I’ve decided that the people I love are always with me in one form or another.”

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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1:00.1	Hi, it's Major. The slowdown is on a break right now, but we'll be back soon with a new host.
1:06.8	In the meantime, we're bringing you some of the best episodes from our archives.
1:12.1	Today, we revisit an episode from Tracy K. Smith's time at the helm.
1:17.3	Enjoy.
1:21.6	I'm Tracy K. Smith, and this is The Slowdown.
1:33.8	One night, soon after my daughter was born, I spent the evening watching her react to an empty corner of the room.
1:46.3	I'd hold her, and she'd careen around to face the spot, smiling and laughing, as though someone
1:53.2	standing there was trying to entertain her. I carried her across the room, but still her attention
2:00.4	veered in that direction.
2:02.8	I held her in my arms and faced the other way.
2:06.0	No matter, what if it's my parents there, I wondered, or what if it's a stranger's ghost?
2:14.1	She was happy, giddy, but I quaked in fear.
	...

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