[encore] 496: a brief meditation on breath by Yesenia Montilla

The Slowdown: Poetry & Reflection Daily

American Public Media

Arts, Performing Arts

4.8 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 12 May 2025

⏱️ 7 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Today’s poem is a brief meditation on breath by Yesenia Montilla.

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 October 19, 2020.

In this episode, Tracy writes… “The whole time, I felt all of my senses struggle to decelerate. My heart was like a drum solo. It felt like someone was pounding on my chest. While I was there, I flipped through my mental Rolodex of workday vexation. I ticked off the headlines that, even on a good day, hamper my ability to unwind. Lying there, struggling to relax, egged on by the actual bothers my work-week forces me to wrestle, I understood something. Many people live like this on a regular basis. The peril, the worry, the blood pressure roiling. When you wake up and people doubt you, threaten you, overstep respectful bounds. When leaders utter slurs against you. When every day the deck, already stacked against you, is reshuffled.”

Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	You just realized your business needed to hire someone yesterday. How can you find amazing candidates fast?
0:07.1	Easy. Just use Indeed. Stop struggling to get your job post seen on other job sites. With Indeed
0:14.4	sponsored jobs, your post jumps to the top of the page for your relevant candidates, so you can reach the people you want faster.
0:22.7	According to Indeed data, sponsored jobs posted directly on Indeed have 45% more applications than non-sponsored jobs.
0:30.9	Don't wait any longer. Speed up your hiring right now with Indeed.
0:35.0	And listeners of this show will get a £100 sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility with Indeed. And listeners of this show will get a £100-pound sponsored job credit to get your
0:39.7	jobs more visibility at Indeed.com slash P-O-D-K-A-T-Z UK.
0:45.5	Just go to Indeed.com slash P-O-D-K-A-T-Z UK right now and support our show by saying
0:53.1	you heard about Indeed on this podcast.
0:55.9	Terms and Conditions Apply. Hiring, Indeed is all you need.
1:00.1	Hey there, it's Major. As we take a look back at the slowdown's deep well of episodes,
1:05.7	we're revisiting some standout moments from past hosts. Today, we're going into the vault to bring you an episode from Tracy K. Smith, one of the voices
1:15.8	that helped shape the slowdown into what it is today.
1:19.5	This is just one of the many special selections from our archives.
1:34.7	I'm Tracy K. Smith, and this is The Slowdown. The other morning, at around 3 a.m., I woke to a.m., coming from my son's room.
1:57.2	My children are dramatic. They wail and howl as easily as they burst into raucous laughter.
2:05.1	Often, I try to ignore their histrionics, hoping it will wean them of the habit.
2:11.0	But my instinct in this particular moment wasn't to ignore it.
2:16.3	Heart racing, practically bursting from my chest, I ran to their
2:20.8	room. And what did I find? A minor dispute. Sterling had crawled into bed with Atticus.
2:29.8	Atticus wanted his bed to himself.
2:37.7	I lay with Sterling until he fell back to sleep.
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in 27 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Previous episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from American Public Media, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of American Public Media and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.